Unlocking the Power of Email Journeys: A Guide to Boosting Engagement and Sales

You're listening to a Rocket Media Blogcast. Prepare for launch as we share another great episode Unlocking the Power of Email A guide to boosting engagement in sales 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 gist of it. If you time the emails just right, you'll get nibbles on your line from perspectives 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, and why email journeys are particularly beneficial for home service and solar companies. Let's get started, shall we? The basics you'll need to kickstart your own email journey you can build a simplified email journey with just two things. 1. An email list 2 2. A plan, otherwise known as an email mapping, referencing when and to whom to send the emails. But a few other items are also important, so they may as well be essential. This includes an email management system like Mailchimp or HubSpot. You'll want one of these to build an Email campaigns, automate the release of the emails, segment customer emails into lists and measure email open rates and clicks. Second landing pages or a great website. 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 so no shocker here. You'll 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 our article, 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 customer 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 number two. 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. 1. Is this email list for existing customers or prospective customers? 2. What do I want the customer to do on this list? How do I want them to act? 3. 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 email and hitting send. We're talking strategy, creativity and a dash of data magic. Here's how to get that 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 possible. 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 H vac system. Perhaps you're in the solar industry and you're wanting existing customers to take a look at additions like a home battery system or EV chargers. Email journeys do lob products and services at Customers without a plan are most certain to fail. This is especially true if you're selling something with larger price tags like a new air conditioner or brand new solar panels. Major home additions require long 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 email. 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 headline 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 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 we're 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 that they choose when they are 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 runs, after after sales home run. Even if they don't click on 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, the 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'll 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. Consider building an email journey of your own. Rocky Media can help. To build a high performance email journey, you need a variety of digital marketing sets. These are skills that 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 and learn how Rocket Media can help you increase website traffic, gain more qualified leads, and grow your business.