Email marketing strategy — using the funnel to turn strangers into loyal customers
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Key takeaways
- Recipients are at different stages: people who have just met you need useful content that builds trust; only people ready to buy need product detail and offers.
- Five stages — awareness, consideration, conversion, loyalty, advocacy — each with its own goal, email types and things to avoid.
- Automated emails are triggered by behaviour (signing up, downloading, abandoning a cart, buying, a membership nearing expiry, going quiet), so each person gets the right email at the right time.
- Keep talking after the sale: aftercare, feedback surveys and member rewards build loyalty and word of mouth.
- Measure each stage with its own metrics, led by clicks and conversions, with open rate as a secondary signal.
Send one promotional email to your whole list and it is too pushy for new subscribers and too impersonal for long-standing customers. The marketing funnel helps you match content to where each recipient is: build trust first, then introduce the product, then prompt the purchase, then keep the customer and turn them into an advocate. This guide covers what to send at each stage, how to connect the stages with automated emails, and what to look for in an email platform.
Why email is worth the effort
Email is cheap to send, and the list is yours — no social platform’s algorithm stands between you and your readers. In 2026 the UK’s Data & Marketing Association (DMA) surveyed 250 marketers across sectors, B2B and B2C; the average return they reported was £40.96 for every £1 spent on email (up from £38.33 in 2021) (DMA Marketer Email Tracker 2026).
Three things to keep in mind when reading that figure:
- it is an average of what marketers reported, not a measured result for each business;
- the survey covers the UK market, so other markets may differ;
- the DMA itself notes that, adjusted for inflation, the return has declined over those five years.
So it shows that email is, overall, a channel with a strong return — not that any business will get the same. Your own result depends on list quality, industry, margins and how well you apply what follows.
Five stages, and what to send at each
| Stage | Where the recipient is | Goal | Suitable emails | Avoid |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Awareness | Just subscribed, barely knows you | Build trust | Welcome email, practical know-how, industry news | Hard selling, product detail overload |
| Consideration | Interested in learning more | Show how you can help | How-to content, use cases, product introductions, webinars | Over-promotion, irrelevant content |
| Conversion | Ready to decide | Win the purchase or enquiry | Comparisons, customer stories, time-limited offers, demo bookings | Bombarding, repeating the same offer |
| Loyalty | Already a customer | Keep them, grow repeat business | Aftercare, tips, member rewards, feedback surveys | Going silent once the sale closes |
| Advocacy | A satisfied customer | Make them glad to recommend you | Referral programmes, share links, review invitations | Asking for referrals from unhappy customers |
In practice, people do not always move in order, and may stay at one stage a long time. The point is to judge each recipient’s stage from their behaviour, rather than send everyone the same email.
What to do at each stage
Awareness: give value first
New subscribers know little about you; what they need is proof that your emails are worth opening. Send practical knowledge, industry news or answers to questions they care about, so they come to see your emails as useful. For welcome emails and welcome series, see How to grow your email list — sign-up forms, welcome emails and re-engaging inactive subscribers.
Consideration: help them picture the result
Interested people want to know how your product or service would solve their problem. Tutorials, use cases, FAQs and webinars all suit this stage. Adjust by what they click: someone who clicked on one product category should see more about that category.
Conversion: clear, specific, and a reason to act
People ready to decide need specifics: prices, plan comparisons, customer stories and one clear next step. A time-limited offer or a demo booking fits here — as long as it is genuine; invented deadlines and inflated claims cost you their trust. For writing the content, see How to write email marketing copy — ABC and AIDA frameworks, value-first content and calls to action.
Loyalty: the sale is the beginning
Many brands move on to the next prospect as soon as a customer buys, yet keeping existing customers is often the better investment. At this stage, send:
- Aftercare: delivery confirmation, how-to guides, maintenance reminders;
- Personalised content: related products or accessories based on what they bought;
- Member rewards: birthday offers, members-only events, points reminders;
- Feedback surveys: a short questionnaire after purchase.
Surveys are especially useful. They show customers you value their views, give you material to improve products and service, and let you group customers by their answers so later emails are more relevant. Keep them short, say how long they take, and tell customers how their input will be used.
