Do you really think that closing sales are the only thing that decides the success of your business?
The answer is NO.
Though closing sales contribute to the company’s profit, to make it a successful business you should think beyond this. One of the most important things that could help here is your customer and their journey. The longer the customer stays with you, the better is your business. Always aim at making your customers fall in love with your brand/business, to retain them for a longer period.
According to Neil Patel, every customer whether lost to your competitor or due to any other reason, costs you around 289 USD each year. And you can never make up for this cost by a new customer. Always remember, the cost to acquire new customers is six to seven times higher than that of retaining an existing one. So, you should direct the majority of your effort towards customer retention.
The ascend of 5% in customer retention can raise the profitability of a company by 75%.- Bain & Co estimate
For this, you need to guide them throughout the journey right from discovering brand to promotion. It is very important for you to enhance your customer relationship in order to increase customer retention. And the best way to serve your customer well and prevent them from getting lost in the middle is the Marketing Funnel.
What is the Marketing Funnel?
A marketing funnel is a model representing the customer’s journey based on which you can implement your marketing strategies accordingly. Marketing funnel proves to be a very helpful practice for marketers, helping them in organizing, structuring, and channelizing their marketing process. It guides you through the process of turning leads into customers.
At the initial stage, the marketers try to get as many leads as possible to create brand awareness, just like the broader top of the funnel. As we go down the funnel, it gradually narrows, the same goes for the leads and prospects. Once the leads are created, you need to nurture the prospects through the purchase decisions which narrows with every passing stage. There are 5 stages in the marketing funnel-
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Conversion
- Loyalty
- Advocacy
The possibility of a lead becoming a customer increases as he reaches the bottom of the funnel. Not every lead who enters the funnel purchases your product, becoming your customer. Some will get lost in the middle, or lose interest, or likewise may succumb to what you have to bring to the table.
Marketing funnel proves to be extremely useful in Email Marketing as well. You can structure the content of the emails based on the stage of the email your customer is at. The stage gives you an idea about the customer state, his interests, problems, etc. Hence, to enhance the productivity of the funnel, you can accompany it with the emails
Using Marketing Funnel Stages in Email Marketing
The stages of the marketing funnel refer to the degree of how likely the customers are willing to complete a transaction. When prospects reach the bottom of your marketing funnel, the chance of becoming customers increases.
To get more insights, let dig deeper through each stage to understand how to accompany the marketing funnel with email marketing-
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Awareness Stage
The foremost stage of the marketing funnel happens to be the Awareness stage. At this stage, you bring your brand to the prospect’s notice. If they do not know about your brand, how come they are going to buy something from you. Hence, you need to make your brand visible among the customers. Visibility can be created through various sources like- organic searches, Social media marketing, blogs, cross-selling strategies, etc.
Be it any sources, once the customer visits your website, it’s time for capturing the leads. You have to understand that the prospects are yet not ready to buy from you. Hence, first, you need to build a relationship with them.
You can do this through Email Marketing. The best way to generate leads and attract them to your business is to give them some lucrative offers or some useful resources-
- Downloadable PDF file/ ebooks
- Educational resources /blogs
- Coupon/discount
- Webinars
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Consideration
Now that your prospects have become your subscribers, it clearly indicates that they are considering your brand. They want to hear from you and learn more about your brand and offerings. Hence, this is the perfect time to nurture them. Tell them about the best of your offers and services.
The point to consider here is that these offers, services, or materials should be related to your subscriber’s interest. Along with the offerings, you can also know more about your customer at this stage. The more you know about your customer, the more customized services you can deliver.
Once you come to know about the interests of your customer, you can send personalized emails to them. Personalized emails work wonders for businesses. According to a survey, by using personalized emails 82% of marketers observed an increase in email open rates, and 75% yielded higher click-through rates.
Along with personalization, you can also include some more convincing content in your email like-
- Testimonials
- Case studies
- A live consultation session with the customer
- Free podcast episodes, talking about the services they are going to get from your company
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Conversion
This is the very critical stage of the marketing funnel, where the lead can be converted to a customer. Once the customer reaches the bottom of the funnel, they are more likely to make a purchase. Hence, be cautious with the content you use here.
You have already educated them a lot about your product features, giving them social proofs and so more. Now it’s time to directly talk about your uniqueness. Motivate your customers to choose you over the other available options in the market.
Use your knowledge and recommend the most suitable product for your customer. You can tell them about how your product and services can help them. Give them free trials. Create a sense of urgency on the factors like time or stock through the terms like ‘Hurry’, ‘last day/unit’.
As you are at the stage of conversion, make sure your customers do not get lost. Guide them well about the next step to follow. For this, you can include the CTA buttons like-
- Try now
- Join Now
- Buy Now
- Register Now
- Get started
- Start Trial
- Sign In
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Loyalty
Your Loyal customers make up to 65% of your business. Hence, losing them can cost you way too much. You need to nurture them even after the purchase, to retain them longer. Always remember, the purchase is just the beginning of the customer’s journey, not the destination.
Considering the fact, you should shape your actions accordingly. Your approach in this stage decides the fate of your customer relationship- whether it will flourish and grow or deteriorate and die.
At the loyalty stage of the Marketing funnel, you should accompany the email content that can keep them engaged. Your customer should never feel left out, in fact always look forward to hearing from you.
75% of customers say that they mostly prefer companies that offer rewards. Hence, to reward your customers, you can go with the following content ideas-
- Free access to educational resources on related topics.
- Conduct a survey on their experiences or expectations.
- Cross-sell and up-sell techniques
- Exclusive offers
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Advocacy
After crossing all the stages, your customer has finally reached the bottom of the funnel. At this stage, the customer remains no more just a customer, he becomes your fan. This is the time when the customer talks about your brand and recommends it to his friends and family.
Advocacy proves to be extremely beneficial for sales. 92% of customers consider suggestions from friends and family for making purchases. Not only for the sales, but you can take the benefit of their loyalty for improving your business as well.
To do so, you can take feedback from our loyal customers. They can give a better insight into your services, based on which you can make further improvements. To encourage your customers to promote your brand, you can opt for referral marketing. Reward them for referring your brands to their family and friends.
Consider the following tips to include email marketing at this stage-
- List your loyal customers and ask them to refer your brand to their known ones.
- Create a feedback form to take feedback from your customers.
- Delight them with referral rewards.
- Establish a two-way communication by replying to their emails.
Conclusion
Now you know about the marketing funnel and its importance in your business. Despite being a powerful approach, the marketing funnel would do nothing if you don’t nurture your customers effectively at each stage. The ultimate goal of the marketing funnel is to keep the customers moving down the funnel and transforming them from a prospect into your brand advocates.
One of the proven ways to do so is by incorporating the emails into the funnel. Being the most powerful marketing method, email marketing can enhance the performance of your marketing funnel. Emails come out to be the best tool for target marketing, thereby increasing the conversion rate.
Though email has the potential to enhance your marketing journey, a badly crafted email will reverse the effect. The article gives you some extremely effective ways to use email in your marketing funnel and make the best out of the process. However, if it seems complicated, we will help you to build up a viable email funnel. Reach out to our marketing experts, and squeeze the most out of it.
