When crafting email marketing campaigns, it is important to consider your overall funnel strategy to nurture prospects into customers. After extensive testing and analysis over the years with global brands, here are the emails you should be including in your automation sequence:

Let’s talk about the sequence. The funnel starts at the top, with your total number of qualified leads decreasing as we go down. That is normal, as you want to be validating your leads based on email interaction. Each email should be spaced at least three days apart, to avoid over-sending to prospects (and annoying them).

Introductory is the welcome email typically paired with a content offer. Here you will give the prospect something you promised in order to originally secure their email. A common offer is a monthly newsletter, but you can take this a step further. How about giving a checklist, e-book or course? These offers alone will build incredible rapport and start your relationship off on the right foot.

Educational is an email with one intention: to inform. Examples include “did you know?”, tips, advice and how-to’s. Instead of expecting a sale, what can you do to educate and inform your prospects, without expectation? This email might be an extension of your first email, if you gave an educational content offer. You can never do enough educating when it comes to the customer. If you are having trouble coming up with what to write, consider compiling old blog or social media posts into a helpful email.

Reputation is about demonstrating your credibility in the industry. Consider showing off reviews, testimonials, mentions and statistics about your popularity. Maybe you have some case studies and experiences to share. This is your chance to say you are trustworthy and you deliver.

Situational is all about outlining the present limitations of the prospect. Right now, this prospect is worse off for not being your customer. Remind them of where they are now, and where they could be. Focus on fears, worries, obstacles, roadblocks, inertia, anything getting in the way of the prospect’s life.

Aspirational is an add-on to the last email. Now that we’ve addressed inadequacies, it’s time to break the status quo with motivation. You are going to say what the prospect can have by being your customer. List all of the benefits. Show how you handle their worries and fears. It really helps if you can solve a clear problem they are having.

Promotional is a last-ditch effort to really incentivize purchasing behaviour. Use a coupon, discount or bonus to really convert the prospect into a customer. By now, they should be feeling good about you to do business.

Re-Education is essentially a continued cycle of educating and/or entertaining the prospect until they feel obligated to do business with you. You should be giving tremendous value here, over and over again.

Re-cap:

1. Introductory (welcome email paired with content offer)
2. Educational (did you know?, tips, how-to’s)
3. Reputation (demo credibility with reviews, mentions, influence)
4. Situational (outline present limitations)
5. Aspirational (break status quo with motivation)
6. Promotional (coupon/discount/incentive)
7. Re-Education (continue cycle of educating/entertaining until prospect says yes)

Keep in mind that every email should have a single call-to-action, whether it be “learn more”, “call/reply”, “buy now” or “shop”. I would connect the call-to-action to a landing page, where further action can be taken.

Also notice how there is a focus of giving value to the prospect. You should avoid being too sales-y with email marketing. Let the nurture process do the work for your campaign.

Apple

Is a marketing degree necessary? I go in-depth on the pros and cons here:

Here are some notes from the video:

Marketing Major, Yay or Nay? This question will dictate your entire business career. Is getting a college marketing degree right for you? Let’s find out.

Getting a marketing degree from school is right for you if:

Yes, you want to work for someone. No, if you want to be your own boss right now, or want to save cash.

Cost is anywhere from $25,000 Canadian to $200,000+ if you’re doing something like ivy league in the USA.

Recommendation that no one will take:

Talk to every school that you are thinking of applying to. See if their marketing program interests you. Ask to sit in on a class during your last year of high school. Talk to the professors about the curriculum post-lecture. This will save you thousands and thousands of dollars. Schools want you to attend school and dance around with different classes. Be proactive. Many won’t listen to me here, which is why student debt is so high.

There might be a fear of missing out, FOMO, if you decide to skip university. Ignore it. Examine the program and see if your heart connects with it. Do not make anymore decisions based on what your friends are doing. You will likely both end up in different classes, it happened to me.

Science, technology, engineering, mathematics comparison:

In comparison to the STEM fields (where a degree is super required to be an engineer), any other degree might not be entirely necessary if you replace it with experience. In comparison to arts, marketing is a way better approach career-wise for your corporate future, with the exception being Psychology.

School year breakdowns:

1st year – elective binge (ideal to know roughly where you’re going as courses can be tough to register for)
2nd year – more electives
3rd year – choose your adventure (important, learn what area of marketing interests you – advertising and public relations, marketing research, consumer behaviour, social, content…I never learned about online marketing, video marketing or affiliate marketing in school…)
4th year – home stretch, fun year
5th year – overflow if you slacked during the summer or couldn’t get into a filled class.

Ivy league vs. university vs. community college:

I found the education material to be similar across the board. Some of the better teachers were actually at colleges!

Multi-location schools are best, especially for registration.

Transferring credits to other schools is not easy.

Practical alternatives to marketing education:

Google analytics certification, facebook blueprint, working on local startups as intern, taking over social media feeds or handling your own, interviewing CMO’s, other marketers for knowledge gain, attending top marketing conferences and rubbing shoulders.

Marketing MBA:

Great for people who already have a degree in something else, like engineering, and want to make the switch. Material is more practical and hands-on, but a lot replicates a marketing bachelor’s or undergraduate degree.

Conclusion:

Degree is a sign of discipline and perseverance more than anything. Your alternative is to be disciplined and persevering in your life, and build something. Some people need the structure of school education to live life. That’s okay. Learn as much as you can and connect with others in your field while attending.