Do you need to send multiple emails over the course of hours, days, or even months for work? There are many solutions out there that provide automated email sending to help you especially when it comes to bulk emails. Let’s say you need to collect data and based on the data collected you need to send automated emails. There are many form solutions that set up automated emails to instantly send out the data through emails.

Form solutions often provide immediate email confirmation upon submission, a useful feature for acknowledging receipt. However, businesses frequently need to send follow-up emails hours, days, or even months later. Setting this task up can be tedious and this is where Clappia can help you out. Clappia's advanced email workflow capabilities allow you to schedule emails based on time delays and specific conditions or criteria, ensuring continuous and relevant communication with your users, teams or stakeholders.

Understanding Email Workflows and Automation

What is email automation? It is not just the simple setup of email, or simply scheduling them to be sent at a particular time. Email workflows are automated sequences of emails triggered by specific actions or conditions. You can send an email the instant you submit data in your form, which is typical of your normal form solutions. You can also send emails after a certain date or time, send emails if an approval is met, or lets say if you have made sale or inventory stock level is low and based on the number the system should send out an automated email, all this is possible.

Automated emails are essential for any business processes to maintain ongoing engagement, manage follow-ups, and ensure timely communications. Automation in email workflows helps save time, reduce manual effort to a great extent, and ensure consistent messaging.

Limitations of Popular Form Solutions

Many popular form solutions like Google Forms, Typeform, and JotForm offer immediate email confirmations but often lack the flexibility for delayed and conditional email workflows.

Google Forms is user-friendly and integrates well with other Google services. It offers basic email notifications through add-ons, which only provide instant notifications upon submission, lacking the ability to delay emails or set up complex conditional triggers.

Typeform’s engaging interface and design make it popular for creating interactive forms. It allows immediate email responses and integrates with tools like Zapier for more complex workflows. However, setting up delayed emails or intricate conditional workflows can be complicated and typically requires additional services.

JotForm offers extensive customization and features like auto-responders for instant email confirmations. Despite its robust features, it falls short in scheduling delayed emails or setting up complex conditional workflows without relying on third-party integrations.

Why Choose Clappia?

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Clappia is a no-code platform that helps businesses to create apps to automate their business process in minimal time with minimal effort. Since it is “no-code”, business users can create these apps without needing any coding knowledge. These apps help have the look and field of a form like Google forms, where you have fields for collecting data. The difference is, you can automate these apps to mimic your process flow. And that is where you can implement email automation. Clappia addresses the limitations of other forms solutions by providing advanced email workflow capabilities.

What can you do with email automation?

Delayed Email Workflows

Clappia allows you to delay email notifications or rather, introduce a wait period, by hours, days, or even months. This feature is useful for sending reminders, follow-ups, or periodic notifications. For example, a project tracking application can send progress update reminders one week before a milestone date, ensuring team members are aware of upcoming deadlines.

Conditional Email Triggers

Clappia enables you to set specific conditions under which emails are sent. Notifications can be triggered only if certain form fields meet specific criteria. For instance, in an employee performance review system, notifications are sent only if the performance score falls below a threshold, alerting managers to underperformance issues.

Manual Review Triggers

Clappia supports manual triggers for emails, allowing emails to be sent after a human review and approval process. This is beneficial for workflows requiring managerial oversight, such as expense approvals. After a manager reviews and approves a submission, an email notification can be sent to the finance department for processing.

Repetitive Emails Over Time

You can set up Clappia workflows to send repetitive emails at regular intervals until a specific condition is met. This is useful for continuous reminders or periodic updates. For instance, in a sales CRM system, repetitive follow-up emails can be sent to leads every week until they respond or the lead status is updated.

Adding PDFs and Attachments

Clappia allows you to include PDFs and other attachments in your automated emails. This is particularly useful for sending reports, invoices, or any other document that needs to accompany your email. For example, a training department can automatically send training materials as PDF attachments following an email reminder for upcoming sessions. How do you automate daily email tasks with attachments?

1. Configure PDF Generation: Within your app, set up PDF templates that dynamically pull data from your form submissions.
2. Attach Files: Use the email workflow settings to attach these PDFs or other necessary files to your automated emails.

