The easiest way to understand email automation is to build one. This guide follows a fictional tour operator in Basseterre that runs rainforest hikes, catamaran trips to Nevis and island tours. The same steps apply to a hotel, a shop or a professional firm.
Before you start
Log in to your Mailpro account and check two things. First, your contact list includes only people who agreed to receive your emails, which is the consent approach behind the Federation’s Data Protection Act, 2018. Second, your contacts have the fields you will need, such as first name, tour date and country.
Step 1: Map the journey
Write down the moments when a customer would welcome an email. For our tour operator:
- Sign-up on the website: a welcome message.
- Booking made: a confirmation, then a reminder the day before the tour.
- After the tour: a thank-you and review request.
- Six months later: an invitation to try a different tour on the next visit.
Step 2: Create the welcome email
Start with the welcome automation. Trigger: a new contact joins the list. Content: a warm introduction, three of your most popular tours and a photo from the summit of Mount Liamuiga. Send immediately.
Step 3: Add a date-based reminder
Use a date-triggered email based on the tour-date field. Set it to send one day before, at 5 p.m. Atlantic Standard Time, with the meeting point, what to bring and a note on weather. During hurricane season, from 1 June to 30 November, add a line explaining how you will contact guests if a tour is cancelled.
Step 4: Follow up after the tour
Another date-based email, two days after the tour, thanks the guest and links to a review page. It can also invite them to a short survey built with Mailpro’s survey tool.
Step 5: React to clicks
If a subscriber clicks on the catamaran trip to Nevis in any email, you can trigger a follow-up with more detail and a booking link. This is done with the click-triggered automation. It sends content that matches what the person has shown interest in.
Step 6: Add a birthday touch for locals
If you collect birthdays from local customers, a birthday email with a discount on a weekend tour is an easy way to fill quieter dates.
Before testing: plan for storms and cancellations
Hurricane season touches half the year, so build a ready-to-send storm notice now rather than during an emergency. Write a short template explaining how you contact booked guests, your rebooking and refund terms, and where to find updates. Keep it as a draft segment for anyone with a tour date in the next fortnight, and pair it with an SMS for guests already on the islands.
Before testing: separate service and marketing
Confirmation and reminder emails are part of the service the guest paid for. The welcome series, the click follow-ups and the six-month re-engagement offer are marketing. Under the consent approach of the Federation’s Data Protection Act, 2018, and under laws such as CASL for Canadian guests, only contacts who opted in to marketing should enter those sequences. In Mailpro, the simplest way is to run marketing automations from a list that only receives contacts who ticked the marketing box on your booking or sign-up form.
Timing tips for a mixed audience
- Pre-tour reminders are best sent in local time, since the guest is already on St Kitts or Nevis.
- Post-tour and re-engagement emails reach people back home, so time them for mid-morning in their own time zone.
- Avoid sending marketing automations during Sugar Mas and other public holidays if your team cannot answer replies quickly.
Step 7: Test the whole sequence
Add yourself as a contact with a tour date a few days ahead and watch each email arrive. Check links, personalisation and timing. Make sure the unsubscribe link works and stops the rest of the sequence.
Step 8: Review every season
Update the content before each high season and after major events. Remove references to past Sugar Mas dates, refresh photos, and check your figures in the reports. The metrics that matter are covered in automated email statistics.
For more ideas on what to automate, go back to automated emails in St Kitts and Nevis.