How An Email Marketing Funnel Works From Prospect To Loyal Customer

By Sean Tinney March 16, 2023

You can spend hours designing and writing a compelling electronic mail sequence that explains the superb advantages of your product.

However if you happen to don’t have a start-to-finish plan for connecting along with your prospects at each stage of their buyer journey, you’re losing your time.

Fortunately, there’s a advertising and marketing software that may assist you determine how you can talk along with your prospects and prospects whether or not they’ve simply joined your listing, or they’ve been long-time prospects.

It’s known as the advertising and marketing funnel.

The brand new advertising and marketing funnel

You is likely to be accustomed to the cone-shaped advertising and marketing funnel. This old-school model of the advertising and marketing funnel required you to repeatedly fill the highest of the funnel with as many individuals as doable since just a few individuals traveled all through to advocacy.

However it’s time to throw that old-school advertising and marketing funnel out the window.

The issue with this model of the advertising and marketing funnel is that it tells you advertising and marketing efforts finish on the level of buy. After an individual turns into a paying buyer, your job is finished.

However that’s not an efficient technique to develop your corporation.

As an alternative, we advocate you observe the brand new advertising and marketing funnel that appears extra like a bow tie that’s vast on the left, slender within the center, and vast on the fitting.

Your relationship along with your buyer shouldn’t finish on the backside of the cone-shaped advertising and marketing funnel. As an alternative, deal with buyer retention simply as a lot as you deal with lead era.

Why? As a result of glad prospects usually tend to share nice model experiences with their household and mates. These loyal prospects grow to be advocates in your model and so they have the facility to drive extra leads for you.

Advertising to prospects after they purchase from you is simply as essential as advertising and marketing to prospects earlier than they purchase from you.

Want proof? The numbers communicate for themselves: 84% of shoppers will take motion based mostly on suggestions from individuals they know.

And there’s a unprecedented upside to emphasizing buyer retention in your advertising and marketing funnel: extra money in your pocket. You will have heard of the Pareto Precept in advertising and marketing, which says that 80% of your earnings come from simply 20% of your prospects. 

So if you happen to’re not advertising and marketing to your prospects, you’re shedding out on large earnings.  

Let this be your wakeup name. That is your alternative to create a deeper relationship between you and your buyer. Get suggestions from them, and apply it to content material throughout all of the advertising and marketing funnel phases. 

On this put up, we’ll present you how you can construct a robust electronic mail advertising and marketing funnel.

5 advertising and marketing funnel phases

Now that you just perceive what the advertising and marketing funnel is, I’ll describe the phases of the advertising and marketing funnel and provide you with electronic mail advertising and marketing methods for every stage.

1. Consciousness

Consciousness is the primary of the advertising and marketing funnel phases.  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 exhibit your worth to prospects by means 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. 

The best way to use electronic 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 making an attempt to show your prospect into paying prospects and also you’re utilizing electronic mail as your most important supply of communication. Listed below are some concepts for content material you may embody in an automatic electronic mail sequence to your prospects:

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

(Listed below are 25 sensible lead magnet concepts to develop your electronic mail listing proper now.)

Right here’s an instance:

Health influencer Kayla Itsines builds a relationship together with her prospects by displaying 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 enroll, 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 prepared to contemplate buying your companies or merchandise. They’re involved in studying extra about you and what you possibly can supply them.

Since you already know extra about your prospect on this advertising and marketing funnel stage than you probably did throughout the consciousness stage, you possibly can 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 displaying them that you just perceive them. 

The best way to use electronic mail within the consideration stage

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

Let’s say that you’re a web-based vitamin coach making an attempt to get extra results in contemplate buying your 8-week vitamin course. Listed below are just a few examples of content material you may embody in your emails:

• A testimonial or case research displaying how different prospects acquired success along with your course
• A reside vitamin webinar
• Your free podcast episodes, the place you speak about most of the rules you train in your course

Right here’s an instance:

On this electronic mail, OptimizeMe features a testimonial from a buyer who noticed nice success after buying the masterclass. The testimonial is suitable throughout the consideration stage, as a result of it pertains to prospects’ pursuits (vitamin) and introduces them to the product (8-Week Diet Necessities Masterclass) whereas displaying the worth of what they’ve to supply.

3. Conversion

It has lastly arrived: determination 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 means 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 in your prospect. Deal with the advantages of your product/service moderately than simply explaining options.

The best way to use electronic mail within the conversion stage

Listed below are just a few techniques you should 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 electronic mail sequence that describe a special 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 electronic mail that provides a sale or low cost for buying inside a sure timeframe

Right here’s an instance:

By providing reductions and offers by way of electronic mail, Freshly creates a way of urgency for his or her prospects. If prospects are involved in buying however haven’t but, this electronic mail convinces them that now’s the proper 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 following prospect. Nonetheless, forgetting about your prospects is a foul concept.

Except you will have a plan for growing buyer loyalty, you’ll most likely lose lots of your prospects, losing numerous your prior advertising and marketing efforts throughout the earlier advertising and marketing funnel phases.

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

The best way to use electronic mail within the loyalty stage

Let’s say you will have 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 just a few concepts for precious content material you may embody in your emails to extend retention:

• A month-to-month reside stream to YouTube that describes the coffee-of-the-month and offers espresso brewing finest practices.
• A survey that asks prospects how glad they’re with the coffees they’re receiving and what other forms 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:

To retain their prospects and encourage loyalty, Canva sends academic emails to show their prospects how you can use Canva.

 5. Advocacy

Advocacy occurs when your prospects grow to be one thing greater than prospects: they grow to be followers. 

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

The best way to use electronic mail within the advocacy stage

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

• Determine prospects that love you and ship them an electronic mail asking them to refer you to their mates
• Embrace a survey in an electronic 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
• Have interaction along with your advocates by replying to their emails, posting on social media, providing incentives for writing critiques and taking part in testimonials

You additionally need to accumulate suggestions throughout this stage. The extra you take heed to your prospects, the extra you possibly can study and enhance your content material so it’s consistent 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 need to 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, Godiva affords reductions to their unique rewards members.

Create your individual electronic mail advertising and marketing funnel

Develop your electronic 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 corporation. Yay!

And with a software like electronic mail automation, it’s simpler than ever earlier than to maneuver individuals by means of your funnel towards advocacy.

Automation options mean you can 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 elevate a finger! You’ve successfully arrange an engine that generates passive earnings to gas your ardour.

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