How To Build An Email Marketing Sales Funnel

An effective email marketing sales funnel can put your business on autopilot. You can consistently turn prospects into paying customers – if you structure your emails the right way. It’s called a funnel because your audience enter into it at the top when they give you their email address in exchange for your opt-in offer and then work their way deeper into it, getting more targeted offers along the way.

When crafting an email marketing sales funnel that will work well, there are four key elements to pay attention to.

The Fantastic 4 Elements For Your Email Marketing Sales Funnel

1. Subject Line Length

The subject line is the most important part of your email, because without a good one your email will never get opened. No matter how brilliant the message in your email is, no one will ever read it unless you have a great subject line that grabs attention. Think of it as the headline in a newspaper or on a blog. People will scan the headlines to decide if a particular article is worth reading.

Get them curious and use keywords related to the niche or industry you are working in. Studies have shown that 20 characters or less gives you a much higher chance of your email getting opened.

Also add personalization.

FREE Checklist: Create An Effective Sales Funnel
 
2. Personalization

In most email marketing platforms, it will offer a code you can insert in order for the person’s name they registered with to pull into the email you send. Studies have shown that using the personalization feature in the subject line makes it 50% more likely to get opened. Saying their name at important points in your message can bring the message home in new way.

However, don’t over use personalization. If you use somebody’s name too much it can begin to sound a little bit creepy. But, if you have a first name, you can send your email to, “Dear John,” instead of no one. This helps to make your email more personal to the recipient instead of like a mass email. When you write your email, write it as though you were just sending it to one person, instead of “all” your subscribers at once.

3. Message Type

The first paragraph in your email should get your reader interested and lure the recipient into reading more. There are two reasons for this. The first is obvious. People only spend about 15 to 20 seconds scanning any email they have actually opened, so the content you put at the beginning is key to getting them to read on.

The second is that many email clients show the first sentence of an email as a “teaser” copy after the subject line, so those scanning through their email box can decide what to keep, trash, or read later.

All the messages in your email marketing funnel should have an objective. Before you write your email, decide what type it is. The emails you send will vary depending on the email market platform you use and how sophisticated it is. There are several to choose from, including:

• Welcome emails: Every list needs a welcome email to greet the new subscriber and tell them what to expect.
• Follow-ups: These can be pre-loaded and sent out automatically according to a particular schedule. This is very useful for eCourses and evergreen content that won’t go out of date. The emails will help you build a relationship with your target audience. They will be informational but some might be promotional.
• Broadcast email: In contrast to follow-ups, this one is time-sensitive. It might be related to a special sale, an upcoming public holiday, and so on.
• Reactivation:  A reactivation email can be sent in order to stimulate action from people on your list who have gone quiet and not taken any action recently. You can send them a great offer they would feel foolish to refuse.
• Abandoned Cart: With some integrated eCommerce programs, the prospective customer’s behavior is tracked. An abandoned cart email will remind them their cart is full and suggest that they like to complete their purchase.
• Browse abandonment: Browse abandonment emails are sent when a person whose email address you have has been at your site and looked at an item more than once, browsed several items in a specific category (e.g. “earrings”), or clicked a specific product in an email to view a product page. Your email would then invite them back to make a purchase. You can create these campaigns with certain integrated eCommerce platforms.

4. Call To Action

The call to action will depend on where your subscriber is within your email marketing sales funnel.  Tell them what to do, and make it as easy as possible for them to do it. It might be to click a link to learn more, complete a survey, buy now and so forth. The email should be enough to make it perfectly logical for them to take the action you suggest.

If you’re sending a promotional email designed to sell a product, include the features of the item and the benefit/s of those features. For example, leather seats are often mentioned in promo materials for cars. What are the main benefits?

• Easy to clean
• Durable
• Stylish

Also make it as risk-free as possible to do business with you by offering a 100% money-back guarantee.

Studies have shown that the postscript (P.S.) of an email is often one of the most read parts of the entire email, so make it count. Summarize your great offer and include the call to action, and your personalized and well-constructed emails should get you the results you desire.

Free Checklist To Create Your Email Marketing Sales Funnel

These four elements above will make all the difference to your email marketing sales funnel. Email marketing is effective, but like race car driving, it’s only as effective as the person behind the wheel. It’s important to know how to use email correctly to get the kind of results that you want. For more information about the marketing funnel stages, download my free checklist, Marketing Funnel Tactics which outlines the best practices for turning your email subscribers into customers.