As with everything in business, there comes a time when you need to diversify your organic content marketing. As your coaching business grows, you’ll want to start building up your email list. You see, the best marketing plans include a variety of different platforms, but not so many that it feels overwhelming. No matter what, you’ll want your organic content to lead the right people to your email marketing funnel. In episode 64, we covered the Simple Process of Planning and Brainstorming Your Opt-In Freebie.  This week, I’m going to give you the action steps for you to create your email marketing funnel process inside your content system.

The Goal Of Your Organic Content Marketing Plan
Before we get into the action steps to create a repeatable process for your email marketing funnel, let’s chat about the goal of your organic content marketing plan. Not knowing what to do can keep you stuck. At the heart of marketing, the purpose or goal of your organic content is to spread the word about you. Who you are as a person, who you help, and how you help them. It is up to you to let people know what you do. Although, wouldn’t running a business be glorious if all you had to do was wish for new clients to come to us? The introvert in me loves this idea.

Do people even read emails anymore?

One of my clients asked me if email marketing is dead. Do people even read emails anymore? Should we be investing our time and resources sending to our email list?

I love it when clients ask questions when they are uncertain. With inboxes overflowing with emails, we are almost numb to marketing messages, so this is a very valid question.

My response to her was that they read marketing emails from coaches that provide value and connection. The trick is to send emails with a nice mix of storytelling, quick tips on how to solve one problem and offers to help, aka asking for the people on your list to work with you. I think you’ll agree that you are more than happy to purchase a coaching package or service when it will help leapfrog you ahead and solve a problem quicker than figuring it out for yourself.

How Do We Know If Email Is Working?

She was still unsure. I don’t know where you’d turn to answer this question, for me I go straight to the numbers. Nothing tells the story of your email marketing funnel success like your metrics can.

Well, I’m assuming that you keep an eye on your email marketing metrics.

Because if you do, you know based on your open rates if your audience is engaging with your emails. Plus, if you have a call to action link in the email, which you really need to have, this is another metric that gives you insight into your messaging.

Content System: Repeatable Action Steps for Setting Up Your Email Marketing Funnel Process

Define your email marketing funnel goals and who you’re creating it for.

Before you start creating content, it's crucial to set clear goals for your email marketing funnel.

What do you want to achieve?

What is the point of investing your time and energy into creating this email marketing funnel?

Common goals include lead generation, nurturing relationships, driving sales, or improving retention. Be specific and set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals to guide your funnel creation process.

Map Out The Funnel

You have your goal and your audience. You know what you’ll be offering as your freebie, and you have an idea of content that you can reuse in your sales sequence. Map out the funnel and get an idea of the order or sequence you’d like it to go.

If this feels exhausting, no worries. You can simply use the reverse engineer method. Start by identifying your signature service or paid offer, then work backward to create a freebie that naturally leads your subscribers to the next step in your sales funnel. This ensures that your freebie is not only valuable but also strategically aligned with your business goals.

You don't need a PDF for everything.

You can create an educational email series.

Using a quick win approach: Break down your freebies into one quick win that they can do in under 15 minutes. You see pieces of content that are easy to do and provide quick wins, yes please, and thank you. This could include short daily tips, super simple exercises, or bite-sized lessons that keep your subscribers excited to hear you’re next brilliant idea and coming back for more.

What is the Best Number of Emails in Your Funnel?

Decide how many emails will be in your sequence. I suggest 5-7 emails.

Also, decide on the amount of time between each email in the series.

May I suggest keeping the welcome message and the first email about 24 hours apart? That’s a good amount of time. You do not want to make an excited person wait to long for the next email, plus we want them to remember us.

The others could be every couple of days, but you should not have more than a week between messages.

After you’ve mapped it all out, the next action will be to create your email sequence.

Now, Is The Time for the Creative Work

This is where you write everything and create all the collateral to go with the email series.

Write all the emails in the series, from the welcome to the ask email. If you’re a super fast writer you may get this done in a day. I am not.

One thing that I have found that works pretty decent to get your first draft is to outline all the emails. I put in all the bits of information that I want to be in the email. Then I let AI do the first draft for me. I’ve been experimenting with Claude. I feel like this tool doesn’t write as fluffy and flowery as Chat GPT does.

One thing I want you to keep in mind, my outline is very complete with the stories and everything. I ask it to make it flow better. I’ve found that the first draft is pretty decent. If you’re someone that finds it easier to edit than to write it all out, give it a try.

Write your landing page, thank you page, and social media promotional content.

Create Your Email Sequence in an Email Marketing Software

Once everything is created, the next action will be to set it up in your email software. I love Flodesk; I'm just saying.

This is my favorite piece, because I love tech. Except for when we are in Mercury Retrograded, let's be real, does anyone like tech then?

Promote Your New Email Marketing Funnel

Once all the set up has been done, create your marketing plan and begin to promote, promote, promote.

How can you get your freebie in front of the right people? Be sure to create content around your freebie as a call to action. The whole idea is to begin with the end in mind, or reverse engineer works here too.

Consider finding a promotion buddy or collaboration partner that is in your same niche, and they promote you to their list, and you promote them to your list. This allows you to work together in order to cross-promote to your respective audiences, expanding your reach and attracting new subscribers.

Don’t be afraid to ask for feedback on how you can improve your freebie and email series.

Measure: Tracking Success

Track your metrics! Your numbers tell a story. You may need to do some A/B testing with different subject lines, content, and calls to action.

Tracking metrics like open rates, click-through rates, and conversions is crucial for optimizing your email marketing strategy. Regularly analyze your data and make adjustments to enhance the performance of your email funnel.

It’s Time To Wrap This Up

It takes a bit of time and energy to create a new freebie and marketing funnel, but it is essential to the health of your content marketing. Be on the lookout for ways that you are able to make this simpler by repurposing and using content that you’ve already done. Your old social media content may be a gold mine of possibility.

I say this every week, but I hope you know how much it truly appreciate you! Thank you for reading, and make it a wonderful week