4 automated e-mails for your sales funnel

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Jun 2, 2017 / by
4 automated e-mails for your sales funnel

Timing is one of the most crucial elements of email marketing. You don’t want to blast someone with hardcore sales messages as soon as they’ve signed up to your mailing list.

Likewise, you don’t want someone searching the internet for similar products to yours once they’re ready to purchase from you. With an automated drip email campaign, you can send people the right messages depending on where they’re at within your sales funnel.

Matt Wesson, writing for Pardot, states:

Drip campaigns allow you to “touch” leads consistently with relevant information based on time intervals, actions taken by prospects on your website, or other parameters, freeing up valuable marketing and sales resources without neglecting your prospects.

Once an effective drip campaign is ready it’s much easier to scale your business, because you’re not manually messaging every new person that subscribes to your list. Here are 4 types of automated emails you should consider implementing in your email marketing campaigns.

1 – Welcome

Welcome matAs soon as you sign up for someone’s mailing list, it’s great to be greeted with a warm welcome message. If you’re crafting a welcome email, think about what would bring a smile to someone’s face (funny headlines improve your clickthrough rate). If you can convey a bit of your personality, demonstrate your values and remind the person why they’ve signed up to your mailing list, this is a great place to start.

Remember, your initial email should only be used to start building a relationship – this isn’t the right time to start pitching your product and services. Once you’ve left a positive impression with your welcome email, you can move onto the next phase.

2 – Share value

Once someone has signed up to your list and you’re on their radar, start delivering value. In other words, send them quality content containing actionable tips that they can use to enhance their life/business.

In this phase, case studies work well when delivered via email. With case studies, people can learn by example what steps they need to take in order to make improvements. Case studies have the added benefit of conveying your brand in a positive light: as a company that helps others and produces real results.

Free eBooks, webinars and links to high performing blog articles are other things you can share during this phase. If someone engages with this free content (such as by showing up to a webinar), it’s a good indicator that they will be receptive to more sales-heavy content.

3 – Sales

Depending on what kind of engagement you’re receiving, you may wish to segment your list here. If people are showing lukewarm engagement (such as by reading blog posts, but not attending webinars or making downloads) you can launch into soft sales messages.

On the other hand, if someone has browsed numerous pages of your site and has downloaded free resources from you it’s a good indicator that you can send them emails pertaining to specific products and services. By analysing the ways that people have engaged with your site, you will receive better results by emailing them with contextually relevant products.

4 – Loyalty

Some marketers give up on existing customers and spend the vast majority of their time chasing new leads. From a long-term business perspective, this makes no sense. Repeat business should be your lifeblood if you value longevity.

Using list segmentation, it’s wise to target the people who have purchased from you multiple times. These individuals already hold your brand in high regard, so they’re perfect for promoting your loyalty/referral programs.

Conclusion

By automating the bulk of your email marketing, you can free up a lot of time to work on higher value priorities. Email automation is recommended if you want to scale your business (you can still connect with people on a more personal level via social media and at industry events).

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