Email marketing to improve the customer journey: practical guide with examples
How can brands use email marketing to improve their business’s customer journey ? To start, it is important to recognize email as one of the favorite channels for users when it comes to interacting with brands.
Although a business funnel is built with the idea of reaching users through multiple channels in mind, Email Marketing is undoubtedly the main medium that uses good communication, nurturing and conversion strategies.
Hence the value of using an Email Marketing Strategy to accompany the client from the first impact, until they become a loyal customer.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
What is the Customer Journey and what is its importance?
Customer journey is an Anglo-Saxon term that refers to the active process that a customer has when making a purchase. That is, the stages that a buyer goes through: from having a need and looking for how to satisfy it, until reaching the solution .
To get the most out of Email Marketing you need to be able to fully understand the different stages of the customer life cycle.
One way to achieve this is by creating a Customer Journey Map. It is a Design Thinking tool that will considerably facilitate your vision of your customers’ journey. To create a good Customer Journey map you must know the different bosnia and herzegovina phone number data stages, as well as have a good segmentation of the leads in your database.
What are the stages of the customer journey?
A user always goes through different stages on the save time! automate your email marketing campaigns way to becoming a customer of a brand. The number of phases of the Customer Journey can vary. Not all users have the same characteristics or needs. Hence the importance of carrying out correct segmentation, correctly establishing the profiles of the buyer personas, and personalizing the strategies as much as possible.
However, there are a few common phases that you email leads database should take into account when establishing your strategy:
- Awareness or discovery: in this phase, the user detects that they have a need. Sometimes because they have one, and other times because they come across a product or service that they didn’t even know they needed. The important thing here is to have a good presence in the market in order to be visible to customers.
- Consideration : During this stage, the user begins to compare the options available to satisfy their needs. Therefore, it is vital to work on the content during this phase, so that it helps educate the customer and convince them to choose your brand and not the competition.
- Purchase: If the user has already made their decision and you are the winner of the previous phase, having an optimized sales process is what you should always take care of.
- After-sales or retention: many companies make the mistake of focusing only on the first three phases. However, customer loyalty should always be planned within your actions for the customer journey.
Impact each of the “Touch points” with Email Marketing
At each stage, the potential customer will make a series of decisions. Every time the customer comes into contact with your brand, you will have to analyze their behavior. This moment is called the “ touch point . ” And it is the axis that makes Email Marketing to improve the customer journey work.
If the future consumer continues with the purchase process, it will be because your Email Marketing strategy to improve the customer journey is working. But don’t worry. The customer may decide not to continue in the end. In that case, it is important that you study the reason for the abandonment. This way, you can improve your strategy.
The different touch points change depending on the phase the person is in:
- In the first stage, the most common are search engines, newsletters, social networks or subscription emails.
- Once the customer has entered the purchasing stage, customer service points, offers, advertising or stands are those where they can interact the most with the brand.
- Finally, once the purchase has been made, the website, customer service and returns are the most common.
Email Marketing campaign analysis to improve the customer journey
Correctly analyzing your customers’ behavior and measuring the results of your Email Marketing strategies is an unavoidable task for any company. On the one hand, it will help you to know the level of customer satisfaction with the product you are offering. In this way, you will be able to correct the negative aspects of the consumer experience.
But it will also allow you to consolidate the positive aspects in order to continue moving forward. Not only will you be able to get closer to the way your client acts, but you will also be able to obtain another perspective of your product . In other words, discover what characteristics invite people to consume it. By combining both pieces of knowledge, you will build a stronger relationship between brand and client.
How to apply email marketing to improve the customer journey
Each campaign has to be tailored to its corresponding stage in the purchasing process. Being clear about what the person needs depending on the stage they are in will make your Email Marketing strategy to improve the customer journey a complete success.
A vital issue is to make a good first impression . This is what will help the user form a good image of your company. Take advantage of this opportunity to offer them something they won’t be able to resist. Inform them about your products and the benefits they get from consuming them.
1.- Correctly establish your buyer persona
People tend to repeat several patterns when consuming. When this happens, you can collect data about their behavior. With the information well organized, you can create a profile for each potential customer. A representation of each segment of your audience, with which they will identify. These reports will be of great value for improving your product.
The interesting thing is that you can create as many profiles as you want . The avatars will vary based on the characteristics of each client. You can decide the tone and style with which you address them. This will help you successfully develop your email marketing campaign to improve the customer journey.
2.- Make use of storytelling
Once your customer has identified their need and wants to solve it, they will enter an evaluation phase. At this point, they will look for different alternatives on the market. Many brands play with sending messages in the form of short stories because it has been proven that they manage to establish an emotional connection with users.