The Simple 5 Step Email Marketing Plan

by Amber Miller | Nov 16, 2014 | 1Shopping Cart, Blog, Ezines, Infusionsoft, Marketing, Social Media, Training

Is your email marketing a well-oiled machine? The simple 5 step email marketing plan.

Now, if you are like any other business online you more than likely incorporate email marketing into your marketing arsenal. You need to ask yourself, are your emails creating the sales you need them to create to sustain your business? Most online business owners would answer no that that question. I am going to share with you a proven system to get your email marketing working for you like the power house that it should be.

First, let me be clear you don’t need the biggest most expensive piece of software and you are not going to need a mega list to see results from this simple 5 step plan.

Each and every email that you send out needs to have one of five clear and understandable purposes.

Indoctrinate– This email is to teach them who you are.
Engage– This email it to engage with your leads and get them to purchase your products/services.
Ascend– This email is to get them to purchase additional products/services from you.
Segment– This email will tell you what they want to purchase next.
Re-engage/Win Back– This type of email is to bring them back into your sales funnel.

Each one of these emails is dependent on the previous email which creates 5 different stages of email marketing.

The process looks something like this:

Not utilizing this simple 5 step email system can be a very costly mistake. Once you understand this email system and how each email works you will be able to create dynamic auto responders that work.

Each step must be done in a specific order because you can’t have one without the other. For example you can’t have engagement from your list until you have introduced yourself. And you can’t segment your lists until you have engagement. Make sense?

Let’s take a closer look at each step in chronological order.

Step 1- Indoctrination (Introduction)

Once you have a lead that has opted in what do you do?

The first step in the 5 step process is going to be to introduce yourself and your organization. In this first email you are going to indoctrinate them into your system/processes.

This first email is going to:

• Tell them who you are
• Tell them what you and your organization stand for.
• You are going to tell them why you are different.
• You want to let them know what they should expect from you.
• Let them know how often they will hear from you.
• And let them know what they should do next or what the next step is.
• This type of email they will only receive one time

Step 2- Engage with your lists

The purpose of engagement emails is to convert your leads into customers. These emails should be making offers to your lists. Your engagement emails should be a series of emails spread out over a designated period of time.

Step 3- Ascension

Every customer you obtain through your engagement series should also receive an ascension series. This is a great way to cross promote other products/services you have or offer higher ticket products/services once you have built trust with lower level products/services.

One great example of this is to offer free content then quickly move to offer additional higher level content by offering a pro level or upgrade.

Step 4- Segmentation Emails

Now the goal of segmenting your lists is to get your potential customers to raise their hand (so to speak) and show a level of interest into something you are offering them.

When they do show interest via an open, click or opt-in they will be placed within the appropriate Engagement Series. This does mean you may have several Engagement Series created for different purposes. For example let’s say you sent an email to Linda and Jim about your free report. Linda opened the email and downloaded the free report. Once she did that it triggered an action in your auto responder to say Linda is interested in this subject/product. Once that has been triggered she is automatically going to receive an upsell offer to a related product/service that you offer.

Now Jim was not interested in this free report which let you know 1 of 2 things 1) he was not interested in this product/service 2) he didn’t have time to open it. The next email could be one of 2 things 1) a new offer 2) the same offer presented in a different way.

Segmenting your lists and moving them through the sales funnels for the different products and services you have can set off a chain reaction of sales.

Stage 5- Reengagement/ Win Back Emails

Okay, now what do you do when your lists lose interest and stop opening or clicking on the emails that you are sending to them?

If you said leave them alone you are making a HUGE mistake. Doing this can and will leave sales just lying on the floor and can results in huge income just lost.

If you want to capitalize on your low hanging fruit it would be in your best interest to set up an auto responder that is designed to re-energize your tired lists. This process brings them right back into your funnel and throws them back up into steps 3 and 4.

One way of doing this is to threaten to take something away if they do not take action now. Another way would be to tell them you miss them and offer them something of value for free if they take action now. Another way to do this is if you offer a free trial moved to a paid service. You could re-introduce the free trial by “extending their free trial”. There are several creative ways of doing this.

If you are looking to have a professional team to create, implement and manage your email auto responders series for you contact the Smart To Finish Virtual Assistant Team. We offer professional email marketing support including Infusionsoft virtual assistant support and can assist you in tailoring this 5 step sales process to your specific needs.

written by – Skye Hawk, Smart To Finish Diva