IFTTT Recipes to Help Improve Your Email Marketing
If you utilize email marketing to help improve traffic flow to your website, then you likely already have an editorial calendar that you follow, have gone through some testing to find the best messages and images to use, and have perfected your subscribe options online and your subscriber list, along with a whole host of other ideas to improve open and click rates. Still, there always seems to be room for improvement because email marketing can be a tough category for many businesses in terms of success. This is where IFTTT might come into play.
If you’ve never heard of IFTTT, it’s a tool that can be used to automate lots of different things related to your life. For example, every time you get an email from your wife you may want to set a text message reminder. It’s all about the different apps that you choose to use when creating your IFTTT “recipe.” Visit this article for more information on how the tool works.
Of course you see where this is going: You can improve your numbers by using IFTTT to help automate actions related to your emails and help improve your email marketing. Check out some of the recipes you can use below to help get a feel for how it works and how you can make the tool work for you:
Save Links from bit.ly to Evernote
Rather than keep a running document of all the links you want to include in future newsletters and email marketing campaigns, you can create a recipe to automatically save those links to Evernote for later reference. First, make sure you are connected to the bitly and Evernote channels.
Once those channels are both added, you can create the recipe. This recipe ensures that every time you add a public bitmark, a note is created in Evernote. You can save links directly to your own content that you would like to include in future campaigns, or you can save links to competitor content that you would like to use as inspiration.
Additionally, you can save all notes to a notebook and share with colleagues when necessary. Most companies choose to work with an email marketing company, so this will be crucial if you have a team of people (as an email marketing agency, you can trust us on this one).
Calendar Reminders Based on WordPress Posts
If your website is on WordPress, you can use this recipe to remind yourself which articles or posts you would like to feature in an upcoming newsletter or email. Make sure you are connected to these two channels:
When you are creating a post that you think you may want to use in a future email campaign, simply include your designated tag in the post and an email will be sent to your Gmail account. From there, you can create calendar reminders that coincide with your editorial calendar, or you can simply sort into an appropriate folder. Either way, you have made a reminder to yourself to use that post in a future campaign.
Manage Your Editorial Calendar
You can use the calendar “if this” to create your own recipe that alerts you when emails need to be sent. Once you connect to the calendar, you will be able to pick from these options:
By choosing “Event from search starts,” you can receive reminders 15 minutes before an email is scheduled to be sent. In order for this to work you will need to use keywords when creating events in your calendar.
It is best to label all your send dates on your calendar with the same word or phrase—this way, you only need to set up one trigger field.
The “then that” portion of the recipe will really vary based on your needs. You may choose to have an email sent to your 15 minutes before the email is sent. Or, if you do not check your email very often, you might opt to receive a call or text prior to the send time. Whichever you choose, setting up this recipe will give you an opportunity to do one last review and make any last minute changes to your marketing piece.
Manage Feedback Complaints
If you have an option for feedback and complaints in your email campaign, this recipe may be right for you. Log into your email-marketing tool and set your Gmail address as the primary email address for feedback and complaints. Then you can follow the same steps as above.
Once this is done, you can create an IFTTT recipe to alert you anytime you receive an email with the keywords “feedback” or “complaint” in the header. Your “if this” field will be your Gmail account. You can assign any keywords you like, just make sure your keywords match the words that will show in the email headers.
Your “than that” field will once again differ on how you like to be alerted. You might want to create a notebook in Evernote so you can easily access compiled complaints and feedback at a later date. Alternatively, you may choose a quicker method of updating, like a call or text.
Your Turn
Again, IFTTT can be used in so many ways for businesses specifically, the above recipes and ideas are just specific to email marketing. Definitely check out the official IFTTT website and see how else you can get creative.
Do you have any more ideas on how to use IFTTT recipes to improve your email marketing campaigns? Is there anything in general about IFTTT that works great for your business? Let us know in the comment section below.
About The Author
Jason Hawkins / http://www.themiamiseocompany.com
Jason Hawkins is the CEO & Co-Founder of The Miami SEO Company. He has over ten years of experience in search engine optimization, conversion rate optimization and lead generation. His core responsibilities include identifying ways to increase value of services rendered, training staff on advanced SEO topics, and A/B testing internal processes to consistently improve client return on investment.
