Email automation funnel is great if you have big goals in your business. With an email automation funnel in place, you can build solid influence among customers and an effective sales process. In addition, you can generate more leads, convert those leads to customers, and then delight them to be your brand advocates.
Continue reading to know more about the email automation funnel and the different stages of the email funnel.
What is an Email Automation Funnel?
The email automation funnel outlines the customer journey from the top of the funnel to the bottom of the funnel. It is a form of content strategy that adds value to each stage in the funnel. So the goal is to attract new customers, keep them moving in your funnel, and turn them into loyal customers.
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Advantages of Building an Email Automation Funnel
Building an email marketing funnel will help you make long-term revenue for your business. Here are the significant advantages of building an email marketing funnel to your business:
- You will get more leads.
- Helps you convert leads into buyers.
- Turn customers into brand ambassadors.
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5 Stages to Create High Converting Email Automation Funnel
A successful funnel is all about creating and sharing relevant content with your customer base. The more relevant you are, the better your customers act. This will help you to enhance your user experience with your audience and also improves your email deliverability rate by avoiding emails going to spam. In addition, it provides value to your customers at each stage of the funnel, nurtures the relationship, and eventually converts them down to sales.
Now that you know what an email automation funnel is, I’ll go ahead to define the high converting marketing funnel stages and provide you with the best strategies for each stage.
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Conversion
- Loyalty
- Advocacy
Stage #1 – Awareness
Awareness is the first of the funnel stages. During this stage, your customers will learn about you and your brand. So, you can captivate this chance to develop a good rapport with your customers. Your focus should not be too much on your product or service at this funnel stage but rather on giving people true knowledge.
Obviously, they’ll not be interested in buying from you at the first instance because they’re unsure about what you’ll deliver to the table. It would be best if you gave a sense that you are a master in your subject. Here, you can show your credibility to customers through free, useful, and relevant content in this phase of the funnel.
The best way to capture leads in the first interaction is through delivering free resources. Here are some content options that you can include:
- Free Ebooks
- Downloadable resources
- Whitepapers
- Checklists and cheat sheets
- Templates
- Sales promos and discounts
This will pave the way for you to build a solid relationship with your customers. Remember, your end goal is to make your customers believe that you’re helping them out rather than selling them.
Look at this email template, likewise, when your customer signs up, you can send them an email with coupons. This develops a positive impact on your brand.
Stage #2 – Consideration
When a customer passes the awareness stage, they hit the stage of consideration. Here, the customer is prepared to consider buying your services or products in the consideration stage. Also, they’ll be willing to know more about you and your offerings.
As you know better about your customer, you can give them more tailored content that deals with their particular pain points. This helps develop credibility between your customer and your brand.
Now is the time to uncover more about your brand and help them comprehend more about your offerings. Here, you can share the following kinds of content:
- How-to articles
- Newsletters
- Case studies
- Frequently asked questions
- Webinars
- Instructional videos
So, just focus on delivering on what they want, not being too salesy. Try showing them how they can benefit from your product or service and concentrate on crucial points it solves. The bottom line is to give thorough knowledge on what you do and move them to your next marketing funnel. Another essential point to consider is that having a clear call to action allows them to take necessary action.
Stage #3 – Conversion
This is the perfect stage to convert leads to customers. In the previous stages, you informed your customers about products and services. Now it’s time to take the decision. Once they reach the conversion stage, they’ll start to differentiate your offering from your competitors and how it can benefit them.
To convert your leads in this stage, you must map out the advantages of your services and offerings. Make sure to create a sense of urgency in them that this will not be available forever. Make your deals and offers enticing enough to take action. Highlight your customer reviews and videos of your products. Here is the list of content you can share at this stage funnel:
- Customer testimonials
- Free trials
- Comparison boards
- Incentives
- TIme-sensitive offers
- Retargeting ads
You can make certain things easier to drive your customers to conversion. Here are a couple of things you can do:
- Determining the significant roadblocks or queries in their buying journey. And remove them.
- Must have a clear call to action in the email copies to take the right action quickly.
- Must have the same look and feel in the website and email content to provide a smooth experience everywhere.
Furthermore, you can send time-sensitive offers through emails, this will entice the customer to take action. Look at this example email:
The point here is to engage them with what matters most. So, your job is to sketch a highly personalized content strategy that will take them to hit the buy now button.
Stage #4 – Loyalty
At this stage, your customer must have already bought some of your products and offerings. But it’s not entirely done. Without a proper plan to retain the customer, you’ll undoubtedly lose many of your customers.
Remember, Retention and relationship development with customers help you maximize your customer lifetime value and boost your marketing profit.
In this stage, you should concentrate on nurturing a solid relationship with your customers and helping them out in the buying journey to retain them. To make them your loyal customer, you can provide them any form of supporting content, right from delivering them simple suggestions to a complete video course on using your product/service.
In this stage, you can send relevant content to your customers to improve their buying process:
- Loyalty program
- Birthdays or anniversaries offer
- Subscription reminder
More ways to keep your customers engaged:
- To keep your customers involved and stay on top sending them weekly update reports or technology updates.
- You can upsell and cross-sell products based on their purchasing history. But, remember, don’t be too pushy.
- Promote loyalty programs that encourage your customers to spread the word about your products and offerings, which will, in turn, increase brand value.
- Sending a reminder email with the right information at the right time will make help your customers realize they’re running of time and this will improve the retention rate. You can also try something like London bridge to retain your customer.
The end goal is to convert your customer to a regular buyer. Make them feel they are doing an excellent job purchasing with you.
Stage #5 – Advocacy
Advocacy is the ultimate and final stage in the email funnel. Here, you transform your customers into ‘fans’ and make the, spread the word about your services. Because in the previous stages, you’ve done things that helped you convert your customers into brand advocates.
It is incredibly valuable to bring customers to this stage of the marketing funnel. Here, you can make use of referral marketing. A recommendation or referral from a satisfied customer will positively impact your products and offers since most people buy if their friends tell certain products to be good because they trust their friends. You can take advantage of this and promote referral marketing.
Next, you can collect reviews from your customers. This will help you improve your brand value as well as update the issues, requirements, and desires of your customers. You can try out tools like BayReviews to collect reviews easily and instantly.
Some more ways to turn your customers into brand advocates:
- Add a survey in your email to know the needs and wants of your customers.
- Implement loyalty programs to encourage your customers to promote your products.
- Consistently engage your customers through emails, social media.
- Provide time to time offers and incentives to entice them to buy more products.
Following the above points, you can delight your brand advocates. With this, your brand has more brownie points that let you stand out in the eyes of your customers.
In order to make your customers feel more special, you can also try out something like London bridge.
Start Building Your Email Funnel
Now that you’ve seen various stages of the email marketing funnel. Here’s a quick glimpse to get started:
- Generate leads with free resources, lead magnets, and cheat sheets.
- Nurture those leads with tailored content that address their pain points.
- Convert them with time-sensitive offers, free trials, and retargeting ads.
- Keep them involved and engaged with loyalty programs.
- Continue to make your customers happy with the time to time incentives and turn into a brand advocate.
Implement your email marketing strategies with this email funnel. This will ultimately help you to convert your leads into customers to brand advocates.
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