Posted by Introduction
An email marketing funnel is a trustworthy method to boost sales and revenue. It helps businesses connect with potential customers via targeted emails, taking them from awareness to purchase in an effortless progression.
The common goal every digital marketer would share about their email marketing is growing their customer base and transforming subscribers into dedicated patrons.
However, the journey towards this goal presents issues. As a digital marketer, you can only control how you engage with your patrons rather than how they respond. Your influence extends to areas like recruiting internal staff, advertising through social media and Google’s Display Network, or investing in your R&D department.
Among all these tactics, email marketing stands out as the most powerful tool for both B2C and B2B companies. According to 73% of marketers, it uplifts their efforts towards increased conversions. By 2021, it’s expected that over 319.6 billion emails will be sent on a daily basis globally.
That said, without strategic planning on turning leads into the next step using email marketing (or any other approach), the remaining stages of your customer’s journey might stall.
This is why you need an email marketing funnel.
What does an email marketing funnel mean?
An email marketing funnel involves sending out well-planned emails that nurture leads while steering conversions. It also aids in transforming current customers into loyal ones.
A successful email marketing funnel should consider its target audience’s preferences by creating diverse emails for customers at different points of their purchasing journey.
The upsides of an email marketing funnel
An email marketing funnel carries several perks that can help elevate your marketing strategies and spur business growth. Below are some major benefits,
- Email marketing funnel works by offering your customer base highly targeted and personalized messages according to the customer’s location in the buying process.
- By fostering leads at critical stages and directing them towards making a purchase, a carefully built email marketing funnel can notably increase your conversion rates.
- An email marketing funnel can maintain your audience’s interest in your brand via regular, meaningful communications with subscribers.
- Email automation allows an email marketing funnel to accurately manage much of the advertising process, ensuring timely regular communication that doesn’t need constant worker effort, saving both time and resources for your marketing team.
- Being able to monitor key metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates lets you measure the effectiveness of your funnel through the comprehensive analytics offered by email marketing.
- The focused nature of email marketing often provides a higher ROI than other advertising channels because it targets leads that have already demonstrated interest and nurture them through the funnel, improving the efficiency of marketing spend.
- Offering decent content helps build trust, and potential clients are more likely to buy from you.
- After-purchase emails in the sales funnel can improve customer satisfaction by providing added assistance or tips or selling additional related products.
- A good email marketing funnel boosts conversions, engages your audience effectively, and enhances client relationships, contributing value to company success.
How to Build an Email Marketing Funnel
So, building an email marketing funnel includes nurturing subscribers right from their first interaction all the way up to conversion in these steps,
Funnel top part- Lead generation
It is common to hear marketers state, “The list has the money!” Even though it’s not the only stage in the email funnel, it is where a solid marketing strategy starts. This is primarily because you have complete control over your email list and can regulate your communications with them more than you can with your social media followers.
Two effective ways of collecting email addresses are opt-in forms and specialized landing pages.
- Email signups on your website or blogs only require a user’s name and email address. These forms are excellent for sending out newsletters and keeping your subscribers interested.
- Specific landing pages, focusing on one thing like an email course or free trial, provide enough information to get the user interested in your product. They work well because you’re offering value to the user, showing them a glimpse of what to expect from your emails.
Middle stage – Keeping subscribers engaged.
After finding a way to get subscribers, it’s essential to keep interacting with them. Using segmented lists lets you deliver unique value propositions, product details or reviews to each subscriber. An automation platform can do this for you by segmenting subscribers based on how they signed up, their online behaviour or demographic info.
Moreover, nurturing emails need to be specific, valuable and personalized, promoting you as a credible brand. Each email represents a new chance to build a relationship and allows further personalization based on their activity.
Emails for this stage could include,
- Personalized messages based on preferences
- Case studies and success stories
- Extra free resources like blogs or webinars
Bottom stage- Turning leads into customers.
If your subscribers have followed through the first two stages, they’re ready for conversion. You’ve built a relationship by consistently offering value, which results in an emotional response from the subscriber. At this final stage, you should continue sending personalized nurturing campaigns with stronger conversion tactics.
The last set of conversion emails could include,
- Tactics that retarget warm leads like abandoned ecommerce carts by presenting ads related directly to their interests.
- Urgent time-limited offers delivered via email that encourage warm leads to convert by giving them a deadline.
- Emails that you send could have coupons, special offers during birthdays, or communications for subscribers who stay long on your website.
- For onboarding, with a lead magnet trial period, those users can turn into full-paying customers when the free trial closes.
Repeat Funnel- Keeping Customers.
After a subscriber becomes a customer, your work isn’t finished. Your job is to keep customers and build long-term loyalty. This will increase their lifetime value, boosting your marketing ROI. Loyalty leads to repeat buying and referrals. You need to plan their next purchase as they convert. This method is similar to nurturing leads in step two, but the discussion should be more direct about your brand.
To succeed in this, you may,
- Engage the customers with your products or services by sending a weekly progress report or tech update, keeping you at the top of their minds.
- You could upsell and cross-sell products by using customers’ purchase history to offer bigger deals. However, don’t appear pushy; offer an improved solution instead.
- Create referral loyalty schemes encouraging sharing and recommendations from your customers. Rewards could be points towards a free product or discount on coming orders.
Leveraging Email Verification for Improved Lead Generation
With email verifier apps, businesses save time and effort, which allows them to focus on nurturing leads and creating engaging email campaigns. Having correct email lists gives businesses an advantage, ensuring that their marketing messages reach the intended recipients, leading to better engagement rates and eventually maximizing the ROI.
The merger of these tools enhances lead generation strategies efficiently, leading to strong customer bonds and continuous business growth.
You can use a reliable email verification tool online to automate the verification process and keep your email list clean effectively.
Email verification can boost lead generation by improving email deliverability, customer engagement, and overall marketing legitimacy. Utilizing email verification will certainly elevate your business growth.
FAQs
What does an email marketing funnel mean?
An email marketing funnel outlines the progression of a subscriber from a potential lead to a customer, involving both informative and promotional emails.
What should the frequency of emails being sent to my funnel be?
The frequency of your emails depends upon the actions you choose for your subscribers to instigate them and your business vision. The timing should be determined based on the audience engagement level. As an example, daily emails can be sent to active subscribers, three per week to those who haven’t used or clicked in the past 30 days and one per week to those who haven’t used or clicked in 90 days.
What are some recommended practices for automating email marketing funnels?
The automation process includes several best practices,
- You need signup forms enabled on your website to generate new leads and gain further subscribers.
- Gather zero-party and first-party customer info so that you can offer personalized content in your email campaigns.
- Divide or segment customers into groups to provide more relevant mail.
- Engage your subscribers with welcome series, educational material, and brand narratives.
- Harmonize trust throughout the process via transactional mail, requests for assessments, and customer loyalty program invites.