18 Best Email Marketing Templates For Sales Funnel Success

Need help with your email marketing? Here are the 18 best email marketing templates for ecommerce, B2B SaaS, coaches, consultants, and tons more!

In 2019, 293.6 billion emails were sent and received every single day. By 2022, that number is expected to increase to over 347.3 billion.

And lest you think that all of those emails are spam (well… many of them probably are), consider that, according to Data Marketing & Analytics, you can expect an average return of $42 for every $1 you spend on your email marketing efforts.

Not bad, huh?

Ultimately, though, your email marketing efforts will only be as effective as your sales funnel.

Why Your Email Marketing Is Only as Good as Your Sales Funnel

Every email needs to have a purpose.

Before you ever click “Send,” ask yourself this dead-simple, maybe-obvious question: “Why am I sending this email?”

Is it to get sales? Is it to re-engage disinterested subscribers? Is it to build brand authority?

Deciding why you’re sending the email is the first step to making your email marketing efforts a success: making sure that every email has a clearly-defined purpose for a clearly-defined audience.

Once you know why you’re sending an email, the next question is: how are you going to accomplish that objective?

Beyond crafting an email that subscribers can’t help but open and click (more on that in a minute), where are you going to send people after they click? How are you going to pull them further down the funnel?

And therein lies the answer… when you want to make sales — which is, after all, the primary objective of email marketing — you should send your subscribers to a carefully crafted sales funnel.

What is a sales funnel? 

A sales funnel is a series of pages you use to funnel prospects into paying customers.

And there are different kinds of funnels for different things. There’s the tripwire funnel for selling products, the application funnel for collecting applications, the webinar funnel for building an audience, and the product launch sales funnel for launching new products into the marketplace (plus tons more!).

When you’re using email marketing to make sales, then you should be sending those prospects to a sales funnel where every page pulls them closer toward conversion — you can build your first sales funnel for free over here!

But… how do you get them to click?

The Anatomy of a Successful Email Marketing Campaign

Every email that gets lots of opens and clicks (without using spammy, dishonest marketing tactics) does a few basic things right.

Every successful email has an honest and enticing subject line, a consistent and on-brand design, copy that makes you want to click, and a single compelling CTA.

More specifically…

Compelling Subject line

David Ogilvy once famously mused that,

“On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”

Think of the subject line as the headline of your email — it’s the first thing people see and it’s the main reason they will click (or not click).

Your subject line should be enticing for your target market, but also honest about what people will find within the email should they open it.

One of the largest studies on subject line success by Smart Insights analyzed 700 million emails and found that using these keywords often result in higher open rates.

Branded Design

The design of your email really only needs to do a few things — it needs to immediately identify WHO sent the email (i.e. your business) and it needs to be consistent and on-brand with your other marketing materials.

Consider this email from YouTube…

Or this email from Taco Bell…

Or this email from GameStop…

And a basic pattern starts to emerge. Namely, the business logo somewhere near the top of the email with brand fonts and colors throughout the rest of the email.

Or if you are in the early stages of building your business and don’t have branded materials yet, there’s no reason you can’t stick with the basic black-text on a white-background format (that works great for consulting and coaching businesses, in particular).

Enticing Copy

As with all great sales copy, the only goal of your first sentence is to get the prospect to read the second sentence. And the goal of the second sentence is to get the reader to read the third sentence. So on and so forth.

Seem artificial?

It shouldn’t. In fact, the main reason that your email marketing copy should entice your target market to keep reading is because what you have to offer will genuinely benefit them.

The person shouldn’t keep reading only to find out that they’ve been duped — make big promises and tell compelling stories that you can actually fulfill. That is how you make a sale.

Consider this email from Copyblogger as an example…

It pulls the target market into the story and keeps them reading. Then, it actually delivers on its promise with “five real-world examples of marketing that’s helpful and useful, not sleazy.”

Here’s another example from OptinMonster…

Again, this email pulls the reader in, keeps their attention, and then delivers on its promises by explaining what a “Content Upgrade” is and how people can use one on their own website.

Whatever the goal of your email is, make sure that your email copy guides the person from subject line all the way down, word-by-word, sentence-by-sentence, to your CTA.

Attractive CTA

Every email you send must have a purpose. And ideally, only one purpose.

As all marketers know, analysis paralysis is a real thing. By giving your prospects too many choices, you can actually make it more difficult for them to buy from you, not less difficult.

(“Should I buy this or this or that or this? Eh, nevermind!”)

Put your CTA near the bottom of your email (or a few times throughout the copy if it’s a long email) and only ask the subscriber to take one action.

Email Marketing Templates for Ecommerce

1. Abandoned Cart Email

Somewhere around 78% of online shopping carts get abandoned.

That’s a lot of lost sales. Fortunately, 40% of cart abandonment emails get opened, 50% of those get clicked, and 50% of people who click, finish their purchase. You can use the below template to recapture lost sales.

Abandoned Cart Template

2. Confirmation Email

The first purpose of the confirmation email is to let a buyer know that their purchase has been completed (like a receipt), but you can also use this email to recommend other similar products or ask the customer to take a quick survey.

This is one of the few emails that can have multiple purposes — since the person has already purchased, why not pull them toward the next logical action?

Confirmation Email Template

3. Flash Sale Email

Many  of the best subject lines we discussed earlier include phrases like “Great deals” and “Sale starts,” so why not try to capture some more conversions from discount-seeking subscribers with a flash sale email — a short-and-sweet discount announcement like the below example.

