Creating a commercial email is just the first step in a successful digital marketing strategy.

And setting up a corporate email to engage, nurture and convert leads into customers can become a valuable tool for your sales strategy, providing growth for your business.

In this article, we’ll take a step-by-step look at how commercial email can become much more than a corporate communication channel.

1. How to create a business email

The first thing to do is to purchase an exclusive domain, dedicated to the company or freelancer. After all, we’re talking about a professional email, which has the right format to provide credibility to your clients.

Just to illustrate, a good business email would use the syntax [usuá[email protected]], not [usuá[email protected]]. It’s important to remember that emails with their own domains convey an image of greater professionalism and trust. This is very important for the recipient to recognize the sender and also helps with the open rate. Don’t forget to insert your personalized professional signature at the end of your messages.

First of all, therefore, a professional email needs a domain registration, which will give rise to an exclusive company email plan. In Brazil, this can be done on sites such as Registro.br or on website hosting services.

From there, email accounts can be created for employees in the various teams who, in turn, will have a professional communication tool to communicate with prospects, leads and clients.

2. Setting up an email account for sales: the importance of deliverability

Even the best-designed campaigns are useless if they don’t reach their recipients, don’t you think? That’s why deliverability is fundamental to any email marketing campaign.

Email deliverability is the ability of an email to be successfully delivered to the recipient’s inbox.

There are several aspects that providers analyze in order to improve your reputation and, with it, your deliverability. And one of the key aspects is the quality of the mailing list.

Unverified mailing lists can contain high rates of hard bounces (invalid emails). This causes ISPs to block them, which in turn do not direct the delivered messages to the inbox, but to the spam folder. Get to know SafetyMails and keep your lists clean!

3. The role of commercial email in the sales cycle

The sales cycle, which follows the stages of the Buyer’s Journey (also known as the Inbound funnel), needs fuel for the public to make the decision to buy.

One of these fuels is content, which in turn has commercial email as one of its main bases. With automation, campaigns and email marketing flows are created, with the aim of raising awareness among prospects, arousing their interest, turning them into leads and qualifying them for the sale, which takes place at the last stage of the funnel.

See how commercial email integrates and contributes to each stage of the sales cycle.

Top of the funnel: the initial phase

The aim is to get potential customers to identify with content that speaks to their preferences and topics of interest.

• Offering rich content such as posts, webinars, informative videos, ebooks or information guides helps to educate prospects about the problems your company solves. It’s important to remember that at this stage, communication should be focused on the audience’s pain, i.e. the brand should not be mentioned.
• Access to certain content through registration forms, whether to download materials or subscribe to newsletters, strengthens the relationship between the company and its target audience.

It is worth remembering that the real-time email verification API prevents invalid emails from entering the lists collected from forms and other data collection web services.

In this way, professionals build clean lists, free of bounces and other types of email that are harmful to the sender’s reputation, such as disposable emails.

Entering the middle of the funnel: cultivating public interest

At this stage, the commercial email must demonstrate the value of the product or service offered.

• Sharing success stories and testimonials from satisfied customers builds credibility and increases interest.
• Continuing to nurture the audience through content such as articles, webinars or videos strengthens the connection with the brand. At this point, the brand can (and should) already be mentioned briefly, through content that provides more details about its products and how they can solve specific customer problems.

Advancing through the middle of the funnel: the choice phase

At this stage, the public is comparing their options and evaluating whether your product or service is the best choice. The commercial email should focus on providing detailed and comparative information, so that the lead opts for your brand rather than that of your competitor. Now your brand can present itself comprehensively.

• Sending emails offering demos or free trial periods allows leads to experience your product. And a good experience favors the decision to buy.
• Answering the most common questions through an FAQ email clears up doubts and can facilitate decision-making.

Bottom of the funnel: commercial email and purchase decision

When leads are ready to make a decision, the commercial email must provide the incentives and confidence needed to close the sale.

• Sending emails with special offers, discounts or bonuses is a way of encouraging immediate purchase.
• If the purchase doesn’t happen immediately, sending a follow-up email to those who have had contact with the brand helps to increase trust and mature the decision-making process.
• Reinforcing the security of the purchase by detailing guarantees, return policies and after-sales support also encourages closing.

Important

Although commercial email is a powerful marketing tool, it needs to be monitored by sales professionals if the objectives are to achieve the expected results.

For this reason, a marketing plan that takes humanized assistance into account is more effective in building customer loyalty.

4. Creating emails that convert: design and content best practices

A well-crafted commercial email can keep the lead engaged and lead them to a decision to buy.

The subject line (which is the first impression the recipient has of the email) should be short: up to 60 characters, preferably, so that the sentence is not interrupted. This way, the line of thought that makes the person open the email is not interrupted.

Still on the subject line, using the scarcity or urgency trigger generates good results for open rates. For example: “There are only X items left in stock” or “Only until tomorrow”. Also, try including the recipient’s name or other personalized information to create a connection with the user.

The design should be clean and well laid out, making it easy to navigate. Use high-quality images that are relevant to the content and help convey the message.

The central part is the heart of the email. So offer value through useful content, whether it’s a promotion or some informative material. The most important thing is that the core of the message is consistent with your audience’s wishes. Use short paragraphs. Bulleted lists and subheadings make the text easier to read.

The CTA should contain clear, direct language to tell readers exactly what you want them to do. Make it stand out by using contrasting colors.

And finally, don’t forget about mobile responsiveness. Before sending your commercial email, test it on smartphones to see if any adjustments need to be made.

5. Integration of commercial email with other digital marketing strategies

When sales actions using commercial email are applied in synergy with other digital tactics, engagement and conversions can increase.

Use social media platforms to promote your email offers. Include sign-up links in social profile bios and regular posts.

Use media data to better segment your mailing list. Information about followers’ interests and behaviors can help you create more personalized and relevant email campaigns.

Create synchronized campaigns between emails and social media, reinforcing the message and maintaining a presence on different channels. This way, one channel reinforces the other.

Conclusion

As part of a company’s sales cycle, commercial email has qualifications that go beyond a simple means of communication; it becomes a powerful marketing tool.

However, it needs to be adapted to the buyer’s journey, so that its function of transforming the prospect into a lead, and then into a customer, actually takes place. In this way, teams working with sales have a better chance of achieving their expected results.

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