In professional interaction, Email service plays as significant role as the backbone play in the human body. Consequently, for every organization, regardless of its niche, email acts as an essential channel of communication among all departments.
In addition to this, building an effective email marketing funnel from scratch is an integral strategy. Along with this, it is a very challenging task for all those businesses that are aiming to guide their audience from being casual interest into loyal & paying customers.
In this blog post, we will walk you through a detailed roadmap on how to create a successful funnel within a step-by-step guide, real-life examples, and best practices. Let’s initiate!
Understanding an Email Marketing Funnel
An Email Marketing Funnel is a structured sequence of email interactions that are designed to guide potential customers through multiple stages of the buyer’s journey. This funnel will allow you to provide personalized communication to your customers at every stage while nurturing your relationships with your customers. Not only this, but an effective email marketing funnel also assists in driving the expected result.
Key Benefits of an Email Marketing Funnel
Here are the following & main key benefits of the Email marketing funnel that you can get into your business. This will allow you to manage the journey of your customers at every stage of the purchase. Therefore, let’s have a look at each of the following:-
1. Boosts Engagement:
If you send personalized emails to your customers, you will connect with your recipients satisfactorily. Along with this, it will allow you to make them more likely to engage and respond.
2. Increases Conversion Rates:
The marketing funnel not only allows you to nurture your leads effectively but also authorizes you to drive them toward purchasing decisions. In other words, if your prior customers are not making the purchase from your store anymore then this will compel them to do so.
3. Enhances Retention:
As you will fulfill the priority of your customers using the email marketing funnel then it will also contribute to Keeping your audience engaged with consistent value.
4. Saves Time with Automation:
Within the structured format of funnel-based email marketing, you can utilize the benefits of the pre-scheduled sequences of emails. It will also assist you in streamlining your operations.
How do you build an Email Marketing Funnel from Scratch? | A Step-by-Step Guide
Creating an email marketing funnel is a critical task for everyone. However, here is a simplified way of creating a funnel-based email marketing from scratch.
1. Define Your Goals
To initiate your email marketing funnel, first, you have to define the goal of your business like what you want to accomplish exactly. To figure out your business objective, you need to dive into the technical aspects of it and establish clear objectives. Generally, the stage includes the following:-
- The growth of your email list.
- The increase in product sales.
- You also have to educate your audience about your services.
- The plan for retaining the existing customers through a loyalty program.
For Example:
If you are a fitness coach and aiming to target 1,000 subscribers onboard for a new workout program and convert 20% into paying customers. For this, an Email marketing funnel is the best option, hence you can go for it.
2. Identify Your Target Audience
In this step, you need to have an in-depth understanding of your targeted audience such as demographics, preferences, and pain points. By figuring out, all of this detail, you can treat your audience in a more personalized way by sending them emails more effectively.
How to Identify Your Audience:
To identify your targeted audience, you need to apply all the below-mentioned steps.
- You should conduct surveys to gather insights of your potential customers.
- Also, you have to use tools like Google Analytics, this tool will help you analyze the demographic data of your audience.
- You also need to analyze the feedback and behavior trends of your customers.
For Example:
Suppose you are an e-commerce store that sells sustainable clothes. To do this task, you have to target your eco-conscious millennials interested in ethical fashion. For this, the email marketing funnel will assist you by automating your manual tasks.
3. Create a Lead Magnet
Here, you need to create a lead magnet which is a valuable thing that offers the aspects that attract potential customers to share their email addresses.
Examples of Lead Magnets:
- E-book: If you moving to use the E-book then you can use “10 Tips for Sustainable Living”.
- Checklist: If you are going to make the checklist for your customers then you need to use “The Ultimate Packing List for Eco-Friendly Travel”
- Free Trial: You can also provide an offer such as “A 7-day trial for a fitness app”.
- Webinars: For this, you should organize the webinars like “Educational sessions on niche topics”.
4. Design Your Landing Page
For designing your landing page, you have to capture the leads by promoting your lead magnet and collecting the email addresses.
Here are the Best Practices for a Landing Page:
- Clear Headline: For better design, you also have to highlight the value proposition of your brand.
- Concise Copy: To make your landing page more compelling, you must focus on the benefits, not the features.
- Strong Call-to-Action (CTA): Call-to-action plays a significant role, so always use phrases like "Get Your Free Guide Now."
- Visual Appeal: Here you need to incorporate high-quality images or videos.
For Example:
Imagine, you are a SaaS company that offers project management software to the required one, for this, you must have a landing page with an engaging headline. The heading should be like "Streamline Your Projects Today—Sign Up for a Free Demo" or else.
5. Set Up an Email Marketing Platform
To set up an email marketing funnel you have to choose the right email marketing platform and have to set up the configuration there. For this, you need to select reliable and automated email campaigns and track performance.
Popular Email Marketing Tools:
- Mailchimp: Mailchimp is one of the most user-friendly and feature-rich platforms.