Flash Sale Email Template

Email Marketing Templates for B2B SaaS

1. Follow-up Email

It’s commonly touted that only 2% of sales are made on the first contact, 3% on the second contact, 5% on third contact, 10% on fourth, and a whopping 80% on the fifth through the 12th contact.

In other words, following up is really important, especially in the B2B SaaS world. Follow-up emails are usually short and sweet, address a customer objection or concern and have a clear, quick call to action.  Here’s a template for a simple follow-up email:

Follow-up Email Template

2. Referral Email

B2B companies with a consistent referral program in place have 70% higher conversion rates and 69% faster close times. Plus, customers that get acquired via referral have a 37% higher retention rate. There’s nothing quite like good ol’ word-of-mouth recommendations from friends.

You can use the below template to ask for more referrals from your existing clients (try to add a little incentive).

Referral Email Template

3. Review Email

Every B2B SaaS company at least partly survives on good reviews. The more positive digital buzz you build around your business, the better.

And you might be surprised by how many of your customers are willing to leave a review if you ask them. Just make it as easy as possible on them.

Review Email Template

Email Marketing Templates for Coaches & Consultants

1. Sales Call Email

When it comes to coaching and consulting businesses, the primary goal of email marketing is to get prospects on the phone.

If you can get a phone call scheduled, you can work your sales magic, build a relationship, and encourage them to buy (consider offering a free “discovery session”).

Of course… easier said than done.

So here’s an email template for getting more phone calls with potential clients for your coaching or consulting business.

Sales Call Email Template

2. Survey Email

When you’re trying to convert your subscribers into coaching or consulting clients, it pays to learn about who they are and what they want. By sending out a survey and collecting information about your specific audience, you can craft more compelling email pitches, create a better course or curriculum, and even get a feel for what your company’s unique selling proposition should be.

Survey Email Template

3. The Pitch Email

There’s no getting around it — being a coach or consultant is going to include pitching your services to a lot of people. And here’s an email marketing template you can use for doing just that.

The Pitch Email Template

Email Marketing Templates for Local Small Businesses

1. Event Invite Email

If you own a brick-and-mortar local business, you’ll probably want to use email to invite people to come into your store. Holiday events, seasonal offers, or other fun in-person activities are a great way to create buzz and get store traffic.

Here’s an email template you can use to announce an upcoming event (be sure to include the time and place!).

Event Invite Email Template

2. Coupon Email

Another great way to get people coming into your local store is to offer a coupon or a special sale. Doing that makes people feel a sense of urgency to buy while it’s on sale — this is the power of Black Friday and Cyber Monday for getting shoppers to pull out their wallets.

The below template is for online purchases, but you can easily modify it for in-store purchases only.

Coupon Email Template

3. Incentivized Thank You Email

When people buy from you in your brick-and-mortar store, you’re probably going to say “Thank You.”

But this is also a good opportunity to send a post-purchase email with a special discount off the customer’s next purchase (or some other incentive to keep buying from you) — after all, getting a current  customer to buy again is much easier than acquiring a new customer.

The below email is for online purchases, but can easily be modified for local customers.

Incentivized Thank You Email Template

Email Marketing Templates for Affiliate Marketers

1. Recommended Products Email

If you’re an affiliate marketer, then you make money by recommending products to your subscribers. This means that it’s extremely important to segment your emails so that you can send people product recommendations specific to their interests and wants.

The more relevant your recommendations, the more sales you’re going to make and the more commissions you’re going to get.

Recommended Products Email Template

2. Exclusive Discount Email

As an affiliate for other people’s products, you might be able to offer exclusive discounts to your audience. Definitely make the most of those special offers with email campaigns that remind people of what they might be missing out on.

Exclusive Discount Email Example

3. Offer Ending Email

When you do have a special offer for your audience, make sure to follow up when that discount is about to end. This creates a healthy sense of urgency, which encourages your subscribers to take action sooner rather than later.

The email template below is not an affiliate email, but the idea could easily be replicated to sell someone else’s product rather than your own.

Offer Ending Email Template

Email Marketing Templates for Non-Profits

1. Donation Email

Many non-profits survive on donations. So make sure you ask people for donations who haven’t made a monthly pledge yet.

Here’s an email template for doing just that. 

Donation Email Template

2. Mission & Vision Email

As the owner or marketer of a non-profit organization , it’s important to make sure your subscribers are intimately familiar with what your business does and why it does that. It’s like Simon Sinek once said: “People don’t buy what you  do. They buy why you do it.”

So make sure to create an automated email campaign that explains to new subscribers the mission and vision of your organization. Mission & Vision Email Template

3. Thank You Email

When you’re taking donations rather than selling products, what you’re really selling is the satisfaction and joy that comes with having donated to a non-profit organization.

That’s why creating a thank-you email for people who pledge money is so darn important — it makes those same people feel proud of their gift and it makes them want to give more in the future.

Use These 18 Email Marketing Templates and Track Your Results!

The only thing left to do is to try out some of the email marketing templates for yourself and see what happens.

Track the open rate and click-through rate of whatever emails you choose, iterate as necessary, drive all your traffic to a sales funnel (build your first sales funnel over here for free!), and you’ll be benefiting from high-value email campaigns in no time.