How to Build a Healthy Sales Pipeline Using Creative Content in Email Marketing

Every profit-making institution looks forward to great numbers in revenues. For many organizations, sales are seamless as prospects discover through marketing campaigns and turn into customers after going through different stages of the sales pipeline. Therefore, you need to be cautious while building a strong sales pipeline, as the better the sales pipeline, the more customers for your business. Let’s learn about building a healthy sales pipeline using creative content in email marketing for your business.

Table of contents

• Ways to build a healthy sales pipeline using content in email marketing
• Produce and select the relevant content type
• Create lead magnets
• Optimize your landing pages
• Have relevant CTAs
• Establish a content strategy that aligns with your email marketing process
• Connect with prospects at every stage of the buying process
• Produce valuable, relevant, and consistent content
• Track, measure, and optimize your content placement results
• Conclusion

Ways to Build a Healthy Sales Pipeline Using Content in Email Marketing

Email marketing is a great way to build a sales pipeline. You can simply use different types of creative content in email marketing to create awareness about the brand, market your new services and increase sales. Here, we mention different types of content that are widely used and can perfectly fit in your email so you can pick the best one suitable for your business.

1. Produce and select the relevant content type

Blog posts

Blog posts are integral components of a comprehensive digital content plan and stand out as one of the most preferred forms of written content. You can write long as well as short forms of blogs. Blogs are usually the top part of the funnel. These mean to spread information about your product or service. You can attract your ideal audience using this form of content in your emails by, for instance, including the blog updates section with some article previews.

Social media 

The social media concept has evolved drastically over the years. It is a great platform to promote your brand and create more leads. Visual content is the preferred way to promote your business on social media platforms. Share social media achievement news, featured or mentioned by giants via emails which can show your business growth and can help you grow your number of followers and visits on your profile.

Podcasts

Podcasts are the audio form of content. These are usually the top part of the funnel. It means they mean to spread awareness about the product and attract more customers. Share podcasts via email, which can help you increase your open rates and the number of listeners of your podcasts.

Infographics 

Infographics are the collection of images and data visualizations that gives an easy-to-understand overview of a topic. These are used to educate your customers regarding your products. As they are persuasive and eye-catching, they generate more visitors to your website. It is worth considering including at least one infographic in every email so that it can educate the subscriber more easily.

Videos 

Videos are the simplest and most obvious way to get potential customers interested in a new product. In the sales process, videos can be used at different stages as they are informative and, at the same time, are great tools for improving customer experience. You can use an editing tool to create an attractive video by using smarter and advanced features. Including the product or service videos in your email can easily increase your conversions. Having a video in an email makes it more interactive and attractive, which can increase the number of viewers on your video.

2. Create lead magnets

This is the next step, where you create a piece of content specifically designed to get someone onto your customer list. The goal of your content is to turn someone from a casual visitor into someone who is actively engaging with your brand. Here are some forms of content that can be lead magnets for your business and can be included in your email to have a higher open rate and website traffic.

White papers

A white paper advocates that a certain position is the best way to go or that a particular solution is best for a particular problem. White papers offer authoritative, in-depth content to help prospects solve a problem. They tend to be more technical and niche. Hence, you can easily ask your reader to share their mail account and proceed further with the content.

Case studies

Case studies are real-life examples and hence have better credibility. If you want to showcase your product in action, we suggest you to not go for a demo but present a case study. You can ask the visitor to fill the pop-up by sharing their email address to access relevant case studies.

Free resources 

Free resources are forms of content that can be utilized to learn or avail benefits of certain services or products without imposing any cost. e.g., the sales pipeline template and balance sheet template can act as great mediums of lead magnets.

Quiz

Quiz is a great platform that creates lead magnets. You can ask your users to enter an email address and opt-in to get their results. As they have invested their time in completing the quiz, they would definitely be interested in learning about the results.

Free trials 

Almost every business uses free trials. In order to attract more leads, free trials can be of great help. It is the best method to let your user decide on the product's benefits. This way, they get used to your product and ultimately turn into your paying customers.

Host a webinar

Webinars are digital live events where you can discuss your offerings or spread information about the solution your business offers. Webinars create trust and credibility, along with many other positive benefits. They make great lead magnets as they are live events many people want to sign up for. Simply putting these lead magnets in your email will make your email more subjective and easy to drive more conversions.

3. Optimize your landing pages

Landing pages are basically your lead capturing page. A landing page helps you attract potential customers by offering a free resource like an ebook, white paper, or checklist in exchange for a lead’s email address. Your prospects will arrive at your landing page by clicking on promotional content. Hence, a well-managed lead magnet landing page helps convert visitors to leads and build brand awareness and rapport.

You need to follow these 4 steps to create a great landing page:

• Have a clear headline
• Have a landing page that explains the value of your offering
• Have an easy opt-in form.
• Have a CTA button.

You can also share your landing page via emails so that more of your website traffic can grow as well as your customers’ interactions.

4. Have relevant CTAs

A call-to-action (CTA) button you use on your page is to guide users towards your ultimate goal conversion. Your CTA should have a language that implies positive momentum forward. For instance, if a reader lands on a blog article and there is no clear call to action at the bottom of the blog, it is likely that the reader will leave the site without completing any other tasks.

Here are some examples of CTAs for your reference:

• Get started
• Sign up
• Contact Sales

If you decide to include CTA in your email, it has to be very clear so that you can collect some basic information about your subscriber to make them fall into the middle of the funnel.

5. Establish a content strategy that aligns with your email marketing process

It is important to have a content strategy, but what is more important is to have a strategy that aligns with your email marketing process. Your sales pipeline has various stages and at every stage, you will have different forms of content that will be very helpful in reaching your goals. Strategizing your content with respect to email campaigns will help you get more juice out of your email marketing campaigns and will fill your sales pipeline. Therefore, in order to have a sync with your email marketing and content, you need to plan your stuff accordingly.

6. Connect with prospects at every stage of the buying process

The sales process is distributed into stages right from the moment a visitor visits the page until they turn into a customer. Remember that your customers are not only checking your offering but are also comparing you with your competitors. 

When you offer to stay connected with your customers at every stage and ease the buying process, they are most likely to turn into your paying, happy customers. Hence, staying connected with your customer at every stage also via email is very important.

The end of the buying process is not the end of the relationship you have with your customers. After-sale connection is essential for holding your customers for a long-term relationship which can be easily done via email automation.

7. Produce valuable, relevant, and consistent content

Just producing content isn’t important, but producing valuable, relevant and consistent content is. In order to have high rankings and maximum digital sales, your content and page need to have authority in the digital world.

It is the consistency in your content that brings the required authority. Relevant content, when performed in an efficient way, helps in SEO ranking, and valuable content serves your reader, which is of utmost importance because your reader is your future customer. Consistency, high-quality, and engaging content impacts audience decision-making more than any other technique. Hence, you need to make sure that your content is serving your business as well as your customers' target.

8. Track, measure, and optimize your content placement results

Just like tracking your sales reports, it is important to track your content performance. Email marketing doesn’t work overnight but brings some valuable insights over time. Measuring your email marketing results can be as simple or as complicated as you make it. These result measuring reports evolve over time. Some various metrics and techniques let you measure your content as well as email marketing performance. You must study and select the best way to know your content performance.

Conclusion

Content in email marketing is an excellent way of interacting with your target audience, spreading awareness about your product, and staying in touch with your customers. It answers your audience's questions, develops relationships and generates more leads.

You need to make sure the form of content you are using in your email marketing is relevant and beneficial for you and your subscribers. Get started with attracting new leads for your business. Good luck!