Email is an integral part of any successful marketing campaign. A strong email marketing strategy helps you connect with the target audience in a highly personalized manner. It builds relationships, converts leads, and turns customers into brand ambassadors.
Incorporating email marketing into your campaign can raise its ROI to 4200%. It does this by boosting retention and moving prospects down the marketing funnel.
Moving Prospects down the Marketing Funnel
A marketing funnel describes a consumer's journey with your company, from awareness to conversion. The three stages of the funnel are:
- TOFU (top of the funnel) — at this "awareness" stage, marketers focus on attracting a wide target audience by making them aware of the problem to be solved.
- MOFU (middle of the funnel) - at this stage, marketers convert leads into prospects by offering them a solution to their problem.
- BOFU (bottom of the funnel) — at this stage, marketers help the audience make an informed purchase decision.
As soon as your prospects are past the awareness stage and share their contact details, you can start the email marketing campaign. At this point, they become leads.
Being top of mind, via their inbox, you can strengthen your lead nurturing efforts and guide potential clients through awareness and consideration to conversion.
Once the lead converts, email marketing can help build loyalty and nurture retention. This is essential to building a proper relationship with the audience at all the stages of the marketing funnel.
However, first, you must get the prospect’s email address.
Getting the Email Address
Your email marketing campaign starts with acquiring an email address. If you already have a solid marketing strategy in place, getting an address is more than half the job.
Acquiring an address requires a strategy on your part. A few ways you can collect email addresses are to:
1. Offer Something In Return
People are ready to share their contact information in return for something valuable. This could be in the form of:
- Free content (e-books, newsletters, studies)
- Coupons for your products
- Early access to a new product or sale
Make sure that what you offer is truly valuable and relevant to the target customer. Otherwise, they have no reason to give you their email address.
Promote the offer:
- During a radio ad
- On your website
- Through a social media lead-generation form
- With display and paid search ads
2. Ask for It
Some clients are ready to give up addresses without expecting anything in return. When they visit your website or a brick-and-mortar location, ask them to fill out a contact form so you can keep in touch.
You can also ask your existing clients to share your email promo with the people they know. "If you like this email, forward it to a friend" goes a long way toward collecting new addresses.
3. Host a Contest
Contests work well on both digital and traditional marketing channels. Sharing an email address is the “price” for entering a contest.
Adding bonuses to the prize if participants promote your contest through social media can boost engagement and entries.
Email List Management & Reputation
Once you build an email list for your marketing campaign, make sure to clean it up. People tend to make typos when sharing their information or leave non-existent addresses to get something valuable but avoid revealing personal information.
When an email reaches a non-existence address, it is called a “bounce.” If your emails receive too many bounces, service providers' algorithms may assume you are sending spam.
Incorporating Email Marketing
Email marketing is the pillar of an effective marketing campaign. It can help you move prospects down the marketing funnel, raise brand awareness, boost the campaign’s ROI, and improve customer retention.
Using the latest email marketing tactics, you can streamline both digital and traditional campaigns to improve the company's bottom line.
