Companies all have the same desire: to make customers and to keep them forever. To be able to maintain this goal is yet another issue. There are various ways used to attain this goal.
Marketing funnels come to play at this very point. A marketing funnel is a tool to better understand a potential customer’s steps from the first contact until purchase. To give a better idea, here is an example: A user who wants to buy a book should first visit a website, look into the product, choose it and add it to the cart and conclude the purchase.
It is called a “funnel” because the number of people decreases at each step; some of them exit the process, forming a funnel shape.
What is an email marketing funnel?
Now that we have an idea of what is a marketing funnel, we can move on to email marketing funnels, specifically. An email marketing funnel is how a brand’s mail subscribers experience the journey from the initial impact to the realization of conversion via email.
Why do I need an email marketing funnel?
A brand should understand customer behavior to create a long-term relationship with customers. If you know at which stages, a buyer leaves the process without concluding the purchase and becoming a customer, you can strengthen them for future purchases.
How to create an email marketing funnel?
Before moving on to the process stages, you should have collected a notable number of email addresses of potential customers. You will need a lead magnet (a prize such as a discount or a gift you provide for the users’ contact details) to collect the necessary information.
Furthermore, to create an email marketing funnel, one should be able to answer the below questions:
- Do you know your audience well?
It is important to understand your target audience properly. To be able to create content that will be appealing, one should first know what is attractive to the said group. Moreover, the content will differ accordingly if you are interacting with businesses rather than direct consumers.
- Are potential buyers aware of the brand whatsoever or not? At which stages are they in the journey?
This will affect the content created. If the buyers don’t know about you at all, instead of getting into too much detail in your initial contacts, it would be better to first establish an overall idea of your brand in the user’s mind with general information. If, on the other hand, they are at the conversion stage, you may include incentives to lead them to purchase.
- Do they consider your brand to be a good alternative among other substitutes?
Your brand should come forward compared to competitors. If not, the customer will not proceed to other stages leading to purchase; therefore, you should have a good positioning in their mind that differs from alternatives.
- Can they reach all the information needed to make a final decision?
You should provide all data that a customer may require. Additional immediate assistance would be a plus.
- Which are the steps where the most potential clients are lost? What can be improved?
This is crucial to understanding customer behavior; also, this is the reason the funnel is used in the first place.
- What marketing tools can you use to create an email marketing funnel?
EmailOctopus, Zoho Campaigns, and Omnisend are alternatives you may use. You can find many more online.
What are the five stages of the marketing funnel?
The steps can be considered as follows:
- Awareness: This is where you catch their attention through your content. The potential buyers become aware of the brand; therefore, it should be informative but not so detailed as to bore the reader.
- Interest: At this point, they want to know more about the brand’s products and services. You succeeded in catching their eye, and now you need to keep their interest. It is good to put your website link here for further exploration. You should prove how you can satisfy their specific needs.
- Conversion: If you’ve done everything right, the potential customers now are willing to become actual buyers. Facilitate their experience by adding direct purchase links in your email. Also, the information on your website should be parallel with the email to avoid confusion and misunderstanding.
- Loyalty: After completing the purchase, you should be able to maintain the interaction in order to prevent the communication from being one-off. You may send additional information on the product / service bought; or on complementary items. The main purpose is to keep the engagement with the customer.
- Advocacy: This is where the customer starts recommending your products and services. You can keep track of customer reviews and send follow-up emails to better understand if they are happy with their experience.
What are the benefits of email marketing funnel?
The email marketing funnel helps you better understand the customer journey, their decision mechanism, and at which stages a brand loses potential buyers. You can then strengthen the related steps and turn one-time purchasers into loyal customers as well as decrease the number of people who exit the process.
On the other hand, once you identify the customers’ specific needs, you will address them more personalized ways. Considering the fact that everybody likes to be treated specially, tailor-made interactions would increase the chance of getting their attention.
It is also beneficial for the brands to stay in touch with their audience. Ongoing communication is vital to be in the mind of the customers and all potential buyers.
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