Meghan
It’s one thing to create a well-established top-of-the-funnel marketing campaign, but converting leads into sales requires an entirely different strategy. Mid-funnel drip campaigns are all about evaluation, keeping the customers you already have while nurturing leads to make a final purchase. Creating a mid-funnel drip can seem daunting. However, with the right tools, it can be one of the most effective aspects of your marketing campaign. Here’s how to create an amazing mid-funnel drip campaign and ten helpful ideas for email marketing.
Goals of a Marketing Funnel
When creating a marketing funnel, the goal is to turn your leads into customers. Generally speaking, you’re more likely to attract a number of people to your business than you are to retain those customers. This is where marketing funnels come in.
The strategy is designed to maintain the attention of interested customers and convince them to invest in your product, brand, or business. There are three main parts of marketing funnels: top, middle, and bottom. However, we’re going to focus on the middle portion and why it’s effective.
Creating a Mid-Funnel Drip Campaign
Despite its importance, the middle of the marketing funnel is commonly overlooked. However, this portion of the process is just as effective as the top and bottom, if not more. Nevertheless, creating a mid-funnel drip campaign requires a lot of strategizing and team collaboration.
The middle of the marketing funnel is where customers start showing interest in your product. Thus, when planning a mid-funnel drip campaign, you need to make decisions that capture the attention of those consumers.
Top of the Funnel vs Mid-Funnel
Even well experienced marketers mix the top most portions of the funnel together. Since they consist of very similar marketing tactics, it can be difficult to understand the difference between the two.
In reality, marketers need to make sure these campaigns are approached separately and for completely different audiences. In summary, top-funnel campaigns should be focused on brand visibility while mid-funnel campaigns are all about the evaluation of a company’s products.
Mid-Funnel Objectives
When creating a mid-funnel campaign, the objective is to retain new customers who are showing interest in your product. If your analytics confirm that people are interested in a certain product, service, or brand, the focus is on maintaining their attention.
Overall, your audience will be smaller and more focused on specific products sold by your business. Thus, the goal of your campaign is to turn those leads into customers.
Mid-Funnel Content
Mid-funnel content should be devoted to getting customers to follow through with your brand. For example, if you run an ecommerce store, you want to make sure a customer follows through with an item sitting in their cart.
If you take anything away from this article, it should be this: never leave your customers hanging. Keep them engaged, interested, and invested in your business. Examples of mid-funnel content include email campaigns, social media, and case studies.
Mid-Funnel Metrics
- Amount of Leads: This metric keeps track of your email list. When managing an email campaign, it’s important to see how many leads are being added as subscribers. This can help you analyze leads over time and adjust your campaign accordingly. Emails develop a relationship with new customers and encourage them to engage with your brand.
- Open and Click Rates: This metric tracks how many leads open up an email and click on links within the message. This can be helpful when keeping track of subscribers and content preferences. Since email marketing is one of the most important elements of mid-funnel campaigns, open and click rates can tell you a lot about your progress.
- Conversion Rates: A common mid-funnel campaign metric is a visitor-to-lead conversion rate. In summary, the higher your conversion rate, the more you’re attracting customers. This tells you what percentage of your website, pop-ups, or free offers contribute to the most leads. Used to its full potential, conversion rates can tell you what’s working and what needs improvement.
Mid-Funnel Marketing Tactics
1. Email Marketing
As previously mentioned, emails are the bread and butter of mid-funnel marketing campaigns. Paired with analytics, metrics, and email lists, you can craft creative content that continually attracts customers. Examples include case studies or personalized blog recommendations sent to specific audiences. When it comes to mid-funnel marketing, captivating emails are the key to a successful campaign.
2. Paid Advertising
Paid advertising can be a way to attract the leads you already have and promote your mid-funnel content. When utilized as a retargeting campaign, advertisements can be very effective. If you’ve ever interacted with a service and noticed ads popping up on other sites unrelated to that brand, this is a form of retargeting through advertising. Thus, interested customers are more likely to engage with your business when they notice these ads popping up on the internet.
3. Ebooks and PDFs
Free ebooks and PDFs can elaborate on topics that captured your leads’ attention at the top portion of your marketing campaign. It’s best to create these forms of content if your analytics display high interactions with these topics. For example, if your business caters to other marketers, you can create an ebook entirely devoted to successful content strategies. This gives leads a taste of what you can offer them with a paid service, enticing them to follow through with their purchase.
4. Webinars
Although they tend to be more time-consuming, webinars give you a fantastic opportunity to engage with your audience in a unique way. Since webinars are live, leads can put a face to your business’s name and recognize your expertise. Similar to free ebooks, webinars provide a sample of your services to interested leads. This results in higher conversion rates and increased interest in your brand.
