Digital marketers are only looking for two things to accomplish:
- Grow their list of subscribers.
- Convert those subscribers into loyal customers.
Some of the digital marketers disagree with the goals mentioned above or ambitions. They mostly go for building their email list and then using that email list to create brand awareness. According to those digital marketers, if you convert your email list into loyal customers, you’ll have to push them towards buying, which gives a bad vibe from the brand itself.
However, as a digital marketer, your goal should only create an appealing email marketing strategy. How your potential leads/customers are going to react is entirely out of your hands. To put it simply, you only need to create an effective email marketing funnel that will help you drive more business towards your brand.
You can enhance your circle of influence from email to advertising on social media, performing R&D, and using the Google Display Network.
Why Email Marketing is the Most Effective Marketing tactic?
Out of all the marketing platforms, email remains at the top. All top-level corporate businesses still emphasize email marketing as it can help you grow via both B2C and B2B processes. A digital marketing agency is nothing without the department of email marketing.
Whether you use Amazon, Netflix, YouTube, Etc., everyone requires your email ID and sends you notifications primarily via email. Also, most of the officials and serious businesses still operate on emails. If you have an effective email marketing funnel in place, you can influence your leads at every stage of the buying process.
Cold calling clients is in the past, people nowadays don’t like to get disturbed, and they want to do business in those times that seem convenient to them. This is where email marketing comes in. You can build relationships with your prospects, leads, past, and current customers by talking to them directly in their inbox, and they can give you a response at a time that seems convenient to them.
So, overall you’ll give out a friendly and personable vibe from your brand.
A strategic plan is needed to move your leads into the next step of your email marketing process. If a plan is not in place, then the remaining part of the buyer’s journey will not take place. To deal with this problem, Email Marketing Funnel is the solution.
What is an Email Marketing Funnel?
First, let’s cover up what Email Marketing Funnel is?
An email funnel represents how a subscriber goes from prospective lead to a customer through educational and promotional email communications. To make this happen, marketers need to understand what their customers/subscribers’ needs are and identify the best time to implement their actions.
There are four stages of the customer lifecycle:
- Engagement
- Discovery
- Purchase
- Retention
All of the email funnels that are in practice today vary from company to company and based on the type of that company’s product. Even though it is not a great practice to implement email funnels at every stage for your potential customer, it is vital to understand what kind of action your subscriber can take regarding your brand.
Finally, the end goal of the email funnel is to keep your subscribers moving around your business until they convert and become loyal customers.
Why should a Business go on to develop an Email Marketing Funnel?
As per the introduction of technology, people’s mental models do not work conventionally as they used to. Nowadays, you need strategies for your marketing according to what your subscribers demand, ‘personalization.’
People do not click on advertisements anymore as the agenda of advertisements has been abused for so long now. The traditional marketing tactics are thrown out of the window. An email marketing funnel is an excellent replacement for marketers as they can communicate with their subscribers at the right moments by personalizing each email accordingly.
According to statistics, email personalization can boost your open rate by up to 25%.
A business should go for an email marketing funnel to help your lead get treatment at an individual level, i.e., will create a personalized ambiance. You will be able to access your buyer’s journey and communicate with them effectively about what is stopping them from buying your service/product, so you can help them convert.
Following are some of the primary email marketing funnel advantages your business will get once this technique is implemented:
- Email funnel helps you consistently offer your customers a positive brand experience at a personal level, thus making those people your brand advocates, which is healthy for your business.
- Email marketing funnel automates the entire process. Your email funnel is an auto-pilot, and it continues to sell to your customers behind closed curtains. It helps you get rid of salespeople and employ marketers only (who know what they are doing).
- As a marketer, you know that it is pretty hard to sell to a brand new customer compared to your current subscriber. With the help of an email marketing funnel, you will consistently generate new leads while maintaining the inventory of your existing email list.
How to Create an Email Marketing Funnel for Conversions?
There are countless strategies that marketers can use to build effective email funnels. However, everything starts from a basic level, and the following are the steps that will help you get started with your email marketing funnel build.
