Learn how to use your e-mail advertising and marketing funnel to spice up gross sales, retention & loyalty

By Sean Tinney Might 28, 2024

Electronic mail advertising and marketing is a conversion-driving machine.

In truth, e-mail has the highest conversion price of any B2C advertising and marketing channel (and the third-highest for B2B audiences, narrowly behind thought management and public talking).

However you received’t benefit from the sales-generating advantages of e-mail advertising and marketing except you: 

• Construct a dependable pipeline of leads
• Clarify your worth proposition successfully
• Give new e-mail subscribers a purpose to purchase

How are you going to do all of that?

By designing a watertight, streamlined, high-converting e-mail advertising and marketing funnel.

What’s the advertising and marketing funnel?

The advertising and marketing funnel is a device that helps you visualize the shopper journey, or the trail a prospect takes as they turn into conversant in your organization, from introduction to conversion (and hopefully past).

Your advertising and marketing funnel ought to embody the next 5 levels:
1 – Consciousness
2 – Consideration
3 – Conversion
4 – Loyalty
5 – Advocacy

Electronic mail advertising and marketing funnel vs conventional advertising and marketing funnel: What’s the distinction?

Electronic mail advertising and marketing funnels and conventional advertising and marketing funnels have the identical purpose: persuading your viewers to purchase from you by feeding them a gentle stream of data and incentives.

Nevertheless, they’ve alternative ways of attaining this purpose in several methods.

The standard advertising and marketing funnel makes use of a wide range of advertising and marketing instruments and channels — search engine optimisation, paid adverts, social media, e-mail, and extra — to maneuver prospects by way of the totally different shopping for levels, whereas the e-mail advertising and marketing funnel is all about selling your services or products to individuals in your e-mail checklist.

5 advertising and marketing funnel levels

Now that you simply perceive what the e-mail advertising and marketing funnel is, I’ll describe every stage and supply you real-world examples for transferring your viewers by way of these levels.

1. Consciousness

Consciousness is the primary of the advertising and marketing funnel levels.  Throughout this stage, prospects which can be strangers to your model and firm. That is your alternative to begin constructing a trusted relationship with them.

It’s your job throughout this stage of the advertising and marketing funnel to reveal your worth to prospects by way of free, academic content material. They’re not prepared to purchase from you but — as a result of they don’t but perceive what you carry to the desk. 

Learn how to use e-mail within the consciousness stage

Unsure what free content material to ship in your emails? Let’s say you’re a private coach who’s attempting to show your prospect into paying prospects and also you’re utilizing e-mail as your major supply of communication. Listed below are some concepts for content material you may embody in an automatic e-mail sequence to your prospects:

• Weblog posts about diet or health
• A meals monitoring calendar worksheet
• An e book that explains the well being advantages of being match
• A stay 30-minute exercise webinar

(Listed below are 25 sensible lead magnet concepts to develop your e-mail checklist proper now.)

Right here’s one other instance:

Health influencer Massy Arias builds a relationship with prospects by providing personalised steering on coaching and diet by way of a quiz on her web site:

Prospects who land on Massy’s quiz touchdown web page reply a bunch of questions on their age, physique kind, health objectives, and extra. Then they hand over their title and e-mail handle to obtain their customized health plan.

With this technique, prospects get a beneficial piece of content material tailor-made to their particular wants, whereas Massy will get one other subscriber to her e-mail checklist.

It’s a win-win!

Right here’s an instance:

Health influencer Kayla Itsines builds a relationship together with her prospects by exhibiting her experience and demonstrating the worth of her companies by giving her prospects a free week of her Bikini Physique Information exercise program.

When prospects join, they obtain an e book with a full week of exercises to allow them to take a look at this system and see the worth of it for themselves.

2. Consideration

As soon as a prospect strikes previous the attention stage of the advertising and marketing funnel, they enter the consideration stage. Within the consideration stage, a prospect is keen to contemplate buying your companies or merchandise. They’re fascinated about studying extra about you and what you may provide them.

Since you already know extra about your prospect on this advertising and marketing funnel stage than you probably did through the consciousness stage, you may ship them extra focused content material that addresses their particular ache factors. This helps construct belief between your prospect and your model, since you’re exhibiting them that you simply perceive them. 

Learn how to use e-mail within the consideration stage

So what sort of content material do you have to ship your prospects through the consideration stage? 

Let’s say you run a web based retailer promoting out of doors furnishings. Potential prospects might need a ton of questions on your model and product. Is your furnishings well-made? Does it seem like the photographs? Is it well worth the cash?

It’s your job to reply these questions in your e-mail advertising and marketing funnel by sharing content material like:

• Testimonials from present prospects who love your merchandise
• Opinions from thought leaders and trusted publications
• High quality and security rankings from unbiased business our bodies 

Let’s check out how this works in apply.