5. Social Media
Utilizing social media platforms perfectly blends digital marketing and mid-funnel drip campaigns to further engage your audience. The opportunities are practically endless when it comes to social media. Digital marketing resources allow you to announce new products, deals, and pieces of content. Resources like ebooks and webinars can be posted on your social media sites to attract recent leads.
6. Free Trials and Demos
Streaming services are pros at this marketing strategy. Free trials and demos give customers obligation-free access to your company’s services. If a customer enjoys it, they can take the final step and purchase full services. Free trials and demos can also provide important analytics that help you remarket interested customers.
7. Case Studies
Many customers hesitate to follow through with a certain product or service when they don’t feel certain about its value and/or quality. Thus, case studies offer solutions to capturing the attention of skeptical customers. These showcase your product or service, addressing specific concerns or questions. Case studies use data and facts to assure prospective customers that your business is a positive investment.
8. Website Pop-Ups
We’ve all experienced our personal share of pop-ups when they overtake the computer screen and ask for our email address. Even so, this is an effective mid-funnel marketing strategy that many companies use to capture leads. By asking customers for their emails right away, you keep them involved with your brand. These can be implemented on your website through third-party services.
9. Re-Marketing
This can be a sub-category of email marketing and paid advertising. Used strategically, re-marketing can capture the attention of previously interested customers. This is why people question how an ad for a brand of furniture pops up shortly after interacting with a certain site. It is in fact a marketing tactic, and it’s a very effective way to convince a lead to finalize a purchase from your business.
Utilizing Marketing Automation
When creating a mid-funnel drip campaign, you have to consider marketing automation. This helps companies streamline their marketing strategies to capture the attention of interested customers. Examples of marketing automation include pieces of software that automatically send emails to prospective customers.
Simply put, marketing automation increases efficiency while keeping your customers engaged. Leads are more likely to follow through with your services with personalized emails, but that can be unrealistic for growing companies. Thus, marketing automation tools help you send personalized emails without sacrificing important business responsibilities.
The Power of a Call to Action
Your call to action may make or break a customer’s decision to invest in your business. As simple as it may seem, a short sentence encouraging a customer to interact with your website may be enough to convince them to make a purchase. Plus, CTAs can be integrated into every portion of your marketing campaign.
CTAs produce more sales and encourage leads to interact with your business. Plus, strategizing your CTA correctly can bring them directly to the product or service of their interest. By understanding what your customers want, you help them engage with your product. Consider placing CTAs in customer emails, at the end of blogs, and on social media platforms.
The Importance of Personalized Emails
When initiating an email campaign, personalized emails are going to be the key to capturing your audience’s attention. In summary, personalized emails lead to higher conversion rates and improve customer engagement. To create a positive customer experience, you need to treat them as more than another lead to check off the list.
In other words, these emails should go beyond saying “buy my product now!” They should include specific information about the customer based on acquired data. Examples include their name, personalized interests, and location. When a lead sees their name in the subject line, it encourages them to click on the email and read its content.
Implementing a Mid-Funnel Email Marketing Strategy
When it comes to mid-funnel drip campaigns, all roads lead to customer emails. It’s understandable if email marketing strategies are new to you. Nevertheless, implementing effective email marketing strategies can significantly improve your business. As opposed to remarketing, emails are guaranteed to reach their preferred audience.
Before beginning an email campaign, you should consider evaluating a few important factors. Who are your leads? Do you have any upcoming events? Finally, what would you like to include in your emails? Combining marketing with personalization may seem difficult, but it can actually be very effective. Here are a few of our email suggestions to help you get started!
10 Mid-Funnel Drip Email Topics
1. The Classic Lead-Nurture Campaign
Many customers feel hesitant about investing in a product or service immediately upon observation, resulting in the need for lead nurturing. To summarize it in a few words, lead-nurture campaigns are all about educating customers.
Your first email may start out with a general overview of your product or service. Your second may include a testimonial from another customer. Finally, your third email seals the deal by offering them a special discount on a product of their interest. It’s a classic method that effectively turns leads into customers.
2. The Welcome Statement
This email strategy can be especially effective for brand new leads. Generally speaking, a welcome email is far more likely to be opened than any other promotional material. Welcome emails are simple but effective. Plus, they give you the perfect opportunity to introduce your brand and how you interact with customers.
These emails can vary in length, formality, and content. Subcategories of email marketing strategies can coincide with welcome content. For example, you may welcome clients with exclusive offers and discounts. You may also take it as a chance to acquire customer data. Experiment with a few different welcome emails and see which ones generate the most leads.
3. Engaging and Creative Emails
This strategy can depend on your business and the level of formality you like to take with email marketing campaigns. However, done correctly, it can significantly increase customer engagement with your brand. It should also be mentioned that these may require more time and commitment, but leads will appreciate your personalization.
Creative, content-oriented emails have more freedom to be friendly and/or humorous in tone. They may reference specific information about the lead that adds a personal touch to the email, making them feel more involved with your business. Generally speaking, increased email personalization leads to more leads feeling appreciated.
