3 Stages to Building a Successful Email Marketing Campaign

Sep 03, 2024

You’ve worked hard to build your list whether it’s through social media, content marketing, or just plain in-person networking.

One by one, you’ve built a solid list.

Now what do I do? Because a solid list does not guarantee sales.

You want to make the most of those relationships, and there’s no better way than email.

With email, you have an opportunity to connect deeper, educate folks on what makes you different/better, and sell a variety of product/services geared to their specific needs.

There’s a reason they call it the “in”box.

They’ve opted-in to stay “in” touch with you. That means you have something that they potentially want or need.

Unfortunately today, there are exponentially more people competing for our attention so that “inbox” has gotten crowded .

That means it’s unlikely that someone will purchase something from their initial contact with you.

In sales, the average number of times you need to contact someone is 5 – 12 and 48% of salespeople never follow up (usually, due to lack of time and forgetfulness).

Think of when you’re first getting to know someone, a person you want to build a meaningful relationship with.

How would you go about your first few meetings?

Would you ask for a partnership or marriage on the first meeting?

Most likely not.

You’d have to see if you connect with the person first — they’d have to share with you, something real about themselves — their story (link). If that goes well, you enter stage two where you’d learn more about each other and decide if you’re a good fit.

Of course, timing is important, sometimes one person isn’t ready, so you keep in touch until the timing is right.

Courtship is similar to the email nurturing process for sales and marketing. And in the online space, email is  even more helpful because it reduces that length of time it might take to develop strong relationships.

Unfortunately, many marketing and/or sales professionals jump the gun and try to sell themselves right off the bat. And then they wonder why their emails continue to be ignored.

Today, most marketers will give us information before asking for the sale. However, conversions are still low. Frankly, now we are overwhelmed with information and emails still get skimmed over.

So, how do companies get 4300% return on ROI? They establish a deep connection first.

Let’s go back to the courtship example. Undoubtedly one of the first questions your prospect has is, “who are you?” or  “what’s your story?”

Most people miss this part. It’s the hardest because you have to share something of yourself. You have to expose the heart of you and/or your business.

“The #1 reason why campaigns don’t convert as well is because people forget to introduce themselves to their brand.” – Ryan Diess

The Brand Strategy Process in Email Marketing

Before you build the three stages of a successful email campaign, it’s crucial that you know your brand inside and out.  When you do, you’ll be better able to express the heart of your business — your Big Why

Not only will having a brand strategy drive how, what, where, when and to whom of your marketing communications, it will also help your prospects connect with you and your story faster

So how do you develop a brand strategy?

First, discover and choose all the elements of your brand and story. From there, you’ll find the words, beliefs, and visuals that give direction to your marketing campaigns and creative.

All those elements are then strategically integrated into your every bit of your  marketing.

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Your Brand Strategy Helps You Stand Out in Your Email Campaigns

Do you struggle to create marketing messages that sound different from those of your competitors?

Most of us sell similar services, in fact, many businesses may sell exactly the same services. So, how does a customer choose? And on factors other than price?

The answer is your brand. It’s the emotional feeling and connection that a customer associates with your business.

A brand is what creates customer loyalty. And when you know  all of  your brand elements, your marketing flows more cohesively.

You can see here the elements of your brand inform your visual and verbal content.

For example:
–    When you know your brand image, you know how to design your newsletter – the type of fonts, colors, and images you’ll use.
–    When you know your brand story, you know how to introduce yourself in the first stage.
–    When you know how your brand connects with your right people, you’ll know how to uniquely position yourself and what kind of messages  you’ll use in your emails.

The Three Stages of a Successful Email Campaign

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Stage 1: Connect

In the first stage, people want to know who you are and why they should care about you. One of the best ways to do that is by sharing your story.

Stories work because they activate different parts of the brain that give us a sensory experience. It’s through that experience that ideas, thoughts, and emotions are planted in our mind like they were are own.

