On average, automated email drives 70.5% higher open rates and 152% higher click-through rates than “business as usual” emails.

If you are a Magazine Publisher, you may be using marketing emails to send out promotional (permission marketing) offers on behalf of advertisers or maybe your magazine website is set up to send a transactional email to those who subscribe to your various newsletters and updates. Both marketing and transactional emails serves a purpose, but they are frequently ignored by the people that receive them.
So what is then automated email and how can you employ that?

Automated Email bridges the gap between transactional and marketing email

Because of CAN-SPAM (and other country’s laws) rules and guidelines, transactional emails can NOT contain promotional content. Each separate email in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act is subject to penalties of up to $16,000, so non-compliance can be costly. Email sending laws vary significantly between countries so make sure you truly understand the laws where you operate!

Transactional emails are an automation of customer service while automated emails, on the other hand, are a direct response to a user request or site visit and are part of an automation flow, with highly personalized and relevant content. Automated email is sent to individual customers automatically, like transactional email, but allows for more robust messaging opportunities like marketing email.

SendGrid’s Automated Email Guide

At RunMags we use SendGrid to send our own customer-facing emails but we also use SendGrid’s email service integrated into RunMags for our high volume customers that want world-class email deliverability of artwork reminders, renewal offers, and marketing email. Sendgrid provides unmatched deliverability, scalability, and reliability for companies like Airbnb, Uber and Spotify, plus their API makes for a really great integration with RunMags.

This past week SendGrid released a great guide you can download here. The Automated Email Guide provides you with an introduction to this automated email and gives you some key takeaways on how this new form of email can complement your existing transactional email and marketing email campaigns. Download your copy today to learn more about how you can start sending more relevant and timely emails.

Readers of magazines value targeted-relevant-timely content

Magazine publishers are uniquely positioned to leverage automated email with their (usually) large subscriber base. Each subscriber once opted in to receive emails so as long as the content is relevant to the subscriber and provided at a convenient time, chances are that the subscriber will consider them valuable. In other words, Content is indeed King, but a King need diligent delivery servants in order to be effective.

In RunMags you can segment and categorize advertisers and tag both advertiser and subscriber contacts. Along with demographic data that you can allow your subscriber base to share with you, automated emails can therefore be sent to cater to their individual interests as well as how they are interacting with your website.

Say you run a lifestyle magazine and one of the articles in your online magazine covers an amazing skiing resort and a subscriber clicks a Call-to-Action to learn more. At that very time, receiving an offer to get 20% off on the accommodation is likely not going to be the perfect timing. The reader is more likely to respond positively to the offer if they’ve had some time to think about it, maybe also talk it over with their spouse. So say they get an email offer during the following weekend instead, at a time when they are relaxed at home together with whomever the other decision makers are – THEN the campaign is way more likely to hit it off.

That is only one example of how automated email can be used by Magazine Publishers. Contact us today if you’d like to learn more about how you can set up workflows and automated emails in RunMags and have SendGrid deliver them for you.

Image and referenced guide, courtesy of SendGrid.