How to stay nimble and use email as an effective part of your marketing funnel (or any other oddly shaped object).

I’ve been fortunate to attend a handful of fantastic conferences over the past six months, including SXSWi 2010, Marketing Sherpa’s Email Summit 2009, Innotech, HOW Design and various smaller ones. The topic that keeps popping up in workshops is the evolving “marketing funnel.”

The traditional marketing funnel — which involves introducing individuals to your brand and converting them to customers — has changed significantly with social media, email, geo-social, viral and other ingenious ways to nurture customers. We’re being told to flip the funnel, invert it, bend it or cut it, among other things, depending on which blogs you read or which workshops you attend. Poor funnel.

Most marketers agree that the old-school version of investing a large portion of your marketing budget in general, mass advertising is outdated. Too many messages. Too many options. Too many channels. So, what do we do as marketers when using email? We focus on retaining current customers through email, keeping them thrilled with our products and services and loyal to our brands, and in return they send us testimonials and referrals.

Here’s how:

Know your audience
Do you know if you’re delivering what your audience wants? When’s the last time you asked them? Use an email to send your customers an online survey and ask them for feedback. If you haven’t yet, get to know your ESP’s survey tool. It’s fun to give people exactly what they want after you find out what it is. Isn’t it always enjoyable to watch a person’s face light up when you give them a particular birthday gift they’ve asked for instead of something generic? Same idea with giving your customers exactly what they enjoy about your business.

Segment your audience
Avoid the dreaded “email blast” at all costs. You know what your audience wants, so make the extra effort of segmenting your customers instead of just "blasing" out a bunch of generic info to your entire database. Create different types of audience groups from your overall list and deliver specific content that matches what you know about them.

Reward your audience
Here’s a common thread to many current perspectives on the marketing funnel: Turn your customers into your 12th man (or woman). Loyal customers can be as strong of a sales force as your sales department if you keep them enthusiastic. Surprise them. That doesn’t always have to mean a free offer or a discount — you can also give them useful content and sneak previews.

Communicate effectively with your audience
Use a mix of informative emails, offers and rewards and commit to sending those emails regularly and at the right times when you’ve scheduled them on your calendar. Your email marketing calendar (you have one, right?) should include a survey check-in at least annually. You don't have to create an email marketing plan with so many details that you've committed more hours than you have available. Start small by segmenting out 3 or 4 different types of messages, schedule them by quarter, and use your results section to see what's working. You can grow it from there.

Share with your audience
Use tools that let your audience share your emails across their social networks. You can also use links in the email to your Facebook fan page, Twitter page or blog so your customers can connect with you in all your communication hubs. Don’t believe the naysayers trying to, ahem, twabotage email by saying Twitter and other forms of social media are enemies of email marketing. Use email as the glue to connect people to all of the different spots you are currently at online, so your customers can share your brand with their friends, family and fans. 

Email is uniquely adaptable to this changing marketing funnel, and it just takes a few basic techniques likes these to be sure your business is always growing in lots of new ways.

Fore more information on how to use email effectively in your business, please visit our Emma blog, here.