This feature ensures that all relevant documents are sent promptly.

Where Can Automated Emails Be Useful?

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Here are a few use cases of where automating emails can be helpful:

Marketing Activity Plan

A marketing team submits their activity plans for the month. Here's how you can set up a workflow to send follow-up emails:

1. Initial Submission: When a marketing plan is submitted, an email is sent to the department head for approval.
2. 10-Day Reminder: If the plan has not been approved within 10 days, a reminder email is sent to the department head.
3. Monthly Follow-Up: If the plan is still pending, another follow-up email is sent after a month.

By setting up these workflows, you ensure that the marketing team stays on track with their plans and that approvals are obtained in a timely manner.

License Expiry Notifications

For a license tracker app, you can set up a workflow to manage license expiry reminders:

1. Initial Submission: Set the status to "Active" when a license is submitted.
2. 10-Day Reminder: 10 days before the license expires, send a reminder email.
3. Expiration Follow-Up: If the license is not renewed by the expiration date, send a notification that the status is now "Cancelled."

This workflow helps ensure that all licenses are kept up to date and that any expiring licenses are promptly addressed.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

In a CRM application, Clappia’s delayed email workflows can follow up with leads, send periodic updates to customers, and notify sales teams of important actions. For instance:

1. Initial Lead Contact: When a new lead is added, send an immediate welcome email.
2. Weekly Follow-Up: If there is no response within a week, send a follow-up email.
3. Monthly Check-In: Continue to send monthly check-ins until the lead responds or the status is updated.

This ensures that leads are consistently engaged without manual intervention.

Human Resources (HR)

HR departments can use delayed email workflows for various purposes, such as sending onboarding emails to new hires, reminders for upcoming training sessions, and follow-ups on performance reviews. For example:

1. Onboarding Welcome: Send a welcome email immediately upon hiring.
2. Training Reminders: Send reminders a week and a day before scheduled training sessions.
3. Probation Review: After three months, automatically send an email to the manager to schedule a performance review.

These workflows help streamline HR processes and ensure timely communications.

Event Management

For event management, Clappia’s email workflows can manage communications before, during, and after an event. Here’s how:

1. Registration Confirmation: Send a confirmation email upon registration.
2. Pre-Event Reminders: Send reminders one week and one day before the event.
3. Post-Event Follow-Up: After the event, send a thank-you email and a survey link to gather feedback.

This ensures that attendees are kept informed and engaged throughout the event lifecycle.

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Benefits of Using Automated Email Workflows

Proactive Customer Support: Automated workflows can proactively send follow-up emails to customers who haven't interacted with your product or service after a certain period. For instance, if a customer hasn't logged into your platform for 30 days, an automated email can be sent offering assistance or highlighting new features.

Timely Reminders: Businesses often need to remind clients of upcoming appointments or deadlines. For example, a dental clinic can use automated email workflows to send appointment reminders to patients a week before, a day before, and on the day of the appointment.

Enhanced Customer Engagement: By setting up a series of welcome emails for new users, businesses can guide them through the onboarding process. An online course provider can use this approach to introduce new users to course materials, provide tips for success, and encourage engagement with the platform.

Regulatory Compliance: Some industries require regular communication for compliance purposes. Financial services, for example, can automate emails to remind clients about annual reviews or updates to regulatory policies.

Boosting Sales: E-commerce businesses can benefit from automated email workflows by sending abandoned cart reminders. If a customer leaves items in their cart without completing the purchase, an email can be triggered to remind them and potentially offer a discount to complete the purchase.

Conclusion

Clappia’s email workflow capabilities provide a flexible and powerful way to manage communications over time. Whether you need to send reminders, follow-ups, or condition-based notifications, Clappia allows you to set up workflows that ensure timely and relevant communication. By leveraging these advanced features, you can enhance your business processes and improve efficiency.

Clappia’s email workflows are designed to adapt to your unique business needs, offering capabilities that go far beyond immediate email confirmations. By incorporating delays, conditions, manual reviews, and repetitive emails, you can ensure that your communications are timely, relevant, and effective. Explore Clappia today to see how you can streamline your email workflows and improve your business operations.