Sixty years ago, not even Nostradamus could have predicted the rise of the internet and its dominance on the world of marketing.
TV commercials were just getting off the ground, and print dominated.
Despite that, a concept was born that still has a tremendous influence on modern-day marketing.
In his book, Breakthrough Advertising, first published in 1966, Eugene Schwartz introduced the Five Stages of Awareness. Even though this is a concept from the Mad Men era of marketing, the principles Schwartz wrote about are still just as applicable now.
To grossly oversimplify the topic, he states your customer will fall into one of five stages of awareness, and the secret is to reach a customer with the right message at just the right time if you are to make a sale.
And by being able to deliver a series of messages, each more detailed and persuasive than the last, an email Welcome Sequence done well can be remarkably effective.
But get it wrong, and it can be a major cause of your campaign flopping.
So what are these stages, and how can you use them?
Let’s dig in.
Unaware
Your customer doesn’t know they have a problem and haven’t heard of your brand. They are ice cold, and you’ve got a job on your hands to sell to them.
You need to start at the beginning—show them a problem that they are oblivious to, make it the most pressing concern they should have, and position your brand as the obvious solution to it.
This can be challenging to do in one go, but over time, it’s possible to guide them through your whole sales argument.
Problem Aware
This customer knows they have a problem, and it’s playing on their mind—an annoying itch they are getting obsessed with scratching. But how?
Your lead is getting warmer….
Solution Aware
They know they have a problem and have discovered how they can fix it, but by who?
Product Aware
Now we’re getting somewhere. Your lead knows they have a problem, they know they can fix it, and they now know you have a product that might just do the job.
Most Aware
The warmest of leads. Your customer is ready to buy and simply needs an offer that ticks all the boxes—a way to solve their problem at a price they’re willing to pay.
How email plays its part
Knowing this, what part does email, and specifically a Welcome sequence, play?
Unless you’re bringing a whole new product to market, it’s unlikely that you’ll be dealing with completely unaware customers (but, thanks to Kickstarter and the like, it’s not unheard of).
At this stage, you need some method of getting traffic to your site—normally achieved through paid ads.
They can be long and detailed, or short and intriguing, but when they arrive in your world, we need your landing page to get to work with simple and compelling copy.
A well-timed pop-up that delivers on and furthers their initial interest is key—a downloa or a quiz, or similar is perfect.
Trading something of value for their email address so you can continue the conversation.
Many eCom brands give a discount at this stage. While that’s effective for those who are Most Aware and ready to buy, for many customers, this is way too soon—they don’t even know what you’re offering yet.
This can go some way in explaining low conversion on your pop-up.
That being said, often the promise of a bargain is enough for them to play the long game—I’ve got your discount code saved and I’ll use it—you now have to convince me to buy (so always make sure you send it in an email so they can come back and ues it!).
It’s worth testing how different offer pop-ups perform. Thanks to the power of most email serivce providers, you can even target repeat customers with a different pop-ups than brand new cold leads, and serve them different messages—demonstrating the power of awareness perfectly.
But now, it’s the turn of your Welcome Sequence to do the heavy lifting.
Combined with retargeting ads on social and when browsing, they can be incredibly effective.
Where most brands get it wrong.
Welcome sequences should be long. The first email tends to smash it out of the park, and most brands stop there, satisifed with its performance, but you can’t expect all of your customers to be ready to buy the moment they sign up.
You need to be patient.
Look at your conversion stats. Unless you've converted 100% of your subscribers, there are still many more sales to be had by customers who are lower down the ladder of awareness.
They may be stuck languishing at problem aware, yet to be convinced that you are the solution to their problem.
The key here is to continue to engage them in conversation.
About what?
Well, your backstory, testimonials, rave customer reviews and more can all play their part in raising awareness and moving customers closer to the sale.
Deliver interesting content, valuable information, compelling offers and more, and your Welcome sequence will continue to bring in the money.
If you use a Welcome Sequence and it isn’t converting 100% of subscribers, maybe think about how the Stages of Awareness could help.
And if you need my help with that, hit Get in Touch above, and let’s chat.