- ActiveCampaign: This one provides advanced automation options.
- ConvertKit: If you are a blogger and creator then this platform is going to suit you in more better way.
- HubSpot: This platform will offer you comprehensive marketing and CRM integration features.
6. Segment Your Audience
In this step of the email marketing funnel, you have to segment your audience. This segmentation will allow you to send personalized emails to your specific groups within your audience.
Common Segmentation Criteria:
- You need to segment the demographics of your targeted audience such as their age, location, gender, income level, occupation, and so on.
- Also predict the behavioral data of your potential customers such as purchase history, and website activity.
- You are also required to know the engagement levels of your customers like active vs. inactive subscribers.
For Example:
Assume that you are a travel agency that needs to segment its list into adventure seekers such as luxury travelers, and budget-conscious tourists. For this, the segmentation stage of the email marketing funnel will assist you in doing so.
7. Create Engaging Email Sequences
This stage of the email marketing funnel allows you to give a sequence to your email that guides your subscribers through various stages of the funnel. Let’s have a look at all the following stages.
Awareness Stage:
- Welcome Email: In the awareness stage of the marketing funnel, you have to send the welcome email that introduces your brand to the customers and sets expectations.
For Example:
if you’re sharing an email such as "Welcome to Green Threads—Discover Ethical Fashion!" then this one will be considered as the welcome email for awareness.
- Educational Content: Here, you have to share educational tips such as tutorials, or industry insights with your potential customers.
For Example:
if you’re sharing an email such as "5 Ways to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint with Sustainable Clothing". This will be considered as the educational email for interest.
Consideration Stage:
- Social Proof and Benefits: In consideration, you have to showcase the testimonials or the case studies as evidence to your potential customers. This will represent you as a
For Example:
if you’re sharing an email such as "See How Our Customers Are Saving the Planet—One Outfit at a Time." This will be considered as social proof or beneficial email for consideration.
8. Use Automation
While creating your email marketing funnel, you need to use the automation. This will allow you to automate your email sequences which will not only save your time but will also drive timely delivery based on user behavior.
Automation Triggers:
- Here you can use New sign-ups in your email funnel.
- You are allowed to use the cart abandonment for your email marketing funnel.
- This will also assist you in completing your purchase.
For Example:
Suppose you are serving as an online bookstore, where you need to send an automated email that will recommend similar books after making a purchase. Hence, automation has been used for your email marketing funnel.
9. Optimize for Mobile
This stage will permit you to drive emails and landing pages that are mobile-friendly. By doing this, you can compel most users to check their emails through their smartphones.
Best Practices:
- While making your mobile responsive email marketing funnel, you need to use well-responsive designs.
- For this, you need to keep your subject lines short and engaging.
- Before you land it in real-time, you need to Test it on multiple devices.
10. Monitor and Improve Performance
In this final stage of the email marketing funnel, you will be able to track the key metrics of your email funnel. By doing this, you can evaluate the effectiveness of your funnel and also can make the all necessary adjustments according to your business and brand needs.
The Key Metrics:
- Here, you will be aware of what benefits you will get by using this monitoring and improving the performance stage. Hence, let’s have a look at all the key metrics.
- Open Rate: Here you will measure how many recipients have opened your emails. That will make you sure whether the person is interested in your services or not.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): You can also use the CTL (Click-Through Rate) in your email, this will help you to indicate the engagement of the users along with proper links.
- Conversion Rate: By tracking the conversion rate of your email marketing funnel, you can know the percentage of subscribers. In addition to this, you can also complete desired actions.
The Required Tools:
- You are required to have the Google Analytics tool.
- You also need to build the analytics from email platforms.
- By having the A/B Testing tools, you can optimize your email marketing funnel. Hence you need A/B testing platforms.
Real-Life Example of an Email Marketing Funnel
The Brand: Here you need a subscription-based meal kit delivery service to drive an effective email marketing funnel.
- Awareness: This will allow you to offer a free recipe eBook as a lead magnet.
- Interest: Here you need to send an email series to your targeted customers. Along with this, you need to use cooking tips and meal-planning advice.
- Consideration: This one will highlight your prior customer-provided testimonials and case studies.
- Conversion: Here you have to share a limited-time discount code for your first-time subscribers.
- Loyalty: This will measure the loyalty of your customer by sending weekly meal suggestions and exclusive subscriber perks.
Final Thought:
Building an effective email marketing funnel from scratch needs a proper and well-working strategy, creativity, and consistent effort. This will allow you to automate the email-sending process and will compel your audience, targeted customers, and potential consumers into paying customers. For this, you need to follow the above step-by-step outlined funnel of email marketing.
This article has covered a step-by-step guide on how to create a well-working and effective email marketing funnel for your business. This will allow you to tailor the unique needs of your business. So, let’s create a funnel that will drive engagement, nurture leads, boost conversions, and a list of others.
