Every year new technologies and applications are launched, but email remains as one of the most effective tools to communicate with your potential customers for two main reasons:

1. Your message is targeted to an audience who has allowed you to contact them and therefore, is less subjected to the algorithms for the targeting of ads and social media;
2. Everyone on the internet has an email, either to make purchases or to register on social media.

Although email is a democratic tool, there are still doubts regarding creating an effective email stream.

“Do I need to write well?”, “Are my customers reading my emails?”, “What are the most important indicators in a nurturing strategy?” These are a few examples of questions we get on our channels and that we will try to answer in today’s post!

The difference between email stream and email marketing

Before we get to the tips, we should explain the difference between a nurturing stream and email marketing.

Email marketing includes all of your interactions with your base via email, such as sending a newsletter, follow up, shopping cart abandonment email, etc.

On the other hand, automation stream is also communication via email, but from a specific trigger (the downloading of material, filling out of a form, etc.), which aims to lead users from one stage to another in their journey.

In other words, whenever a user performs a certain action on your page, he/she enters this stream to be nurtured with targeted content aligned to the problem he/she has manifested, instead of receiving messages that might not be of his/her interest.

Now that you’ve understood this difference, we can go to our tips!

9 tips to create an effective email stream

Each company is unique and has its own revenue model, language and is targeted to a type of audience.

Because of this, there isn’t a single email format that will work for all of them, but certain tips might be useful for those who are starting out and still don’t have a lot of data on which to base it.

Everything you will read here is information shared by professionals specialized in the subject and also the conclusions we have reached after a few tests at Hotmart.

1. Choose an automation tool

If you wish to implement a nurturing stream, we warn you that you’ll need an automation tool.

In addition to saving the time you’d need to contact your customers one by one, this tool allows to do the following:

• Segment your lists according to each audience’s interests;
• Create simultaneous and independent streams;
• Setup events that will trigger the emails;
• Obtain accurate data about the performance of your campaigns;
• Among other advantages we will also talk about in this text.

There are several types of marketing automation software available on the market such as, Hubspot, Infusion and Pardot.

We mustn’t fall into the trap of recommending any service here, because each one has its advantages. It is worth evaluating the feedback that these companies receive from their customers and the added features they have so as not to choose a platform that is very robust but hard to operate.

If your base is still small, certain automation software, including free versions, might meet your demand.

2. Create a journey for your lead

Whenever you purchase a product or hire a service, there is a natural path you must follow, right?

First, you research to find which type of product meets your needs, then you read more about the product or brand, compare prices and finally, make the purchase.

In a similar fashion, the lead has a journey from the first moment it contacts your company until the conversion itself.

Therefore, before you start your nurturing strategy, you need to map the steps that users must complete before they become customers, which is basically, creating a journey.

Establishing this flow is essential to understand how much effort you’ll need to put into each step, the type of content you’ll need to create, whether it is nurturing or sales, and so forth.

3. Do a good job targeting your audience

Every time you create new material, promote a webinar or even a live event, you generate a list of leads.

But your job doesn’t end there. You need to be very careful so as not to leave these users without segmentation, so that they do not receive messages that are not aligned with their interests.

Don’t worry because segmenting your audience in lists isn’t that hard.

When the automation software is integrated with your web page, it already assigns a tag whenever someone performs an action there.

If you have lists stored in the csv or xls formats you may also import them into the platform and assign the tag according to the origin of those leads.

For example: users-webinar-instagram-21.08.

An important tip so you don’t confuse these lists is to give them a name that is easily identifiable and preferably accompanied by the date on which such leads were generated so that they are not included in random streams.

4. Define a lead scoring

Lead scoring is a lead classification technique in which you assign points to each action performed.

With this score, you can identify the stages the user is in, whether he/she is ready to make a purchase or if they need to continue to be nurtured with content.

Many automation services already assign the score automatically but you can change the scores according to what you consider more strategic for your business.

Example: An ebook made for a user at the top of the funnel offers one score, but once the lead answers a survey or interacts more actively with your band, asking for price quotes or a free trial, he/she signals that he/she is closer to being converted.

Therefore, these actions must have a higher score, so these leads can be easily identifiable.

5. Use personal language

Despite being a widely used tool, there are many questions regarding email formats that convert the most, but one thing is certain, recipients like to feel that you care about them.