Right here’s an instance:

On this e-mail, out of doors furnishings model Outer shares a few of its finest buyer evaluations:

These evaluations sort out among the widespread points which may put somebody off shopping for from Outer. Extra importantly, the solutions come from actual prospects quite than the model, which makes them far more persuasive.

Sharing evaluations is particularly beneficial if you’re attempting to transform first-time buyers, on condition that 98% of customers say they’re extra more likely to learn evaluations for a product they’ve by no means bought earlier than.

👉 Study extra: Learn how to get Google evaluations: A step-by-step information to boosting your gross sales

3. Conversion

It has lastly arrived: choice time. As soon as your prospect is aware of the worth of your product and you’ve got educated them on the product itself by way of using social proof, webinars, weblog posts, and different academic content material, they’re able to resolve whether or not or to not buy.

When you’ve reached this advertising and marketing funnel stage, you can begin speaking about why your product and repair is healthier than your rivals’ and why it’s good on your prospect. Give attention to the advantages of your product/service quite than simply explaining options.

Learn how to use e-mail within the conversion stage

Listed below are a number of ways you need to use to persuade your prospects to buy:

• Invite prospects to a gross sales webinar the place you present them your product/service and inform them the advantages
• Create an automatic e-mail sequence that describe a unique good thing about your product/service
• Supply a free trial or give away samples in order that prospects can see the advantages for themselves
• Ship prospects an e-mail that gives a sale or low cost for buying inside a sure timeframe

Right here’s an instance:

By providing reductions and offers through e-mail, Thrive Market creates a way of urgency round their merchandise. If prospects are fascinated about buying however haven’t but, this e-mail convinces them that now’s the right time to take motion.

4. Loyalty

As soon as a prospect turns into a buyer, you could be tempted to pat your self on the again and transfer on to the subsequent prospect. Nevertheless, forgetting about your prospects is a nasty concept.

Except you have got a plan for growing buyer loyalty, you’ll in all probability lose lots of your prospects, losing quite a lot of your prior advertising and marketing efforts through the earlier advertising and marketing funnel levels.

Bear in mind the Pareto Precept? Repeat prospects are too beneficial to disregard. So what sort of e-mail content material will increase loyalty and retention?

Learn how to use e-mail within the loyalty stage

Let’s say you have got a web based espresso retailer. You promote subscriptions to your coffee-of-the-month membership, and also you don’t need your coffee-of-the-month members to lose curiosity and cancel their subscription. Listed below are a number of concepts for beneficial content material you may embody in your emails to extend retention:

• A month-to-month stay stream to YouTube that describes the coffee-of-the-month and provides espresso brewing finest practices.
• A survey that asks prospects how comfortable they’re with the coffees they’re receiving and what different kinds of espresso they’d prefer to get.
• Instructional content material concerning the historical past of espresso.
• A 20 % low cost to prospects that buy a yearly subscription of your coffee-of-the-month membership.

Right here’s an instance:

SaaS device Zapier reaches out to customers after they’ve constructed their first automation by way of the platform:

This e-mail makes prospects be ok with themselves by (metaphorically) patting them on the again for establishing their first profitable automation.

Extra importantly, it suggests some further automations they’ll create, thereby encouraging them to get extra worth from the platform. And the extra helpful they discover it, the extra doubtless they’re to remain subscribed, boosting Zapier’s buyer lifetime worth.

👉 Study extra: Enhance repeat purchases with these 5 simple ideas

 5. Advocacy

Advocacy occurs when your prospects turn into one thing greater than prospects: they turn into followers. 

Bringing prospects to this stage of the advertising and marketing funnel is extraordinarily beneficial. The best advertising and marketing is referral advertising and marketing. That’s when your good friend tells you a sure product is superior, you’re more likely to buy that product since you belief your good friend.

Learn how to use e-mail within the advocacy stage

What are some methods to make use of e-mail to show your prospects into raving followers?

• Determine prospects that love you and ship them an e-mail asking them to refer you to their buddies
• Embrace a survey in an e-mail to learn the way you may enhance your services or products
• Begin an affiliate or loyalty program the place prospects get incentives for referring you
• Interact together with your advocates by replying to their emails, posting on social media, providing incentives for writing evaluations and taking part in testimonials

You additionally wish to gather suggestions throughout this stage. The extra you hearken to your prospects, the extra you may be taught and enhance your content material so it’s in keeping with their challenges, wants, and needs. Instruments like SurveyMonkey and SurveyGizmo make amassing suggestions simple. 

Professional tip: Inside AWeber’s platform, you’ll find survey templates, too. All you must do is add your individual content material into the templates and ship it to your prospects.

Right here’s an instance:

To make their prospects really feel particular, style model Torrid sends them an unique low cost on their birthday:

Even when recipients don’t benefit from the provide, this tactic positions Torrid as a model that cares about its viewers.

Which, in flip, makes prospects extra more likely to advocate Torrid to their family members.