Listen and reply. Use a real address people can reply to, and answer quickly when they do. Email is a two-way channel, not just a broadcast tool.
Advocacy: let happy customers speak for you
A friend’s recommendation often persuades more than any advertisement. Once a customer has shown they are satisfied — a good review, a second purchase — invite them to refer a friend or leave a review, and make sharing easy with a share link or a referral reward. Get the customer’s permission before quoting their review or story.
Connecting the funnel with automated emails
Sending by hand, you cannot keep up with where each person is. Automated emails — also called triggered emails or drip marketing — are set off by what the recipient does. Set them up once, and every new subscriber and every new order enters the right flow automatically:
| Trigger | Automated flow | Design notes |
|---|---|---|
| Subscribes | Welcome series | Send the first email immediately; introduce the brand and useful content over days or weeks, and only then make an offer |
| Downloads a resource or registers for a webinar | Nurture series | Build on the topic they chose with related content and cases |
| Abandons a cart | Cart reminder | Remind them what is waiting first, then offer help or an incentive if needed; keep the number of emails low |
| Completes a purchase | Post-purchase series | Order confirmation, shipping notice, how-to guide, then a review or survey request |
| Membership or contract nears expiry | Renewal reminders | Remind them before it expires, and let them renew online |
| Goes quiet for a long time | Re-engagement series | Ask about preferences, give a reason to return, then say you will stop emailing; see the list-growth guide above |
When designing automated flows:
- Set priorities for people in several flows at once, so nobody gets multiple emails on the same day;
- Exit people from a flow once they reach its goal — someone who has checked out should not get a cart reminder;
- Share one unsubscribe and suppression list across every flow.
Beyond email, the same flow can include SMS or WhatsApp — for example an SMS reminder of an important expiry date. For cross-channel practice, see EDM + SMS + WhatsApp on One Platform — Suppression Lists, Reporting, and Funnel Practice and SMS as the entry point to your funnel.
What to look for in an email platform
Bulk-sending marketing email from a personal or office mailbox runs into sending limits and cannot handle bounces or unsubscribes — see Why sending marketing email from Outlook or Gmail doesn’t work — and what to do instead. When comparing platforms, look at:
- Deliverability infrastructure: help with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, reputation monitoring, automatic bounce and complaint handling;
- List management: grouping and tagging by source, interest and purchase history;
- Editor and templates: drag-and-drop emails that render properly on phones;
- Automation: behaviour-triggered flows, not just scheduled blasts;
- Reporting: delivery, clicks, conversions, unsubscribes and complaints;
- Compliance: an unsubscribe and suppression list shared across every campaign.
Measuring each stage
| Stage | Metrics to watch |
|---|---|
| Awareness | New subscribers, welcome-email clicks, early unsubscribes |
| Consideration | Content clicks, webinar registrations, downloads |
| Conversion | Enquiries, demo bookings, purchases |
| Loyalty | Repeat purchase rate, member activity, survey responses |
| Advocacy | Subscribers or customers from referrals, number of reviews |
Open data is affected by privacy protection in recipients’ mail apps and should not be relied on alone — see How to improve email open rates — and what to measure now that opens are unreliable.
FAQ
How often should I send a newsletter?
There is no universal answer; what matters is consistency and keeping the promise you made at sign-up. Watch unsubscribes and complaints — they usually rise first when you send too often.
Is automation worth it with only a few hundred subscribers?
Yes. Flows such as welcome emails and cart reminders run on their own once set up; they are easier to build while the list is small, and then look after every new subscriber as it grows.
Can one person be in several flows at once?
Yes, but set priorities and spacing so they are not flooded, and remove them from a flow automatically once they reach its goal.
How should I plan holiday and seasonal campaigns?
Map out the year’s main campaign windows in advance, then decide by funnel stage who gets what. See A year-round email marketing calendar — campaign planning around Hong Kong and Taiwan holidays.
UFOSEND’s EDM email marketing service runs behaviour-triggered flows — sign-up, download, purchase, cart abandonment, long silence — alongside lists, tags and advanced search for precise segments, and sends SMS, MMS and EDM from the same platform.