Nowadays, addressing people by their first name is the least you can do. What they want is to read content that has been tailored to their needs.

As your base grows, the task of personalizing emails becomes more difficult but you can do it through your customer’s journey, understanding what type of content can be more useful for them according to the problem they have expressed.

6. Perform tests

In marketing, what works for one company won’t always work for another one. So when someone says that there is an ideal model for email streams, both template as well as in written form and duration, do not implement a stream control without testing.

And how do the tests work?

This will depend on what you want to test.

In the case of templates or text, you can perform A/B tests, which is when you send the same email by changing a few elements and observe which one converts the most. Needless to say that you will need to change one element at a time in order to isolate a significant variable.

The title of the email is an example of an element that you can test. Emails with the highest opening rates will be those that have the most interesting subject for the audience you have targeted.

In the case of stream duration, you’ll need to let it run for a period of time and monitor the performance of each email separately in order to understand how many people are entering the campaign and how many reach the last email.

Based on this data, you can make changes to the duration of the stream, adding/removing steps or reducing the number of days between messages until you understand the most interesting format for the recipient.

7. Create valuable content to nurture your base

When someone gives out their contact information to a company, they expect to receive something in return.

Therefore, before you write email, you need to create valuable content to nurture your base: blog posts, videos, ebooks, infographics or any other type of material that serves to education your audience about the problem it faces and the solution you offer.

This is when it is essential to understand your customer’s journey. After all, users that have expressed interest by a product must be treated differently from those that have signed up for your newsletter, for example.

8. Only invest in streams if you have a clear value offer

No one wants to receive dozens of messages without content or with content of little value.

To solve this problem, you need to establish a clear value proposition for the user who will be impacted with the messages, so that he/she can find meaning in interacting with your company.

9. Monitor your emails’ performance

After all these tips, a question remains: “My stream is running, which data should I monitor to find out if I’m on the right path?”.

Below, we present the indicators you should monitor.

Open rate

There’s no use in having incredible emails, if no one opens them, right? Therefore, the open rate should be the starting point of your analysis.

Emails with low opening rate generally indicate that your title is not eye-catching enough, which can be a problem with your copy or with your targeting.

To find out which one it is, try to evaluate the opening rate together with the click-through rate to identify if users who are opening the email are clicking. If they are, a simple change in copy can improve your results. If not, you may have to review your list.

Click-through rate

The click-through rate represents the audience that not only opened the email but also clicked on the links in the text. So, it’s only natural that this number is lower than the number of people who opened your message.

However, if the click-through rate is very low, you can review your copy to understand if your text is handling all objections from your potential customers regarding your company.

Conversion rate

The conversion rate is the percentage of recipients who clicked on your link and completed the action you expected from them, which might be downloading content, buying a product, signing up for a course, etc.

Cancellation rate

The cancellation rate represents the users that have asked to be removed from your list.

In order for a stream to be considered effective, the cancellation rate must be lower than 1%.

Usually, the request for cancellation is accompanied by an explanation such as: excessive sending of messages, irrelevant content, etc. Use this feedback to improve your message.

How to use email streams in your strategy

In addition to being democratic, email streams have several purposes, such as:

Making sales

If your goal is to sell a product, you need to first show what kind of problem you are solving, what your differentials are, and if it coincides with your goals and financial planning, offer special conditions so that users will become customers.

It seems like a lot of work just to make a sale, but what’s at stake here is a relationship of trust with your customer, which can culminate in other spontaneous purchases and marketing.

Generating authority

If you want to become a reference in your area of activity, you need to constantly generate value for your audience.

Email streams are an excellent tool for delivering quality content to the users of your base at the moment they identify a problem and thus, become an authority in the subject.

Okay, but what is the advantage of this?

A person who is considered an authority is more likely to make new deals, create partnerships, promote products, among other activities that can generate income.

Increase your pages’ traffic

Although it isn’t you main goal, email streaming can also create awareness and contribute to the increase of traffic on your online pages.

Being there and having access to quality content, users can feel more confident to relate to your company and get to know the solutions you offer.

Conclusion

Email streams, when well structured, can bring significant results to your business.

But in order to do so, you need to pay attention to good email practices, list and targeting creation to make sure that everyone who is receiving your messages, is interested in the content you are sharing.

To learn more about this subject, read our article on how to use email marketing to convince and retain customers.