Program policies
When you are changing a policy (for example, when you raise your free shipping price threshold), you will need to go through your automated emails and then make sure that they all reflect that change. You do not want to convey an outdated or an inaccurate email to customers.
You can check the email Starbucks used to automatically send to new members of their rewards program. Now, with recent changes that is done to their program, where it takes more stars to earn rewards, they will need to make sure that there is no trace of this better, more generous version of the program in the automated emails.
Changes beyond your control
It is very common for you to have links to your brand’s social media accounts in your automated emails. Those scenario are very much a “set it and forget it” scenario. You just need to remember to update when, say, an entire social network shuts down.
There are a great example of a company that is staying on top of every of the single link in their marketing emails. You can check out the email of Newegg’s from the month of April 1st, 2019, the day before Google+ shut down. And you can also check out the Newegg’s next blast email, on month of April 4th when the Google+ link has been removed from the header.
Your emails stop working
You will need to keep an eye on the stats for all your automated emails. If for once you have ever notice their open rates, the click thru rates, the conversions, and other of the engagement rates that is trending noticeably downward, that could be an indication that it is time for you to switch them up. Your audience may have grown blind to them possibly, or you may need a new approach also with a growing and a changing customer base. Maybe you are even making use of a reference that is out of date (if I get a welcome email next year making the Game of Thrones references something like “The Winter is coming and so are the BOGO deals on the stainless steel straws”—it is not going to feel any fresh).
You’ll need to monitor the situation for a little bit to make sure that the decrease isn not from a different factor; say, a seasonal crowd of a less engaged customers. But once you have reasonably concluded your automated emails are not getting the same effect that they used to, it is a good time to switch them up.
Strategies for updating your automated emails
Here are some of the recommendations to make sure that your automated emails get the attention that they deserve without becoming an unnecessary additional burden on your schedule.
1. Put reminders on your calendar
Add the reminders to your calendar (or you can put them in your email marketing calendar) to review your automated emails so that it’ll make sure everything is still relevant, and also potentially give them a small refresh. It should not be too much of a project to start updating your automated emails maybe just a few hours, a few days a year.
2. Testing out different copy and images
Just quite a few of your automated emails relies on a good headline, a quality copy, some smart images, and an effective call-to-action to start accomplishing their goal. So for all those high-stakes automated emails, like the cart abandonment or the win-back, it is great to A/B test different kinds of elements to see what brings in the best results.