An email marketing funnel is a series of automated emails that take your subscribers on a journey from becoming aware of your brand to purchasing and then retaining their purchase as a loyal customer. This journey must be customized to your audience, which is why personalization and segmentation are so important.
1. Identify Your Target Audience
Identifying your target audience is crucial to the success of any marketing campaign. It’s important to define your target audience as precisely as possible so that you can develop content that will resonate with them and encourage them to engage with your business, explains Emails Nest.
One way to determine your target audience is to study the demographics and behavioral trends of current customers. This information can be gathered through surveys, social media engagement, and website data. By analyzing this information, you can uncover common characteristics that your best customers share and use these attributes to create a more targeted marketing strategy.
Once you know who your audience is, you can begin developing an effective email marketing funnel that will nurture them through each stage of the sales process. This can be accomplished through email campaigns, lead capture strategies, gated content, and other tactics.
Top of Funnel: Using free, value-added content like e-books or webinars, you can collect leads’ contact information to convert them into customers. This is typically achieved through a sign-up form or landing page, which will then be added to your email automation sequence.
Middle of Funnel: The middle of your funnel is designed to nurture prospective clients with educational content that shows them how your products can solve their problems. You can also use this phase to offer entry-level or trial versions of your products, which may eventually be upgraded by the customer to premium offerings.
Bottom of Funnel: The bottom of your funnel is designed to encourage existing customers to recommend your products to others. This can be done through a variety of methods, including offering loyalty programs and discounts on future purchases. You can also send cart reminders, which have been shown to reduce abandonment rates by as much as 70%.
Narrowing down your target audience is essential because sending emails to a broad group of people will be unlikely to result in any conversions. In addition, today’s spam filters are highly sophisticated, making it difficult for untargeted emails to make their way through. By identifying your target audience, you can ensure that your emails are relevant to their needs and will stand out from the competition.
2. Create a Landing Page
A great landing page is key to converting email subscribers into customers. Ideally, it should have all the information a prospective customer needs to take action, including an easy-to-find email capture form, as well as persuasive copy and visuals. It also needs to be mobile-friendly so that it can be viewed on tablets and phones as well as desktop computers.
A landing page should be designed to complement the campaign it is supporting. For example, a landing page that promotes a sale on shoes might use a picture of happy customers wearing the products and include text like “Get the look you love at a price you’ll love even more.”
If a visitor clicked a link in an email and was led to a landing page that had nothing to do with the campaign they responded to, it would likely be confusing and frustrating for them. If the page was full of too much information, it might be overwhelming and cause them to back out of the process entirely. Instead, create a simple landing page that is focused on the campaign you are running and includes a call-to-action button in a color that stands out from the rest of the page.
In addition to being a great place to collect emails, a landing page can be used as an opportunity to boost your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. Creating landing pages optimized for specific keywords and phrases will increase the likelihood that they appear in search results, which can further drive traffic to your site.
Finally, be sure to offer a way for visitors to opt-out of future marketing emails. This will help to ensure that you are not spamming potential clients and customers, which can lead to serious consequences for your brand.
3. Create an Opt-In Form
Once you have a lead magnet in place, the next step is to build an email list through your opt-in form. You can embed this form on your website or product page, social media accounts, or anywhere else that’s relevant. The goal is to get as many people on your email list as possible, so that you can nurture them into potential customers and continue marketing to them.
The email opt-in form should have an email address field and a checkbox to consent to receive your emails. It’s important to use a double opt-in method, as this helps prevent spam complaints and ensures that your subscribers actually want to hear from you.
In addition to using a double opt-in, you should also include an option to unsubscribe. This is required by many compliance regulations, and it’s a good way to keep your list clean and avoid sending emails to misspelled or otherwise inactive addresses.
After someone submits your email opt-in form, they should see a submission success message that thanks them for signing up and lets them know what to expect from your brand. This message can also include a link to your blog, a free resource, or even a coupon they can use on their next purchase.
You can also create an automation to send these new subscribers a welcome series that will help you convert them into customers. The welcome series could include a thank you email, a series of emails introducing your products, or a shopping cart reminder (especially useful for eCommerce brands).
When it comes to the content in your welcome series, personalization is key. This means incorporating their first name in the greeting and using their previous browsing history to recommend products they might like. The more personalized your content, the more likely they are to open and click on your emails.
Another great way to convert your leads into customers is to offer entry-level or trial versions of your product. This is a great way to increase sales while reducing the risk of losing them to competitors. This strategy can be especially effective when it’s used in conjunction with other conversion-boosting tactics such as a landing page with a special offer or a countdown timer.
4. Create an Email Campaign
Once you have captured your leads’ email addresses, nurture them by putting out informative content that moves them down the funnel. This can be done through emails, social media, and even retargeting ads. Depending on the type of campaign, it may be best to segment your email list based on their interests and behavior to offer personalized content.
Your curated email journey should help convert your new subscribers into paying customers or convince existing ones to buy more. For example, you can use a series of emails to ask your buyers to rate and review your products, share their opinions with you, or give them discounts to encourage them to come back. In this way, you can keep your buyers engaged with your brand and generate more revenue from them in the long run.
It is important to note that not all your email campaigns will be successful, and some will fail. That is why you should have an established set of goals to guide you when creating your email marketing strategy. This will help you choose the right type of campaign, write the email copy, and create valuable content for your audience. Also, it is important to ensure that your email marketing campaign is consistent with the rest of your branding. This will ensure that your audience does not get confused or annoyed when receiving different types of emails from your brand.
Ultimately, an effective email marketing campaign will lead to higher sales and conversion rates for your business. However, it is crucial to take the time to plan out your campaign before sending it out. This will help you avoid sending out a low-quality email that will put your subscribers off and drive them away.
Moreover, it will give you the opportunity to identify any flaws in your email marketing campaign and make necessary adjustments. Ultimately, it will result in more sales and better ROI for your business. So, if you’re looking for a way to generate more revenue from your online store, try setting up an email marketing campaign today!
