Creating effective email campaigns is as much science as it is art. One of the most useful tools in the marketing space is understanding the buyer’s journey.

 

In a nutshell, it’s a visualization of the steps that a prospect takes to go from having never heard of you to becoming a paying customer.

 

If you match up your email funnel to the steps of the buyer’s journey, you’ll start generating leads at a much faster pace.

 

Struggling with Leads? Align Your Email Funnel to the Buyer’s Journey for Dramatic Results

 

So what is an email funnel? Much like the marketing funnel, it’s a series of stages that serve as a guide for how you should be interacting with prospects.

 

In general, what stage a lead is in will inform what sort of email you should be sending them. For example, you don’t want to send bottom-of-funnel content like discounts to a lead that has only just realized your company exists at all.

 

You want to warm them up and build trust and authority first, so that they’re more likely to buy when the time does come to urge them towards a purchase.

 

 

Email Funnel Stage 1: Attraction

The first stage of the email funnel is the attraction stage, when potential leads find out you exist. It doesn’t necessarily involve email at all. Rather, this is where people enter the funnel by signing up to receive email from you.

 

Getting them to hand over their email addresses is tricky. You need to offer something valuable. That something will vary depending on your industry, activities, and audience. It might be gated content, like access to an eBook or video, or just a subscription to your blog.

 

You may also be pursuing cold email marketing, in which case this step is where you purchase a contact list. However you go about it, gathering contacts is the first step.

 

This step is aligned with the buyer’s journey awareness stage, where the contacts first become aware of your company.

 

 

Email Funnel Stage 2: Engagement

Now that you have a list of contacts, it’s time to start sending emails. The most important thing to keep in mind here is everything you send should be valuable to the recipient.

 

This isn’t the point where you should be pushing a sale, or even a free trial, yet. They aren’t ready for that. Instead, hand them value for free. Point your contact toward an eBook you created that helps solve a problem they have, for example.

 

Every touchpoint at this stage should build trust and establish your authority in your space. The more your recipients engage with your emails and other content, the more they’ll recognize you as a trustworthy source.

 

And then, when you start coaxing them towards a conversion, they’ll be much more receptive.

 

This stage is aligned with consideration in the buyer’s journey. The contact is learning more about your expertise, and begins considering your offer as a potential solution.

 

 

Email Funnel Stage 3: Nurturing

When the recipient has engaged with enough of your content, you can start slowly leading them towards a purchase. Keep sending them the same sort of high-value content that you have been, but start adding in more bottom-of-funnel offers.

 

Special offers, promotions, and free trials are all good examples. You’re still offering them value – but now it’s also in the form of enticement towards a purchase.

 

Powerful calls-to-action are a major tool for you at this stage, as well. Once a contact has made a series of micro-conversions like downloading a PDF or starting a free trial, they’re ripe for you to encourage them to make a purchase.

 

 

Reaching Your Contacts

Of course, none of this will work if your contacts never see your emails in the first place. There’s always a risk of your campaigns landing in spam folders, particularly if you’re using cold contacts.

 

You can maximize your ability to hit inboxes by using Clickback MAIL. It’s an email platform designed specifically for cold email campaigns, and boasts industry-leading deliverability.

 

Unique, powerful features make it easy to create, send and track awesome cold campaigns that don’t scare spam filters.

 

See how it can help you turn cold contacts into warm leads – get a free 1-to-1 demo today!