The primary goal of a digital marketer is to grow, nurture, and retain an online presence. The marketing process follows a stepwise approach to retain customers and attract new ones. This stepwise approach is also known as the marketing funnel. Through a marketing funnel, a website visitor turns into a customer. Each step of the funnel is designed to attract, convert, and retain customers. 

An email funnel is similar to a marketing funnel. It is an automated process that facilitates email marketing and measures its efficacy in converting leads. White label email service is also another great way to do a lead generation apart from the sales funnel but can create more opportunities. 

Are you still confused? Want to know how emails boost conversion?

A sequence of emails scheduled to send to potential customers makes up the marketing funnel. The conversion of leads into customers through emails is the fundamental principle of the email marketing funnel.  

But why exactly is there an email marketing funnel?

Let’s delve into some of the email marketing statistics to stress the importance of emails in customer acquisition. 

• Half of the world’s population will be email users by 2023 i-e, 4.3 billion people, so anybody who says email marketing is becoming obsolete, show them this figure
• For every $1 you spend on email marketing, the estimated ROI amounts to $42 
• 80% of the SMBs trust email marketing for customer conversion, while 81% for customer retention

Stepwise creation of the funnel

Web traffic (Visitor) → Subscriber → Lead → Customer → Returning Customer 

Email funnel caters to these stages of the customer journey. Email sequences take educational, promotional, and informational aspects to create needs that further translate into purchase and B2B sales. 

Marketers anticipate the response and needs of the customer and generate emails appropriate for that stage and time. 

The three primary stages or steps of the email funnel include 

Lead Generation – Top of the funnel  

Source: https://www.rakacreative.com/blog/inbound-marketing/how-why-lead-generation-strategies-are-changing/  

Being a marketer, you have more control over your email marketing strategy and email list than your social media following. To generate more leads through email marketing, you first need to collect email addresses. 

Popup, forms, and Landing Pages 

You do so by opt-in forms, popups, and landing pages. In the lead generation part, we must focus on engaging the customer through newsletters and other exciting offers and announcements. The opt-in forms and popups collect the email addresses of those interested in our business and therefore subscribed. 

Lead Nurturing – Middle of the funnel

After generating leads, nurturing those leads is a crucial step. Our goal is to keep the subscribers engaged and excited. Create segmented email lists and send out personalized emails to each segment. Marketing automation takes care of the email segmentation and sequencing of emails according to their demographics. Lead nurturing email efforts are usually value-focused, customized, and directly targeted. 

Besides this, if we customize Shopify product pages according to the funnel strategy we will be able to capture more leads.

Relationship Building

Lead nurturing involves developing a personalized and good relationship with your potential customer. Customize your emails based on customer behavior, their activities, their digital footprint, and information. Send them testimonials, or reviews from your existing customers, your success stories, or case studies.  

Lead Conversion – Bottom of the funnel

Do not get over-excited if your subscribers successfully make it past the upper two stages. Yes, that is a good sign, but there is still a lot to do for that final push. After making it through the top and middle stages, you are ready to hit the conversion point. 

You managed to score a healthy relationship with your customer. Now is the moment to elicit an emotional response from your subscribers. Continue sending personalized messages. Focus on the value you are providing them. Address them with their names. Send thank-you notes and welcome notes but make sure you do not spam their inbox. 

At the bottom of the funnel, you basically take a more aggressive conversion approach. Target and retarget when the desired response does not come up. 

Retarget for abandoned cart purchases 

Retarget when needed, for example, when there are abandoned cart incidences. You send scheduled emails to your subscribers to make them complete their final purchase. 

Time-sensitive offers

Send time-sensitive offers like “valid for 24 hours” and “expires soon.” Providing them with an urgent call to action offer or deadline gives them a reason to take action. 

Personalized offers 

Sending gift cards, anniversary offers, and holiday coupons will make them feel special, and this is exactly the emotion you want to tap. Trigger emotions through personalization and evoke the desired response. 

Free trial offers 

Make discount or sales offers in the last stage to warm up your leads. Give them free trial options of your services and products to develop their trust. 

Congratulations! You have successfully made conversions. But, do not fool yourself by thinking that your job here is done. Retaining those customers is again one hell of a task. Long-term loyalty, brand advocacy, and positive word of mouth are your goals eventually for greater ROI. 

Why Repeat?

Repeat the funnel steps for the following reasons, 

• To retain customers
• Whenever you make any change in your business
• To increase brand awareness 
• To build brand loyalty 

That’s all, folks 

Creating an email sales funnel is not a difficult task. Marketing automation takes care of everything today. You can boost conversion rates with a bit of elbow grease, reasonable sales offers, customer-focused marketing, and intelligent planning. Focus on engaging the right people for your brand. Take timely decisions and offer to attract them. 

Focus on your email marketing strategy. Make your emails valuable and informative. Your emails are a direct way into your customer’s personal space. Make them count.

Sania Khan

Sania Khan is a content creator at Mailmunch who has been writing for the past seven years. A content marketer by day and a poet by night, she previously worked for a large multinational and left it to pursue her passion for writing. She enjoys a good read with wit and tea to get her day started!