How to Create a Perfect Email Marketing Funnel – Beginner’s Guide

According to statistics, 89% of marketers use email as the primary lead-generating channel. Every serious digital marketer endeavors to have an effective email list that contains emails of subscribers that are likely to convert. But having a great email list alone is not enough. Effective Email Marketing Funnel is indeed a need of the hour.

You also need to understand your subscriber’s needs or behavior to create email messages that compel them to take the action you desire. That might be to buy a product, subscribe to a blog or online tutorial, etc.

A great way to understand your customer behavior is to use something called an “email marketing funnel.” This is simply a representation or demonstration of your customer journey when they interact with your landing page.

The tool shows how your subscribers move from landing on your sales page, making a purchase, and becoming loyal promoters of your brand. If well-created, an email marketing funnel can enable you to run your marketing strategy more effectively.

Steps on How to Create a Perfect Email Marketing Funnel:

1. Understand The Stages of The Life Cycle of The Customer

A good email marketing funnel demonstrates the fundamental stages of the customer lifecycle. These are as follows.

Discovery-

This is the first stage where the customer discovers your brand once they land on your landing page. They might end up on your page due to your search engine optimization efforts, social media marketing strategy, or them being recommended to you by someone.

Engagement-

At this point, the customer reads your message and checks out your product or service. Thereafter, they may decide to either move to the next stage or leave your site. Taking into account how important this stage is, you want to make sure that your message is engaging and compelling enough. You want to leave the customer with no option but to move to the subsequent stage and take action. You could hire a talented email writer with persuasive skills to help you out here or use tried and tested email templates.

Action-

Now, the customer decides whether to take action or not, depending on the previous step. As said earlier, this may be to purchase the product, subscribe to the service, etc.

Retention-

Your focus shouldn’t end where the customer is taking action. To grow your business, you need to work on ensuring that the customer comes back again and again. Many things can determine your customer retention rate with user experience, customer service, quality, and good prices all being at the forefront.

Key Takeaway: Understand the stages of the life cycle of the customer and incorporate them into your email marketing funnel.

2. Consider Your Buyer Personas

In digital marketing, there’s something called “Buyer Persona.” This is simply your target audience. Most businesses have different buyer personas or target audiences. For example, assuming that you run a blog that offers information on running shoes and also promotes a few products here and there, you’ll have different kinds of target audiences as follows;

Those who come to your blog to purchase running shoes that meet their needs. Those who aren’t interested in buying anything but only want knowledge on the topic. Those who are looking for both knowledge and suitable shoes to buy. Those who are undecided about purchasing and may or not make a purchase, depending on the information you provide.

When creating an email marketing funnel, take the time to think about all types of audiences you can benefit from as opposed to only those who are looking to buy a product. Even though each type of audience may need a tailored email marketing funnel, it’s also possible to develop a one-size-fits-all funnel. Here again, you can work with a good professional to help you craft a message that resonates with the needs of your different types of audiences.

3. Divide The Email Marketing Funnel Into Different Levels

A well-designed email marketing funnel is divided into three different levels; the top level, middle level, and bottom level. The top-level needs to focus on expanding your business’s visibility. It should concentrate on making your target audience aware of your brand. You want to use the top of the funnel to showcase your brand’s authority in the industry.

Once you build sufficient trust and people begin showing an interest in your brand, what you put in the middle level can go a long way in boosting your brand’s growth. The information needs to offer so much value that your visitors are willing to leave their contact information.

And when they do, it means they have become leads that you can tactfully convert into buyers. Here you can include an engaging blog post, case studies, webinars, or product/service pages. The bottom level of the funnel should be designed in a way to encourage conversions.

At this point, you want to present your product or service in a compelling way that inspires your visitors who have already gained trust in you to convert. You could highlight a summary of your product or service, talking about its unique advantages over its alternatives. You could also mention a limited-time offer on it, if applicable.

4. Use The Right Tool to create marketing funnels

Many marketers built their email marketing funnel, using a piece of software. Notably, there are many software products out there purporting to help users build great EMFs. Unfortunately, not all work as advertised. Yet using poor quality software will make it difficult for you to create the best email marketing funnel you can.

Therefore, be sure to take the time to search for reliable software that will do a great job for you. ClickFunnels, Convertkit, Mailerlite, Campaign Monitor, and Zoho Campaigns are good options to consider. According to statistics, ClickFunnels remains the most popular choice with nearly 55% of the market share.

However, depending on what stage of the funnel you’re working on, various tools might fit your needs better. This review of Convertbox provides very positive feedback on the tool’s lead generation capabilities. Whatever tool you choose to go with, make sure to read reviews thoroughly before signing up.

Wrap Up

An email marketing funnel is an important part of every online business. It’s one of the most critical components of a good email marketing campaign. Did you know that buyers who buy products through email spend 138% more than those that purchase through other avenues?

As such, building one is crucial to establishing a successful online business that generates a powerful income stream. Unfortunately, many digital marketers are never passionate about the task as they find it confusing.

Many of them don’t know where to start, what they’re supposed to be doing, or what to use. Fortunately, this blog post shares simple insights on how to create a perfect email marketing funnel.

Get to know more about other relevant articles here: