My 3 step guide for your first email automation sales funnel (perfect for ANY b2b business)
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If you are like me, you probably sign up to quite a few email newsletters as things take your interest.
And also like me, you most likely unsubscribe to lists en masse when are sick of your in box being full of clutter.
As a business owner, I always get a little sad when someone unsubscribes from my list, even though I know I shouldn’t.
Note the word rejection that I use. That is how I feel when someone unsubscribes at times, rejected….
Especially when I know that my content could actually really help them.
Do you feel like that at times?
So what can we do to minimise the chance of people unsubscribing from our lists early in the piece? How can we maximise the outcome that our emails are not mistaken for clutter and need to be purged.
One way to do this is to create a simple sales funnel process from this first email sign up. This allows you to introduce yourself and your business in the way you might if a customer just walked in off the street to a bricks and mortar business.
Most email programs will allow you to do this - and if they don’t, get a new one!
My recommendation if you are going to be working with any kind of email marketing automation on a budget is to use MailerLite as the automation step by step process is very straightforward to follow along with. Perfect for any B2B business who is just starting out creating a sales funnels and very new to email marketing automation.
Ok so technicalities aside, let’s look at what you need for your 3 emails.
Step 1 - Welcome and Thank you email.
This will include whatever inducement you may have attached to your ‘signup to my newsletter’ teaser at your website. These days it is not enough to say - Sign up to my newsletter, no-one will! You need to make sure that encourage them with a giveaway, a how to guide, a case study, something of value to your ideal customer. You may need to sit and think on what you could offer here for a little while - collaborate with others to get the creative juices flowing.
This welcome email should set the style and tone for all your emails that will come. It should welcome people to your list, be happy and upbeat, after all they have done what you wanted them to do - give you their email address. Yay!
You would also introduce yourself in this email, but in brief. Your story might be really interesting to you, but we need to keep things short in this first email.
In this email you should also let them know what is going to come in this little series
Step 2 - More about you and your WHY
This should really go on Day 2 of your series. This email explains more about you and your why. So you can expand on the intro that you put into email 1. If you have targeted your ideal customer well, then this story should resonate with them. The story should weave a little of the personal and the professional into your business story.
People do business with people - even in the b2b space, so this is your chance for them to get to know you a little better. When people meet someone for the very first time, we do form an impression of the kind of people they are, whether we are comfortable with their style, their approach and the way they do things. All of this is summed up when we meet them. Your email newsletter is your chance for them to meet you and this second email is the start of how you do that.
If you have a video link of you speaking about your business, this email is a great email to include that in. PLUS people get to see you and hear you, they can make the connection between the website, the email signup and the person that they hopefully will do business with in the future. (Don’t have a video - get one done, or link to a Facebook LIVE post)
This email is also a good time to introduce people to your social channels. Focus on the social channel where most of your ideal clients hang out. Ie. If you in the b2b space - maybe this might be linkedIn - yes invite them to connect with you personally. If you think Facebook is better, invite them to join you there.
Step 3 - A wrap up of your good stuff and your schedule
This final email in this welcome series should be letting your new subscriber know when they will receive emails from you. What is your typical schedule and what do you post about. Make sure you include a sample of your best, most relevant and helpful blog posts for your new subscriber. They may have missed that awesome viral post you wrote about 3 months ago. What about that case study you wrote about that outlines a client success story. Put your best/most trafficked/most popular posts in front of them.
You send it out 1 day after email 2 and this email helps to cement you in the minds of your new subscriber as an authority in your field. Because, guess what….you are!
Followup at about 2 weeks
Now remember that initial post, with your little gift? About 2 weeks after you send that very first email, it is now time to send a follow up email to your new subscriber, just checking in to see if they have any questions that you can help with.
Remember your tone and style when you do this. It should just be like you would talk to them on the phone…
Hi Sam, It’s about 2 weeks since you downloaded our checklist and I was just touching base to
see if you have any questions with that….. Etc..
And that is it!
Your first automated email series completed!
Have a think about what other kinds of funnels you might be able to create in your business. Think specifically about the sales process inside your business, how you might be able to automate some of those processes to bring your customers closer to the bottom of your funnel.
*I am an affiliate of MailerLite
Why - because it is good. That's why. It is simple and it is easy to learn and it connects to just about everything. No more Confusionsoft, no more struggling with tricky interfaces, no more Mailchimp frustration. It is definitely worth a look.
I think you will love it!
