How Email Marketing Can Maximize Recurring Revenue

Part 2: Foster Engagement Beyond the Landing Page

In Part 1 of this series on marketing and sales funnels, I opened the discussion by asking why most startup marketing fails. There are a lot of answers to that question, probably a separate answer for each individual and unique startup. But that diversity is also the root of the problem.

Many startup leaders lean too heavily on a tactical marketing approach. They run ads, send emails, shoot videos and write blogs without a coherent strategy for how to handle prospects that don’t buy right away.

Startup marketing is a marathon and startup sales is a slog. Both require a strategically built customer funnel to educate, encourage and engage the customer on several different levels.

Now that we’ve covered the theory, the first touch and the landing page, let’s talk about what to do with the prospect when they show up at your website and give you their email address.

Conversion, Trial, and Education

Obtaining a prospect’s email address and opt-in is your first conversion. It marks the transaction of the prospect giving you something, their email address and attention, in return for something else, which we’ll discuss in a minute.