Let me tell you a secret. The most powerful marketing tool in your business is your email list. More than just a way to announce sales, emails are marketing that your audience has agreed to. They’ve said, “I like what you’re putting down and I want to be in the know of your brand.” So keep them in the know, tell your audience exactly what you will do for them to make their lives easier by putting them into an email sales funnel.
You Are Not Spam
There’s resistance in doing this isn’t there? You don’t want to be spam, you don’t want them to annoy them and heaven forbid they unsubscribe from you list.
But here’s the thing, you are paying to have those people on your list. All of them. Whether you send them emails or not, whether they spend money or not, you pay to have them at the party. This isn’t social media where people can come and go at no cost to you. Email marketing is more powerful partly because it’s something you invest in. If you aren’t marketing to your audience while keeping them engaged by providing value, you are actually wasting your money.
To take this one step further, if someone is on your list and they have no intention of purchasing from you, you want them to unsubscribe. The numbers of your list size are vanity numbers, there are lists with 100 people on them that have businesses working overtime and lists with 40,000 people that are get nothing when it comes to conversion. Engagement is goal, not the number of followers.
My Recipe For An Email Sales Funnel
Before you even begin writing your emails there are two things you need to be clear on–Your brand profile and your client profile. I have both these profiles outlined in my freebie library which you can access here. Before you start writing ANY copy you need to know who you are as a brand and whom you serve. What are the pain points your audience is facing? How do you solve them? What will their life look like once they have you in it? These are all important because so much of your marketing copy for an email sales funnel or anything else will be based on these questions.
So how do you even begin to create an email sales funnel for your audience. Well my dear, that’s exactly what I’m going to break down for you. It all starts with them making a purchase or signing up for a freebie. However they enter into engaging with your brand is where you want your sales funnel to be. From there it’s a simple recipe.
- Email 1 – Welcome Email: This email welcomes them to your brand. Whether they opted in for a freebie or made their first purchase. You want an email that says welcome and thanks for being a part of the community.
- Email 2-3 – Name the Problem: A few days after receiving the welcome email they should get an email that highlights one of the main pain points. (That one you outline in your client profile). Speak here with empathy, stating that you know how it feels. Acknowledge the pain they’re going through and then offer the solution. You’ll create 2 different emails each one highlighting 1 specific pain and they should be sent out about a week apart from each other.
- Email 4 – Testimonials + Social Proof: Here you show your audience that you know what you’re doing and you have the proof. Testimonials, companies you’ve worked with, or publications you’ve been featured in are all social proof.
- Email 5 – Resistance: Every brand gets resistance to their products, whether it’s the price, fear of quality, not sure that it’s needed, or something else. This email names the resistance that you most often hear from customers about why they might not buy your product and then you tell them why that’s wrong or how they could think differently. If it’s the price you might talk about how you only buy once and have it forever so in the long run you actually save.
- Email 6 – The Sale: This is the email we’ve all been waiting for, the sales email. You take bits and pieces from the emails before creating the final email that should really bring them in. Start by stating their problem again, show empathy, bring in a short testimonial, and then give them your offer. You can also include an illustration of what their future could look like with you in it. And if you really want to land the sale, give them a special discount that’s only good for a limited time so that they have to make a decision now.
Put It Into Action
This six-part sales email funnel will help you connect with your customers on a much deeper level. We, as consumers, need to know clearly what our problem is and how to solve it. Solving it is the job of the brands we buy from, that’s why we pay for it. Your marketing needs to explain clearly what someone is going through, so your customer can picture themselves, how you solve it, and what the future holds for them. That’s the hero’s journey and it’s the storytelling mechanism that has been ingrained into our cultures for thousands of years. It’s a universal language.
Just as important as the storytelling element is the timing. Every great story pauses for dramatic effect and knows just when to lay down the punch line. The same is true with your emails. I like the vary the time between emails so that it’s not on an exact schedule. Usually 5-7 days between emails. This provides some breathing room so that your audience doesn’t feel like they’re getting spammed.
Of course, you can test this out with your own emails. See how the open rates and conversion rates look. Most email software will track these numbers so that you can what is and isn’t working. The same is true when it comes to the emails themselves. Some will perform beautifully and others might fall on their face. You can try updating the copy or removing them altogether from your funnel until you have something that works for your brand.
Your Email Sales Funnel
Start with their problem. Highlight what solution you offer. Illustrate what their future could look like. Then test out your emails and adjust as needed. These are the four simple steps to creating an email sales funnel that converts.