In fact, the brains of both the person telling and listening to a story will look much the same. In other words, we experience a story as if it happened to us.
That’s how a deep connection is developed with your prospect. Empathy creates a feeling of trust.

When we tell stories to others that have helped us shape our thinking and way of life, we can have the same effect on them, too.
When we decide to purchase a product or work with someone, we’re really buying the person or idea behind it.

If you’d like to learn more about how to connect your values to your brand story, download the guide here.

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Here’s an example below:

Hi and welcome to Daily Worth—the leading financial media platform for women who want more— more net worth, more self worth, and ultimately, more joy. We’re glad you’re here to embark on this exciting and fulfilling journey together.

We love money. We use it to take care of our families, our communities and ourselves. It gives us power, freedom and balance. It lets us pursue our passions, whatever they may be.

Ultimately, money touches every corner of your life, and we’re here to provide the guidance and community to bring your relationship with money to the next level, no matter where you’re starting.

We’d love to hear from you. Simply hit reply to this email and let us know any thoughts or questions you have. We’d love to address them on our blog.

And don’t forget to follow our facebook page for lots of tips on worth, joy, and money.

Explore and enjoy,
–    The Daily Worth Team

Now it’s your turn, how would you introduce yourself. What would you say? If you need help, here’s a handy guide to discovering your brand story. (link)

The perfect welcome email not only introduces your new subscriber to your brand and message, it also gets them to take actions that will improve your deliverability and ensure your emails hit the primary inbox. By creating an email that gets them to take action, either a direct reply, clicks on social media, or whitelist your email, you’re telling google that your email deserves to get into the inbox.

Stage 2: Educate

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Once you’ve connected with your audience, you can begin to interact with  them. Through surveys, social media, and by taking conversations offline by phone, and in person, you get to know them better.

During this stage, you can begin to educate them with content to help them solve their problem and they begin to understand how you’re different from your competition.r

Segment your list and get better sales results

You can segment your list by the types of educational information they are engaged in or by sending out surveys. And then follow up with emails that specifically address their problems and interests.

Emails get ignored that relevant to a customer’s needs, that’s why sending multiple email campaigns to distinct segmented lists is a great way to increase conversions with less emails and time.

Studies from Marketing Sherpa have shown that segmenting your emails can improve your click-throughs by 50%.

Some examples of ways you can segment your list are:
–   Particular demographics and psychographics
–   Certain drop-offs in your sales funnel
–   People interested in the same product/ service

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Stage 3: Make an Offer

Once they have this deeper understanding and connection with you, the selling process feels more like an opportunity for you to help them. Your customer is ready to make that commitment and feels good about it.

And you can offer a variety of different promotions and service/product offers based on their needs.

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Here are some more tips to help you create more connection in your email campaigns.

Personalization:

Additionally, use merge tags to insert personalized info about your recipient. Send out emails that include:
–     Your recipient’s name
–    Their last purchase
–     Their interests

The more you can show you understand your customer, the more likely they’re going to want to keep engaging with you. The more interactions you have, the easier it is to turn your prospect into a loyal, returning customer.

Add personal touches

– Use your customer’s first name and write an email like you’re writing to one person
– Keep it human, use your first name and picture
– Keep your voice consistent
– Keep a personal tone, use personal pronouns like “you” and “me.”

Email Automation doesn’t mean you send out generic emails. On the contrary, you can make it more personal by understanding the three  stages of lead nurturing and using the web tools above.

Some examples of when to use email automation are:

–    Introduce them to who you are and why you matter
–    Promote a particular product or service
–    Keep your business top of mind for a particular time frame

Remember, a list doesn’t guarantee sales. Yet done properly it can guarantee consistent leads and sales. Email has the opportunity to give you greater returns that any other form of marketing.

Integrating your brand in your marketing emails creates an automated follow-up system that delivers better sales results, and deeper connections while saving you time.

The best part is that most email service providers provide great analytics so you can look at what emails get engagement, A/B test to see which emails are most effective, and gain the insight to consistently improve your results.

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