Unlocking the Power of Email Journeys: A Guide to Boosting Engagement and Sales
on September 05, 2023
An email journey is a marketing campaign intended to connect with customers at different stages of the buying process. You or your agency will write and design two or more emails. Then, with the help of an email automation tool, the email is released to the customer’s inbox at a set date and time.
And that’s all there is to it! Well…okay, maybe it’s slightly more complicated than that. But that’s the jist of it.
If you time the emails just right, you’ll get nibbles on your line from prospects who otherwise would have swam away into the jaws of the competition. Alternatively, the right email campaign is a great opportunity to upsell existing customers on new products for their homes.
If you’d like to learn more about email journeys and how you can benefit from them, keep reading. We’ll go over some important information about them in this blog, including:
- The basics you'll need to kickstart your own email journey
- Strategies for planning an effective email campaign
- Why email journeys are particularly beneficial for home service and solar companies
Let’s get started, shall we?
Rocket Media helps home service companies benefit from email journeys
Rocket Media can help your business generate more income with email journeys, from strategy and ideation to writing and design. Our clients see greater brand visibility, better engagement scores from customers, and, of course, more sales! Contact us and schedule your free consultation today.
The Basics You’ll Need To Kickstart Your Own Email Journey
You can build a simplified email journey with just two things:
- An email list
- A plan (otherwise known as email mapping) referencing when and to whom to send the emails
But a few other items are so important they may as well be essential. This includes:
- An email management system (like MailChimp or HubSpot). You’ll want one of these to build email campaigns, automate the release of emails, segment customer emails into lists, and measure email open rates and clicks.
- Landing pages (or a great website). The email marketing journey does not stop with emails. Landing pages and website service pages are essential for moving customers through the sales funnel. Other digital assets, like blogs or eBooks, help this process tremendously.
The Email List
No shocker here: you need an email list of potential customers, or your campaign will never get off the ground.
While the process of building an email list is beyond the scope of this blog, there are plenty of online resources that show you how to do this. Alternatively, you can partner with Rocket Media, and we can help build your list.
If we were to offer you any advice about building your list, it’s this: grow it slowly and manage it with care. It takes just one or two spammy emails to destroy customer trust.
Your email list is an asset that, if properly managed, can yield a steady stream of sales revenue. Treat the customers on your list respectfully, and they’ll return the favor by doing more business with you!
With that in mind, let’s focus our attention on thing #2: a plan.
The Plan (Aka, Email Journey Mapping)
Without a plan, even a simple email chain will fall apart. If you aren’t sure where to start, consider these questions:
- Is this email list for existing customers or prospective customers?
- What do I want the customers on this list to do? How do I want them to act?
- What could get in the way of these customers taking action?
Let’s take a look at these three factors in more detail.
Strategies for Planning an Effective Email Campaign
Let's get down to the nitty-gritty of planning a killer email campaign! Trust me, it's not just about whipping up some emails and hitting 'send.' We're talking strategy, creativity, and a dash of data magic. Here's how to get started:
Is the campaign for prospective customers or existing customers?
When building the list of emails for your upcoming email journey, avoid the temptation of lumping existing and prospective customers into one list. It makes segmenting impossible. Without segmentation, you’re sending irrelevant marketing emails to certain customers on your list, which leads to customers ignoring your emails or sending your emails into the spam folder.
What action do you want your customers to take?
Maybe you want a customer to book a tune-up or consider a new HVAC system. Perhaps you’re in the solar industry, and you want existing customers to take a look at additions like a home battery system or EV charger.
Email journeys that lob products and services at customers without a plan are almost certain to fail. This is especially true if you’re selling something with a larger price tag, like a new air conditioner or brand-new solar panels. Major home additions require longer email journeys. Keep this in mind when you’re building yours!
What could get in the way of a customer taking action?
When it comes to email journeys, you’re likely to discover plenty of dead ends on your way to success. Any one of these dead ends can prevent a customer from opening up or acting on your emails. Lucrative campaigns are held together with the glue of planning and preparation. Always have a strategy.
Here are some of the most common reasons why customers do not take action:
- No incentive: When building a campaign, ensure you’re sending value along with it. A coupon for a free tune-up, a free consultation, or even information, like a blog, PDF, or eBook.
- Poor design: The best marketing emails are short, sweet, and concise. Paragraphs are one or two sentences, max. And they include images to help break up the monotony of the words.
- Uninspired subject lines: When it comes to subject lines, pitch one of two things: curiosity or value. Of the two, value is the best choice to keep it real. It’s hard to go wrong with a subject head like: “Take $20 off your next tune-up.” Curiosity subject lines can lead to strong open rates. But if there’s no “there” there, they’ll leave without taking action (and dislike you for playing games.)
Why Email Journeys Are Beneficial for Home Service and Solar Companies
Every home service and solar company should be running email campaigns for one important reason: they help sell the big-ticket items.
Major home upgrades like air conditioners, furnaces, solar panels, and the like are intimidating purchases for most homeowners. Many of these homeowners will contact you with questions or request an estimate. But they may be hesitant to pull the trigger on a purchase.
The smartest thing you can do is help them make sense of their options and the costs associated with their purchase (don’t be afraid to discuss pricing!). In other words, be the experts who understand the system, not the business selling the system. And while there are many ways to do this (blogs are a great option), an email campaign can really knock this out of the park, and here’s why:
- They’ll be grateful for the help: In many cases, the company that helps them is the company they will choose when they’re ready to install.
- It keeps you front of mind: A slow and steady drip of marketing emails–when done with prudence–can lead to sales home run after sales home run. Even if they don’t click your email, they still see it in their inbox. As long as your subject lines aren’t too needy or greedy and you don’t inundate them with emails, these campaigns will always be great for branding.
- It captures customers at different stages of the buying process: A good email journey will target a variety of customer concerns. For some, it’s cost. For others, it’s indecision on which system to buy. A single email journey can address multiple concerns and draw in more sales in the process.
If you take anything away from this blog, take this: To begin an email journey for high-value items, start with education, then follow up with value.
Link blogs and eBooks, address questions before they ask them, and later in the campaign, start dropping the discounts. You’d be amazed by the success we’ve seen from some of the email journeys we’ve designed for our customers. This is money that’s just lying around, waiting for someone to pick it up. So, make sure you’re the one to do it!
Considering building an email journey of your own? Rocket Media can help!
To build a high-performing email journey, you need a variety of digital marketing skill sets. These are skills you can learn in due time. But if sales are a priority right now, let Rocket Media handle your email journeys. All the expertise for creating sales-boosting email journeys is right here, in-house. If anything, you’ll wish you had called us sooner!
Schedule a free consultation today to learn how Rocket Media can help you increase website traffic, gain more qualified leads, and grow your business.
Related Article: Benefits of Email Marketing for Solar Companies