👉 Study extra: Birthday emails: Learn how to increase subscriber loyalty and make extra gross sales

5 tricks to construct a high-converting e-mail advertising and marketing funnel

Now that we’ve defined the worth of the e-mail advertising and marketing funnel, let’s contemplate 5 tried-and-trusted ways to generate extra leads and gross sales:

1. Use your web site and social channels to develop your e-mail checklist

For finest outcomes, guarantee your e-mail advertising and marketing funnel is repeatedly topped up with new leads generated by way of your web site and social media.

YouTube development coach Matt Par (AKA Make Cash Matt) is a grasp at utilizing YouTube for lead gen. Let’s check out how he does it.

First up, Matt created a video explaining methods to earn a living from YouTube with out really publishing your individual content material:

He clearly hit on a standard ache level, as a result of it had racked up 1.9 million views at time of writing.

The video is step one in Matt’s advertising and marketing funnel.

He makes use of the YouTube description to steer viewers towards the subsequent step — his free coaching provide:

Clicking that hyperlink takes you to a devoted touchdown web page on Matt’s web site that spells out the advantages of signing up for the coaching.

When you hit the CTA button…

…you open up a lead seize type that prompts you to pick the popular date on your coaching session and hand over your e-mail handle.

Now Matt can attain out to you through e-mail when he launches new companies or particular gives.

Intelligent stuff!

👉 Study extra: 5 Confirmed methods to develop your e-mail checklist utilizing YouTube

2. Ship welcome emails to new subscribers

You understand what they are saying: you solely get one probability to make an excellent first impression.

Welcome emails are your alternative to reassure new leads that they had been proper to enroll in your publication. Use them to share beneficial info like:

• Your model story and worth proposition
• Explainer movies about your product / service
• Weblog posts tackling widespread viewers ache factors

And you need to contemplate including some type of promotion or incentive to drive first-time purchases, too.

Cosmetics model Duradry has constructed a killer welcome sequence.

For starters, they share some background about their model and the way they created their first antiperspirant merchandise:

Then, within the second step of their welcome sequence, they go into extra depth on how their merchandise work:

Lastly, at step #3, they incorporate a bunch of buyer testimonials (together with video evaluations for added credibility), adopted by a 20% cashback incentive to encourage first-time purchases:

👉 Study extra: Welcome e-mail campaigns: Learn how to onboard new subscribers 

3. Drive conversions with limited-time gives

Quick-term reductions and promotions add an air of shortage and urgency to your emails, which might help you flip publication subscribers into paying prospects.

For instance, on-line coding lessons platform Codecademy shared a limited-time provide giving e-mail subscribers 50% off their premium membership package deal:

That preliminary e-mail was adopted 5 days later by a ultimate warning that the promotion was about to run out:

This mixture of a pretty low cost and a looming deadline provides potential prospects all the inducement they should purchase now.

4. Encourage subscribers to advertise your model by way of evaluations

On-line evaluations play an important function in changing people who find themselves on the consideration stage of the advertising and marketing funnel.

How very important?

Effectively, 98% of buyers say evaluations are an important useful resource when making buy choices, whereas 45% received’t buy a product with no accessible evaluations.

So it pays to construct a relentless stream of evaluations. Make it occur by asking individuals who’ve lately purchased a services or products to evaluation their buy. Then share the outcomes as a part of your e-mail advertising and marketing funnel, identical to pet food model Sundays did right here:

5. Ask prospects to refer family and friends

Opinions aren’t the one means your prospects might help you drive conversions.

They’ll play an much more direct function within the path to buy by encouraging buddies, household, colleagues, and random individuals they meet on the street to purchase your services or products.

How are you going to flip present prospects into model advocates? By constructing a referral program and sharing it together with your e-mail subscribers, identical to digital advertising and marketing company Circles did right here:

This tactic is especially efficient on condition that referrals allow you to attain extra beneficial prospects.

Certainly, an evaluation of just about 10,000 new German financial institution accounts over a 33-month interval discovered that referred prospects:

• Are extra loyal
• Generate larger revenue margins
• Present the next buyer lifetime worth

Create your individual e-mail advertising and marketing funnel

Develop your e-mail technique with the advertising and marketing funnel in thoughts. Doing so, you’ll convert extra prospects into prospects and extra prospects into followers, which implies extra money for your online business. Yay!

And with a device like e-mail automation, it’s simpler than ever earlier than to maneuver individuals by way of your funnel towards advocacy.

Automation options permit you to give every prospect the content material, info, or merchandise they want once they want it most. It personalizes their expertise in any respect areas of the funnel.

And as soon as it’s arrange, you by no means should carry a finger! You’ve successfully arrange an engine that generates passive revenue to gas your ardour.

Begin implementing your e-mail advertising and marketing funnel in your AWeber account. Don’t have an account but. No downside, signing up is fast and straightforward.