Opt-in Forms & Landing Pages – Lead Generation
Generally, there are two effective ways to collect the email addresses of your prospective customers/subscribers. For lead generation, the official term is called ‘lead magnet.’ The two ways are:
- Opt-in Forms
- Landing Pages
When it comes to the opt-in forms, their primary purpose is to ask for the user’s name and email addresses. These opt-in email forms are shown throughout your website or shop, or blog, where your visitors can subscribe to your newsletter and get the latest information about your service/product. This can help your business engage with your customers at a personal level.
The next way you can adapt to generate leads for lead generation is to build dedicated landing pages. You can offer email courses or free trials of your product or service on these landing pages. Also, you can educate them about your business and what they will get if they convert.
All of this helps your subscriber to enter the sales cycle. Landing pages cause a positive impact on your business by providing your customers with value and help them know what they can expect via email communications.
Lead Nurturing Emails via Segmentation
Once your lead generation form or landing pages are in place, working out for you to get new subscribers and generate valuable leads for you, the next step is to segment those subscribers so you can send each one of them RELEVANT content for conversion.
Initially, marketers had to create segmented lists of their subscribers manually. Still, thanks to automated segmentation platforms for email marketing, you can automatically segment your subscribers based on what form or landing page they signed up from, behaviour on your website, demographics, and the type of content they were surfing on your website.
Once the segments are created, you need to send lead nurturing emails by targeting, offering value, and customizing each email personally for the product, review, or proposition you are pitching. The credibility of your brand will develop in the eyes of your subscribers as per these lead nurturing emails.
Each email will present itself as a new opportunity to build an effective relationship with your customer and personalize emails regularly based on their replies. Nurturing emails have several components like:
- Communication is based on the preferences of your subscribers, i.e., customized emails.
- User-generated content.
- Free resources like eBooks, Webinars, and Free Trials.
Conversion of Lead into Customers
You need to convert those leads into customers now that you have built a positive and emotional relationship with your subscriber/lead.
At this stage of the email funnel, marketers need to run more personalized nurturing campaigns with a more aggressive marketing conversion strategy.
Firstly retarget your warmest leads. These include those people who abandoned a purchase in the last stage, like abandoned carts, etc. You can send ads or emails regarding the product/service they were interested in and feed them content that makes them understand how your business can help them if they purchase from you.
Offer your clients time-sensitive offers by sending them emails containing time-constrained offers like how they will get a 25% discount if they convert right now or how they can use the coupon to avail the offer of ‘buy one and get one free in the next 24 hours. This approach gives your clients the incentive to convert and helps you generate loyal customers based on your business’s value.
Lastly, suppose you were offering a product or a service on a free trial period once that trial period is about to end. In that case, you can convert those customers into full-paying clients/customers after the end of that trial period.
Retaining Customers
Business never grows or expands if you are thinking on a short-term basis. You need to retain your customers by building a long-term relationship with them for a better ROI (return on investment).
If you are a service provider or a seller of any product, you need repeated business from your customers and referrals. Many marketers confuse the step of retaining customers with nurturing leads. This is why customers get frustrated and take a step back as per the continuous shoving, and your business emails end up in their spam folder.
That’s why the messaging, content, and retention strategy is a bit different from lead nurturing emails. You can do this by:
- Staying connected to your customers by engaging them in your other similar products or services. You can also send them weekly progress reports, updates, and guides to generate value for your business.
- Provide solutions to your customers for the product they purchased and how they can combine that product with your other services for a better workflow. Don’t come off pushy; only offer better solutions.
- Run referral campaigns that will encourage your customers to share your services/products with other interested customers. You can award them referral awards like points, free items, and discounts on their future purchases.
Conclusion
The entire purpose of the email marketing funnel is to generate leads and convert them into repeat customers, so your business turns into a well-oiled machine.
You can also use software like ConvertKit to streamline the entire email marketing process and perform other activities that will support your email marketing funnel. Providing leads to your customers will allow you to build a strong email list.
Your ROI will boost, and you will be able to cut down on time-consuming tasks.