The types of email marketing best suited to a company vary according to the moment it is experiencing.

Just to remind you, email is a very powerful communication channel. Even if a company only uses it to sell, there are still many other possibilities to be explored through email marketing campaigns.

And speaking of funnels, according to the premise of Inbound, the buyer’s journey determines whether the audience is getting to know the product, creating a relationship with the brand until they reach the end of the journey, which is closing a sale or achieving a conversion goal.

Because of these different stages, the types of email are completely different, since each audience is experiencing different moments of closeness with the brand.

Let’s take a look at the types of email best suited to each moment.

Top of the funnel: the first contact

The top of the funnel is where the content will be launched to attract potential customers. In other words, those who are not yet leads will have their first contact with the brand.

But it’s important to know (or remember) that sending emails to people who haven’t given you permission is spamming.

To send emails properly (without being spammy and with the recipients’ permission), you need to build a list of contacts.

In the world of email marketing, building contact lists means generating leads.

How to generate leads

Registration forms are used to collect data from people interested in accessing rich content such as ebooks, webinars, mentoring etc.

In this way, the company offers interesting material in exchange for the data of a potential lead.

By giving their names and emails to access the material, the public provides raw material for building a contact list, through which the company will communicate later.

However, a list collected from a form contains many typos, throwaway addresses and other types of invalid email.

For lead generation to produce results, the emails on the list need to be validated through real-time email verification.

This is an API integrated with the data collection service that prevents invalid emails from entering the database.

When you type a bad email into the form, the API suggests a correction, helping to validate the email.

Thus, professionals who use the real-time verification API collect clean lists, ready to generate leads with real business possibilities.

Now we can talk about the most suitable types of email for each stage of the funnel!

Types of email marketing suitable for the top of the funnel

This is the time to educate the public and arouse their interest. Emails with robust, generic content should be designed to draw people’s attention to a problem they were unaware of.

For this reason, newsletters are interesting not only as a tool to impress and stimulate connection, but also to engage prospects.

And engagement can be stimulated by including elements such as an ebook in the newsletter, for example.

If your newsletter has a high click-through rate, it means that the audience is engaging and, consequently, the top-of-funnel strategy is working.

It’s important to remember that at this stage, your product or brand should not be mentioned. This way, the potential lead feels more connected to the content, which is the goal.

And the closer they are to your content, the more likely they are to move on to the next stage of the funnel and become a real lead.

Types of email for the middle of the funnel

At this stage, the consumer is already a lead and knows your brand, having shown a real interest in consuming your content.

The strategy is to strengthen proximity with them, through more in-depth content than in the previous stage. Drip campaigns are a good suggested type of email for this stage, containing a sequence of 3 or 4 messages.

As the audience at this stage already considers that they have a problem that needs to be solved, email campaigns should include more detailed content about the benefits of your product without presenting it directly.

Thus, the inclusion of immersive materials with the environment of your product/service can be inserted in the emails, in order to generate not only engagement, but also closeness.

For example: a video, a webinar, an ebook, etc. are all welcome.

But remember: the middle of the funnel is not yet the place to present your product or service. In fact, it works to strengthen the relationship with the lead and thus qualify them for the next stage.

Types of email for the bottom of the funnel

Now you can present your product/service as the solution your audience is looking for. A lead that gets this far signals maturity.

But beware: one false step and your lead will be gone. Nothing can go wrong at this stage of the purchase decision.

For this reason, the recommended types of email at this stage are promotional. However, it is important to take into account the support of a sales team at this stage.

Every effort to get closer to the brand needs to be humanized. It’s through this that the connection happens.

At the bottom of the funnel, the lead already knows what their problem is, and they also know that your product can solve it.

It can therefore evaluate possible competitors to select the best solution. Thus, emails should act as an important persuasive support for the lead to decide on your brand.

Conclusion

There is no right email marketing formula that fits all companies. Just as each lead is at a different point in time, companies must look at their needs and objectives and thus determine which types of email best meet their priorities.

It’s important to remember that emails are tools that even help to build a persona. Use them to get to know your leads better by collecting their behavioral data. Evaluate the results using KPIs and make constant improvements to your campaigns.

FAQ