What if you could set up an automation to connect with your donors at the exact right time?
Donorbox’s Email Marketing allows you to set up Automated Workflows to trigger outreach based on donor behavior and various milestones.
When a contact enters a workflow, they receive the planned communications depending on timing or other actions they take. This ensures you have complete control over when and how your contacts receive automated outreach.
In this article, we'll cover:
- Types of Automated Workflows
- Types of Blocks
- How to Set Up an Automated Workflow
- Workflow Example – Birthday
Types of Automated Workflows
While Automation on Email Marketing is very customizable, here are the most common types of workflows:
| Email automation example | Description |
| Welcome email | Connect with donors as soon as they give! Trigger a welcome email for first-time donors that introduces them to your organization. |
| Re-engagement campaign | When a donor hasn’t opened one of your emails in a while, you can automate a campaign to remind them of your organization’s value. |
| Milestone emails | Recognize important moments in your donors' journey – from birthdays to the anniversary of their first donation. |
| Profile update confirmation | Confirm successful profile updates to demonstrate transparency and build trust. |
| Win-back campaigns | Reach out to former donors and encourage them to start giving again. |
Types of Blocks
When you go to build your workflow, you’ll see the following types of blocks available. These create the points of your workflow.
| Block type | Description |
| Start block | Defines what criteria your contact must meet to enter the workflow. This will be determined by your audience configuration and trigger type. |
| Send email block | Sends a predefined email to contacts when this stage of the workflow is reached. From here, you can edit the design of your email and name your campaign. |
| Manage contact in lists block | Allows you to manage your contacts within specified lists as follows: subscribe to a list, add to a list and resubscribe, add to a list without resubscribing, unsubscribe from a list, and delete from a list. |
| Contact property update block | Enables updating existing properties of contacts (i.e., age, city, birthday, etc.). |
| Condition block | Evaluates the contact against set criteria to determine which workflow route they will enter. The criteria are set by segments or custom filters. Contacts that don’t meet these conditions will move to a fallback path. You can add up to 20 conditions per block. |
| Event block | Pauses an automated workflow until an event has occurred. Then the contact will move forward on the correct path. To configure these events, you’ll add the event type (added/subscribed to a list or contact property update) or configure the fallback timer (ensuring the contact doesn’t get stuck if the event never occurs). |
| Timer block | Allows you to determine when the contact will move to the next step in the journey with a delay timer (delay by minutes, hours, or days), custom date filter (delay based on a set date), or date property timer (delay based on a contact property update). |
| Exit block | Represents the end of a workflow for a contact. Each exit block allows you to specify if the contact should be added back to the workflow if they match the start block criteria again. |
These blocks allow you to customize your workflows to suit your needs.
How to Set Up an Automated Workflow
Here are the steps to set up your Automated Workflow.
Important note: you’ll need to build email templates for each email in your automation series. To learn more about how to use Email Marketing and build emails, visit our guide.
Locate the Automation tab
From the Email Marketing tool, locate the Automation tab. Click on it.
Create a new workflow or create from a template
From the Automation tab, you’ll be able to see any Automated Workflows and Legacy Workflows (automations that are no longer active).
You’ll see the option to either create an automation from a template or start from scratch.
2.1. Create from a template
We offer a variety of prebuilt templates that you can customize to fit your needs.
Choose which one you’d like to use and click “Start Building.”
From here, follow the next steps to customize your workflow.
2.2. Create a new workflow
If you prefer, you can start from scratch and build your own automation. After clicking “Create a workflow,” you’ll see a start block.
Here, you’ll need to set your workflow trigger from one of these two options:
- Subscription event: Triggers a workflow when contacts subscribe to one, multiple, or all contact lists.
- Contact property update event: Triggers a workflow when a contact property is updated.
You can also choose to segment your audience by selecting or creating a segment, or creating a custom filter.
From there, finish building your workflow using the blocks listed above.
Save and publish your workflow
Workflows are automatically saved, so you never have to worry about losing progress. You can also manually save a workflow by hitting the “Save draft” button.
Ready to go live? Use the dropdown by the “Save draft” button to click “Save & Publish.”
Once the criteria set in your start block are met, your contacts will enter into your published workflow.
Test your workflow
Use dummy contacts to make sure your workflow is set up correctly.
Once you have your automation complete, you can archive, duplicate, or delete any workflow at any time.
Workflow Example – Birthday
Ready to see what a workflow looks like in action? Let’s take a look at a birthday email workflow.
This workflow has three main components:
- Trigger: when the birthday is updated on your contact’s supporter profile.
- Timer: waits until the next occurrence of the birthday.
- Action: sends your predesigned birthday email.
Start by defining the trigger as a contact property update. Set the contact property filter to birthdate and apply a segment with an “is in list” condition.
Next, add a timer block after the trigger. Choose the birthdate property and set it to “activate on next yearly occurrence.”
Here you can also choose to send the email at a specific time of day and set your timezone.
Then, add a send email block. Create your birthday email template and add it to your workflow.
Note: once you add the template to your workflow, don’t forget to click save!
Lastly, enable yearly looping by connecting the end of your workflow back to the timer block. This will ensure your donor gets your birthday message year after year!