Chapter 12: Defining The Perfect Email Marketing Lifecycle for Your Business

Whether you are a marketer or online business owner, you are familiar with customer lifecycles.

Most customers don’t buy right away unless they trust their money to your business, so most of the time you have to plan a lifecycle, or series of steps, that potential customers have to take before they make a purchase.

An email marketing lifecycle then is a series of steps that you build to help a lead reach a strategic point at which you send them emails that will help them take the next critical steps until they make a purchase and become a customer.

In this lesson, we are going to teach you what are the best points at which you can send marketing emails to potential customers.

When Users Visit Your Site Or Store For The First Time

Perfect Email Marketing Lifecycle

Here’s when your email marketing lifecycle begins.

SEE MORE: EMAIL MARKETING MIND MAP

A new visitor is not likely to convert into a customer the first time that they visit your website or store, so it is the right time to convert them into an email subscriber instead.

There are two opportunities to convert the user into a subscriber at this point: with a well-placed opt-in for users navigating the site, and with exit-intent pop-ups for users leaving the site.

A user that subscribes through a page opt-in can be qualified as someone that is interested in your offers or brand from the get-go.

A user that subscribes through an exit-intent pop-up can be qualified as someone that is interested in your offers, but that will need more incentives to purchase down the line.

After a user subscribes through either form, they will expect your business to start sending them emails.

This is the perfect moment to start sending your lead a series of welcome emails, a series of storytelling emails to share details about your brand and products, and a series of incentive emails with discounts and promotions to encourage them to convert, in that order.

In general, you’ll have to create from 5 to 15 emails to complete this lifecycle!

When Users Browse Product Pages But Leave Without Buying

Users Browse Product but no Buying

A user that browses products on your website can be qualified as someone that desires to purchase your products, yet there’s something holding them back.

There are a lot of things that can stop a user from making a purchase, such as high prices, the cost of shipping, or lack of social proof.

Address these obstacles with a series of emails to offer them deep discounts or free shipping if they order the products that they browse more.

Also, use these emails to highlight user reviews made on those products.

When Users Add Products To Cart But Leave

Users Add Products but Leave

Abandoned carts is one of the biggest issues that online businesses face.

Abandoned carts are such a serious problem that they can affect and kill a business if not solved.

The good news is that this is a problem that can easily be corrected with email marketing, especially because you are dealing with a user that is about to be converted.

Abandoned carts happen because of two reasons.

Either the user decided to postpone the purchase and forgot, or the user isn’t completely convinced to purchase because he or she is not familiar with your brand or business.

You can address both problems with an email.

Simply program abandoned cart emails to buyers that leave their shopping carts to remind them of the item or items they left without buying.

Include an incentive in the email, such as a deep discount code that they can redeem on that purchase if they complete it at a certain time.

After Users Complete Their First Purchase

Users Complete First Purchase

Every customer is more likely to make an impulse purchase right after they make their first purchase.

This is because they have made an emotional connection with your brand and are in the first stage of building loyalty.

This is the perfect time to send them an email that compels them to buy more.

The right strategy is to program emails with a receipt of the order they just made that highlights the product or products the user purchased.

Right below the receipt you have to include a scrollable selection of products that you can upsell or cross-sell, a promotion, or an invitation for a rewards program.

Then, if a certain amount of time passes without the user returning to your site, which is commonly two weeks, start sending them emails with product updates and incentives to encourage them to click through.

After Customers Return To Your Site

Customer Return to Your site

Your job now is to convert the customer into a repeat customer, and you can do this with a series of emails based on the user’s past purchases and browsing habits when they are on your website.

Subscription offers, cross-sells, and tiered offers work best as email incentives to compel the user to buy more!

PREV: Chapter 11: Engaging Subscribers That Don’t Open Your Emails

NEXT: Chapter 13: Improving Your Email Design Strategy