4. The Urgent Upgrade
Of the common email marketing strategies, this is the one that comes with the most risks. Thus, it’s important to send these emails with a strategic purpose. As the name implies, urgent emails encourage your leads to finalize a purchase under a time limit. However, depending on the offer, this strategy may backfire.
Thus, it’s important to have a clear, appealing, and preferably personalized offering that includes a link for click-through ratings. Any sense of urgency and/or time limit on an an offer is automatically going to persuade a lead to make a decision. These emails rely on a strong CTA and the potential for a lead to follow through with a purchase.
5. Educational Drips
What better way to market your brand than by giving your leads free, informative content? Educational emails work by combining two major interests: industry expertise and engagement. These can come in the form of webinars or newsletters that give your leads a sample of your products or services.
Even so, educational emails accomplish more than providing free content to interested customers. They ensure prospective customers of your business’s reputation and experience. In other words, it establishes trust between you and the interested lead, prompting them to invest in your brand.
6. Relevant and Interesting Events
Hosting an interesting and/or industry-relevant event? Send out email content promoting your event in a manner that’s appealing to potential customers. To be even more strategic, send out emails before and after the event. This can maintain the attention of leads who might still be on the fence about your business.
However, event promotion email content isn’t just about hyping up a special occasion, it can be a great way to increase your contact list. For example, if leads have the “save the date” using their email address, they can stay involved with your company. Similar to educational drips, if they enjoy the expertise demonstrated at these events, they may be more likely to invest in your business.
7. Personalized Recommendations
These emails are perfect for customers who are newly invested in your products or services. Following their first purchase, these emails give customers more options that are specific to their interests.
Personalized recommendations are also flexible forms of content, capable of being integrated into any of the previously mentioned email campaigns. While these are commonly automated forms of content, they still feel personal to customers, especially when it’s tailored to their preferences.
8. The Re-Engagement Email
As the name suggests, re-engagement emails target leads that haven’t interacted with your content. This can apply to customers who observed your products or haven’t purchased anything from your business for a prolonged period of time. Similar to the urgent email, these messages encourage your leads to give your brand another chance.
A few strategies can be taken to re-engage absent leads. You can try to capture their attention by promoting upgrades and/or recent changes made to your products. This can be an opportunity to personalize your content by mentioning specific reasons why you’d like them back. Otherwise, you can offer them special discounts or personalized recommendations based on their previously purchased products.
9. The Abandoned Cart
If you’ve ever interacted with an item from an ecommerce store, you’ve likely encountered this effective email marketing strategy. Whether customers experience an unexpected interruption or decide not to follow through with a sale, abandoned carts are more common than you might think.
Thus, automated abandoned cart emails remind customers to finalize their purchases. Since they showed a clear interest in your product or service, a simple reminder may be all they need. Used sparingly, the urgent email can coincide with abandoned cart content, encouraging leads to purchase their item before an offer ends.
10. The Loyal Customer
Realistically speaking, the majority of sales aren’t made by new customers, but by the ones you already have. Loyal customers shouldn’t be left out of mid-funnel email marketing campaigns. In fact, they may be an essential part of your email marketing strategy.
Since previous customers will already be on your drip campaign list, you can send them any of the above content along with prospective leads. Granted, different strategies should be taken as opposed to sending existing customers welcome emails. However, personalization and up-selling your products may encourage them to purchase from your business again.
Mid-Funnel Email Marketing Templates
Example 1: The Welcome Statement
Subject line: Welcome to [Business]! What’s Next?
Body:
Hi [Name],
Thank you for purchasing/choosing [Investment]! Welcome to the community!
We’re so excited to share some of our new and exciting [Products, services, or other related information] with you.
Since you liked [Investment], we think you’d appreciate some of these helpful resources… [Information that may be helpful to customers]
In the meantime, if you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out!
We look forward to serving you!
Sincerely,
[Customer service representative]
Example 2: Relevant and Interesting Events
Subject line: [Event] – You’re Officially Registered!
Body:
Hi [Name],
Thanks for registering for [Event]! We can’t wait to see you!
Here are all the details you need to know:
[Consider adding important dates, times, links, or any additional information customers should know]
Make sure to mark your calendars, you won’t want to miss this amazing event! In the meantime, if you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to [Point of contact].
We look forward to seeing you!
Sincerely,
[Customer service representative]
Example 3: The Re-Engagement Email
Subject Line: [Name], It’s been a while…
Body:
Hi [Name],
It’s been a while since we last heard from you. Is there anything we can do to help? We recognize that you’re a busy person, but if you have some time, would you kindly take a moment to look at [Upgrade, Upsell, or Personalized Recommendation].
There’s absolutely no obligation! However, if you’re interested in learning more, please visit/contact [CTA].
Thank you for your continued interest in [Business]! We look forward to hearing from you!
Sincerely,
[Customer service representative]
