Check this out: email marketing funnels are super effective, with an average return on investment ratio of 38:1.
With so many prospects engaging with quality email funnels, it’d be crazy not to create one for your brand’s products or services too.
Wondering how to make a funnel?
You’re in good company. Learn how to create killer email marketing funnels that convert below!
Page Contents
What Is a Click Funnel?
Before we dive into the many benefits of email marketing funnels, we would like to help you understand exactly what they are first. That being said, a marketing funnel is a metaphor for how someone transforms from a so-called prospect to a client.
Moving forward, email marketing funnels are the same thing, except that they only apply to email advertising. Believe it or not, you can use email marketing to turn prospects into clients in no time.
News flash: if you think that email marketing is a thing of the past, you’d be dead wrong. Although email has been around for a long time, its impact hasn’t been forgotten. Despite this fact, email still seems to get lost in the crowd of other marketing tactics.
But here’s the thing. A whopping 83 percent of business-to-business advertisers rely on marketing as one of their main platforms.
While not everyone finds email marketing to be the most effective strategy, that doesn’t mean that it’s not powerful. It just means that you have to do well for it to actually work. Enter email marketing funnels.
To be successful, you must have a strategy that is purposeful enough to target the perfect customer with the perfect content. The first step is to build up your email list. The truth is that even expertly made funnels can’t attract anyone if no one can see it.
If crafting an email list gives you a headache, don’t worry. This is the only step of the email marketing process that doesn’t really have to do with advertising. Moving forward, there are tons of ways to strengthen your online business email list, including:
- Website opt-in forms
- Social media
- Landing pages
But how do you build an email marketing funnel from scratch, anyway?
Three Stages of Email Marketing
Raise your hand if you want to make money while you sleep. If your hand is still in the air, here’s what you have to do. To begin, you must understand the three stages of email marketing, which include:
- Value
- Authority
- Call to action
Feel free to beef up your welcome email with valuable things such as a giveaway, an educational resource, or a free download to entice prospects. This is a great way for potential customers to look up to you as a source of trustworthy information.
Remember: it’s a big no-no try to sell anything in your initial email.
Now that we’ve got that covered, it’s crucial to establish yourself as an authority in your field during your second marketing blast. In this second round of emails, you should let customers know that you are a real “thought leader.” If you are feeling confused, try adding more white papers, cases, or articles to your email campaigns.
Another good idea is to introduce yourself as a startup or a business. Just be sure to avoid misleading email subject lines or click baits at this stage.
Ready take it up a notch?
For those of you who are skilled at writing, it’s time to draft up some irresistible sales copy. In the body of your email, you have to offer a list of perks for your buyer. Using a structured pitch about how your brand solves your client’s problems is a wonderful place to start.
Otherwise, stating the how, what, and why of your service or product is efficient too. For extra credibility, we highly recommend that you also:
- Add social proof by putting social media links
- Share client reviews and testimonials
- Provide a link to your frequently asked questions page
Nurturing Your Email List
If you are curious about nurturing your email lists, remember that you have to start at the beginning of the marketing funnel. Chances are that the majority of the people you’ll be emailing are newbies to your subscription list. To make a long story short, the point is to gain their trust before they interact with your brand.
Let’s talk about building trust via e-mail. Of course, the obvious tactic is to introduce yourself with a sincere welcome email. This email can be automatically sent out to anyone who subscribes to your virtual list.
Warning: you shouldn’t be asking your customers to do anything in this particular email. Instead of a traditional sales pitch, the goal is to highlight the benefits that the user will receive if they choose you as a service provider.
But here’s the kicker. It is going to take a lot more than a warm welcome email to get the ball rolling. If you want to get the party started, you are going to have to take an educational content marketing approach.
This simply means that a ‘thank you for subscribing email’ isn’t enough to get you a solid lead. However, putting in the effort to provide informative content will work, building trust as you go along.
For example, think about a big real estate investment company like BiggerPockets. Their business model involves sending email blasts that provide educational materials such as:
- Blog posts
- E-books
- Return on investment calculators
By using this tactic, BiggerPockets is already reaching out to potential clients with a similar mindset. Combining podcasts and job positions with loads of content, this efficient email marketing funnel is hard to resist.
After years of educational content, it’d be hard for prospects not to turn into regular customers!
