With 3.9 billion people using email, email marketing is still one of the strongest marketing channels. Not to mention that email is almost 40x more effective at new customer acquisition than Facebook or Twitter.
However, expanding your list of subscribers and sending an email once in a while won’t help you make a sale.
The key is to strategically lead users towards making a purchase. Every step of the way – from the moment they first receive the email to clicking that “buy” button – is relevant. How to strengthen the ladders to success? Build an email marketing sales funnel.
Writing emails that will put together the puzzle of a successful sales funnel can be exactly what you need to boost sales.
What is an Email Marketing Funnel?
Email marketing funnels represent how subscribers to an email list go from being a prospective lead to a customer through a series of educational and conversion-oriented email communications.
To build effective email marketing funnels, marketers have to anticipate the subscriber’s needs to send an email at the right time or based on the right behavior to elicit action from the recipient.
To put it simply email marketing funnels sometimes referred to as a sales funnel presents an automated email sequence that is predesigned to turn leads into customers.
There are several stages that the prospects need to go through in the email marketing sales funnel. Those stages are:
- Attention – Get leads to notice your brand.
- Interest – Give leads a good reason to consider your offer.
- Desire – Ensure leads of your credibility and/or give them a final push towards conversion.
- Convert – Seal the deal.
- Loyalty and advocacy – Even though your goal is reached, keep the customers engaged to inspire brand loyalty.
Why is the email sales funnel important? That thought out email sequence ensures that your customers don’t lose interest in your brand.
As you plan and strategize each email in every stage of the sales funnel, you ensure that customers follow the right path towards the desired action.
Email marketing funnels personalizes the shopping journey. It focuses on getting leads the right email at the right time. All with one goal in mind – converting those leads into customers.
How to Write Successful Emails for Each Stage in the Funnel
To put the stages of the email marketing funnels in motion, you need to craft clever emails.
Every email you write within the sequence has its purpose. It needs to be well-written, direct, and meaningful.
The following tips will provide insight into how you can maximize the potential of each email in your email marketing funnels. Moreover, these tips will cover every stage that leads to the sale.
1. Identify customers’ pain points
Why are you worthy of users’ attention? Justify their trust by sending the leads content that you promised in return for the subscription.
For example, if you build your email list by promising a free PDF guide, that’s what you should deliver.
Then, to get people to enter the email marketing funnel, you need to capture their attention. How? Put leads and their needs in focus.
Identify your target audience’s pain points and demystify them in your email. Position yourself as an expert who understands their problems.
The following email example by MindValley captures leads attention by sharing the common problem (lack of sleep) and promising more information on the subject.
If you want to authorize yourself, you can also introduce your company through case studies or transparent information about your principles and mission.
However, do bear in mind that your brand shouldn’t be the focus of the entire email. You can provide links to case studies or short chunks of information on your values.
The key element of the first stage is to draw in the leads by showing them that you understand their problems.
2. Present value
The problems are out in the open. Customers are thinking about how they can completely relate to the content you’ve sent. They found some useful information and you awoke their interest. What next?
The next step is to present the value of your brand and your services.
Slowly, pull them even further down the funnel with a solution.
MindValley continues its email marketing funnel with an email that promises a solution to the above-mentioned pain point (lack of sleep).
Describing your product, offer, or service, won’t be enough to get leads fully invested. HOW you present the solution is what matters. You might even need to hire the best writing help to help you tweak and tweeze emails according to your target audience’s interests.
For example, MindValley focuses on something that customers are always in pursuit of – a personalized solution.
Moreover, MindValley made the offer even more enticing with a discount. As they build urgency with a one-day-valid offer (67% for customers who join today), they strongly pull leads further down the funnel.
3. Build credibility
Do you know that 91% of 18-34-year-olds trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations?
Rarely who will make a purchase before they check your credibility through online reviews.
If you want to convince customers to make an immediate purchase, include social proof in the email. Here’s an example by MindValley to show you how.
In addition to including a testimonial, you can also provide a link to your social media account or testimonials page on your website. The quicker the customers assess the reviews, the sooner they’ll be ready to continue with the purchase.
4. Tackle leads’ concerns
Realistically, not all leads will jump straight to making a purchase. No matter how amazing your emails were.
If the leads don’t make the purchase after you present your offer, the journey shouldn’t stop there.
Continue to build leads’ interest and trust by addressing common concerns. Questions such as “Is there a trial” or “Can I get a refund” can hold back leads from turning into customers.
Chase away people’s pondering thoughts with an email that tackles their objections.
5. Play on the urgency and scarcity card
Maybe the lead has added your item in their shopping bag but hasn’t made a purchase. Or, you’ve triggered their interest but they didn’t get a moment to finalize the buy.
Don’t give up just yet. You can still make the conversion if you play the right cards. What motivates people most to take advantage of your offer is a unique offer. For example:
Keywords like “final day,” “win,” “free all-access pass,” and “expires tonight” are the type of words that will help leads decide that this isn’t the offer they want to miss.
This email shouldn’t be long. A concise email with “you don’t want to miss this” content is the best tool for making that final leap and convincing leads to click that link.
6. Build their loyalty
After you achieve your goal and lengthen that list of customers, your email marketing funnel sequence shouldn’t stop. Nurturing the relationship with customers will bring you loyalty and new brand advocates.
Work on building the connection with customers by sending them limited offers, discounts for loyal customers, exclusive content, product updates, and similar.
You can simply remind them of your brand with a friendly email. Here’s a clever idea by Crocs of how you can motivate a customer to make another purchase.
Even though you’ve finalized the offer, why not do your best to turn a one-time customer into a returning customer?
Craft your email marketing funnels
Take your leads on a seamless path towards purchasing your product with email marketing funnels. Hopefully, the above-mentioned tips will give you proper guidance on how to get people in the funnel and keep them moving down to the final destination.
Before we part our ways, let me leave you with a few reminders. Customize your emails to fit your brand’s personality and your target audience’s interests and habits. Adapt the timing of email based on your leads’ preferences. Lastly, make your emails unique and engaging – the kind of emails that will make people fall in love with your brand.
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