Custom Flows – automation scenarios tailored to your needs

At edrone, we’ve just created a new feature: Custom Flows. Using them, you can send exceptionally tailored and personalized messages to your customers. 

With Custom Flows, you will freely decide about the frequency of your outgoing communication and its personalization. A quick way to ensure that your messages will engage the recipients as much as possible!

In this article, we will describe Custom Flows and how to create them effectively to increase e-commerce sales and improve customer relations.

What are Custom Flows? 

With our new feature, you can easily create marketing automation scenarios tailored to your current needs. 

What’s more, you’ll decide what your communication with customers will look like and personalize it in an exciting way, just the way you want it.

In addition, you will be able to adjust the frequency of the messages you send to your customers, and will surely motivate your audience to take specific actions on your e-commerce site.

What is the difference between Custom Flows and other edrone scenarios?

There’s a high chance you’re already familiar with our ready-to-use automation scenarios. They help online stores take advantage of marketing automation capabilities without creating different customer paths.

However, there are some situations when the marketing automation scenarios available are insufficient.

You may need to send messages to customers more frequently than the scenario predicts, or you want to segment your customers in a specific way.

Or do you have an idea how to further engage your customers, but none of the available scenarios can help you?

Custom Flows is a feature that allows you to design your own automation scenarios, and achieve way more!

Read also: 18 ways to stay out of spam folders 

Let’s see an example of Custom Flows in practice!

Check out this sample automation scenario that you can easily create with the Custom Flows functionality.

You want to ensure that customers who have made a purchase revisit your store. In this situation, the flow, or your marketing automation scenario, might look like the following:

1. The client visits the store, places an order, and receives a thank you email.
2. Two days later, the customer gets another message from you with a discount code to make another purchase at a lower price.
3. If they don’t place the order, they receive a third message with a reminder that the discount code still works.
4. If still no purchase is made, you can send a final message asking why. It will allow you to solve the problem and retain the customer.

This scenario’s goal is to constantly communicate with the customer in a personalized way. So that he wants to build a relationship with your brand. By doing so, you also have a huge opportunity to increase the frequency of purchases and increase the return rate of customers in your store. 

Check also: 5 ways to get customers to visit your Online Store again 

How to set up Custom Flows elements? 

Each automation path you created with Custom Flows will consist of several elements:  start, filter, wait, and action. Let’s move on to discuss them.

Start 

Each new flow must start with a start element. This is the starting event / customer activity that will trigger the flow. This could be: viewing products, adding a product to the cart, placing an order, a new customer in the base, customer’s birthday, and more.

Product viewing – Customer viewed a specific product, a product from a specific category, or any products

Adding to cart – Customer added to the cart a specific product, a product from a specific category, or any products

Making a purchase – Customer ordered a specific product, a product from a specific category, or any products

New customer in base – Customer provided their email to your store for the first time (not necessarily, but including, when the customer subscribes to the newsletter).

Customer birthday – The flow will start on the day of the customer’s birthday

Entering a specific URL – Customer accessed a specific URL (possible to apply conditions such as “URL is”, “URL is not” and “URL contains”)

Subscription status changed – Customer either subscribed or unsubscribed

• Please note that this functionality applies only to already existing users in the database.

Interaction with an email – Customer opened an email, clicked on an email, or any of these options

Abandoned cart – Customer added one or more products to the cart and left the store.

• Please note that this starter will wait 3 hours before moving on to the next step, as we have identified this period as the ideal waiting time to verify if the purchase was completed.

Getting a tag – A tag was assigned to the customer

Read also: How to create newsletters? 3 types you must know

Filter

This is where the full power of Custom Flows come to light: by creating conditions and filters of your choice, you will be able to precisely segment your audience so that it matches the genuinely personal message you have for them. The path will always split into two ways, depending on whether the conditions you created are met or not.

This element can be related, for example, to shopping behavior or customer characteristics and interactions with your e-commerce.

Several customers have just subscribed to your newsletter. Some confirmed their subscription after signing up, while others did not. This is where the automation path splits. The first group receives a thank you message and a discount code from you, and the second group receives a reminder to confirm their subscription.

Wait

This element specifies the time between each step in your flow. For example, between the first and second messages sent to the customer.

Using the example of a newsletter subscription, it could look like this: A customer completed the subscription form and received a message to confirm it but did not do so. Here you set the time, after which you will send him a reminder again.

Action

The action element is what actually happens once the starting event takes place or when the filter conditions are met (or not). For now, the action element can be sending an email, displaying a pop-up window, or labeling the user with an already existing tag (adding a customer attribute, useful for advanced audience segmentation). 

Again in brief. To create a Custom Flows you need to follow four steps:

1. Respond to customer activity in your online store.
2. Segment your audience and establish the parameters of your path.
3. Determine the time between each step in the path.
4. Select how the message will be delivered to customers.

We have already discussed all the elements that your own automation path will consist of. Let’s move on to the personalized communications that will help you effectively attract customers and build (long-lasting!) relationships with them.

How do you create personalized communications in Custom Flows?

Personalization plays a significant role when applying Custom Flows in automation paths. When designing communications, remember that customers love to feel special, so address them directly in your messages.

First, under the action element, decide whether you will send customers an email message, or design a pop-up for them to display on your online store page, or assign them a relevant tag.

Then determine the details of sending messages or the frequency of pop-ups so that they are not too intrusive and bring the desired results for your e-commerce.

Got your attention? Sign up for a demo,  learn more about other features of edrone CRM and turn your store into a sales machine!