How to Convert Leads
Now that we’ve nurtured our leads, it’s time to convert them to make them grow. Let’s say that’s you’ve already gathered a bunch of leads. Not only are they happy to buy from you, but they also trust you with their purchase.
Nonetheless, that doesn’t mean that your job is over. We all know how difficult it is to part with your money, no matter how much you need a product or service. To give your customers a nudge, you’ve got to move on to the convert stage.
As we mentioned above, the email marketing funnel for the real estate company BiggerPockets turns a bit more aggressive after a while. Now, their emails are asking for users to take a call to action, which is pre-ordering a book in this example. Luckily, this tactic is not enough to turn off loyal customers who want more educational content from this brand.
Even if a potential customer doesn’t preorder the book, they might latch onto the next product that is promoted to them instead. This explains why the nurture stage of the email marketing funnel is so important. It’s simple: customers are more likely to take their wallets out for brands that they trust.
The next part of the funnel isn’t as easy. Once a sale is made, the marketing funnel is still open for business. Similar to the nurture stage that we talked about, the retain stage will give you the chance to upsell products to existing clients.
As if that’s not enough, you will also be allowed to send direct content to customers who will get the most enjoyment out of it. For customers a stick around, you’re going to want to keep them happy. In fact, this is even more valuable than the upsell stage is!
Building Your Own Sales Funnel
If you’re interested in building your own email sales funnel, we’ve got you covered. Even though constructing an effective sales funnel is going to take a ton of effort, automation software can make your life much easier with:
- Triggered email funnels
- Autoresponders
Good news – a triggered email funnel will let you start an email automation chain without making you perform the actual task yourself. This is a fantastic way to send a follow-up to pass engagements with the target audience. Plus, it can help you to connect with your leads right away, especially at the moment that they’re the most engaged with your company.
To personalize your automated email campaigns, it’s a wise idea to trigger your content whenever a contact:
- Gets tagged
- Gets added to your list
- Submit an online form on your site
- Clicks on an email link
Do you run a small business?
If so, triggered email campaigns can take care of onboarding email sequences and customer support follow-ups. In addition to this, they can also help you to set up webinar campaigns and email autoresponders. The best part is that triggered email funnels can boost your click-through rates as well.
That’s not all. There’s no harm in using a triggered email blast to promote a new product too. Triggered email funnels can be applied practically anywhere.
From user subscription to PDF content, this lead generator works like a charm. All that you have to do is offer visitors a free PDF document upon subscribing to your email list.
As for autoresponders, this automatic email can be sent to specific people on your subscription list. No matter if customers buy a product or opt-in for a lead magnet, sending autoresponder emails works without fail. Better yet, add an autoresponder email to thank customers!
Drip Campaigns and Behavioral Email Workflows
Here comes the fun part- understanding campaigns and behavioral workmail email workflows.
What on earth is a drip campaign, you ask?
Fair question. In a nutshell, a drip email funnel as a series of triggered emails that are sent on a preset schedule. This works by targeting specific email subscribers to gain a particular result.
Crazily enough, this series of emails contains all of the emails that have been sent through your marketing funnel. For instance, consider a customer who visits a website to download an ebook free of charge. Once he joins the contact list, the customer starts to move down your email marketing funnel.
Of course, the first email that you sent to him will provide value because it contains an interesting ebook. A few days later, you might want to introduce yourself to the customer so that he knows who you are, illustrating the human element behind the brand.
This interaction determines what type of content attracted this particular user to your product. While you’ve got some momentum going, you may decide to send him another blog post related to the same topic as the e-book to nurture your lead.
But here’s the catch: you haven’t even sold this customer a product yet. To do so, you’ve got to move onto behavioral email workflows. If the user that we discussed above fails to download your free e-book, then there could be another customer who will.
Should you treat both customers equally?
The truth is, this isn’t necessarily the best idea. Our general rule of thumb is to treat different leads differently. That’s where e-mail marketing automation comes into play.
Pro tip – if you want to blow your click-through rates through the roof, then craft catchy, direct, and short emails that are easy for users to scan!
Build Killer Email Marketing Funnels Now!
Ready to build killer email marketing funnels now?
Let’s face it: there is no such thing as a free sales funnel. Fortunately enough, we’re the experts on this topic. From nurturing your email list to converting leads, we have everything that you need for your marketing campaign to succeed!
Need a hand in the data funnel department?
Check out our informative blog here!
