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The Ultimate Guide To eCommerce Email Marketing in 2017 and onwards
And how you can add an extra 20% to your store revenue
I know what you’re wondering, is this article REALLY worth my time?
Well, let me first tell you a little bit about who I am and why you should take my advice in the first place.
Jason K Williamson
Founder
What you’re about to learn will teach you the exact system behind the powerhouse eCommerce Marketing agency E2.
This system is well known for adding more than 25% to our Multi-million dollar brands.
In fact, this exact system helped one of our clients generate $4,120,490 in added revenue through email marketing in less than 7 months!
You heard that right, $4,120,490!!
Now I can’t promise you will earn that much but just think, what would you do if you could add an instant 20% revenue to your store? How would that change the way you live your life? Would you sleep better at night knowing that you’re maximizing the efforts of your email marketing?
Of course you would.
So, what exactly do we do?
The Software we use
Firstly, you need to know what software we use to get these incredible results and to be able to craft these highly tailored, extremely unique & behavioral emails.
One word, Klaviyo.
Klaviyo is absolutely incredible and hands down, without a doubt the #1 choice for email marketing.
It’s helped me generate million of dollars for my clients, it’s extremely easy to use, highly intuitive, extremely customizable and just all around incredible.
But Klaviyo itself is only half the equation to our success. Our real key differentiator is the way we structure our email flows and broadcast campaigns.
Every email we send out falls into one of the following 3 categories:
- Money-making email
- Re-engaging email
- Nurturing email
We realise customers hate being constantly bombarded with sales and pitches. It makes you come across as desperate and greedy if you’re constantly pitching. The trick is to maintain a fabulous relationship with your list and keep them curious and anticipating your next set of emails.
If you can achieve this your list will come to love you (we call this a hyper engaged list). If you don’t however, they become a dead list – which is something you never want.
So you may be asking, what can I do to to turn my list into a hyper-engaged money printing list?
Here is a brief breakdown of our strategy:
Whether it’s messenger bots, email marketing or good old direct mail and catalogue marketing, it all comes down to putting the right offer in front of the right audience at the right time. No matter how you fancy it up and whatever the medium, this time tested principle doesn’t change.
It’s about asking your prospective customer to make 3 key decisions:
First Decision – Open Your Email
Second Decision – Read Your Email
Third Decision – Buy from Your Email
At E2 Agency, all our emails fulfill the same purpose.
Cart Abandonment Flow
The first thing that we do and our absolute TOP priority is the Abandon Cart flow. If you’re not getting this right, you’re losing several % on your total revenue.
It’s simple, when someone shows interest by hitting the buy now button but doesn’t make a purchase, within 1 hour we send a “recovery” email, called the Abandon Cart email. Studies have shown that within the first hour of sending an Abandon Cart email you’ll get the best results.
Abandon Cart emails typically have open rates of 25-40% and can be improved over time with some simple split testing!
Our top 3 performing Abandon Cart Subject Lines…
- Re: your order
- {{ first_name|default:’friend’ }}, Did you forget something? Special discount enclosed!
- {{ first_name|default:’friend’ }}, just one more step
This flow will typically add an extra 5% to your revenue when done correctly.
Browse Abandonment Flow
Similar to Abandon Cart and generating almost the exact same returns, this is an incredible flow and can start to really bring you some good revenue!
When a subscriber receives an email from you and they click through they get “tracked” by Klaviyo (PS. Klaviyo is our Number 1 choice of email autoresponders, it’s extremely good and you can find out why I recommend it by clicking here…) (hyperlink)
A subscriber will be tracked when they click through an email but DO NOT click the buy now button. We simply send them 3 browse abandonment emails adding urgency/scarcity to the product they showed interest in, creating the FOMO psychology.
Our top 3 performing Browse Abandonment subject lines…
- Re: Your Order
- You’d look awesome with {{ event.Name }}
- {{ event.Name }} stock is running low…
If you implement this strategy, you can see an instant increase of revenue from anywhere between 3-5%.
Win-Back Campaign
A cheeky discount ladder flow designed to pique the interest of existing customers that haven’t visited or purchased in around 120 days. It’s a great way to automatically reach out to your fans and customers, encouraging them to come back, make a purchase and fall back in love with you and your brand.
The flow will trigger when a visitor hasn’t purchased from you within at least 120 days. We choose this timeframe because of the 80/20 rule – 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your customers. eCommerce is no exception to this rule.
We created a 6 step Win-Back campaign that will trigger at 120 days and sending a discount ladder,. These emails rely on the natural curiosity of consumers and aim to pique their interest, have them open your email and purchase using a discount.
If you do this correctly, (and your brand is great – meaning that the last time they purchased from you, their parcel wasn’t 4 weeks late and unimpressive) you’ll see a massive increase in revenue!
Bear in mind, the flow triggers at 120 days so obviously if you implement this today, you won’t see results for a little while. Once it starts to hit them though, you’ll see the dollars roll in!
Our top 3 performing Win-Back subject lines…
- We’ve missed you!
- You have less than 24 hours.
- Was it something we said?
New Customer Welcome
This is basically a flow to show your newly acquired customers that you love them. Simple. It’s a chance to educate new customers about your brand and have them feel a part of your community, causing them to fall in love with your brand and be eager to purchase again and again!
When a person makes a purchase, you can have them accept marketing by default. (PS. If
you haven’t already done so, go into your Shopify settings and ensure that “customer accepts marketing by default” is ticked.) When customers make a purchase they’ll accept marketing and automatically be added into your list. When you use Klaviyo, this process is automatic. Data is pulled from Shopify, so you don’t need to do anything.
You’ll want to trigger this flow the instant that someone purchases because it’s imperative that you have them learn more about you, your brand and why you exist. I really can’t stress enough how important it is to get that message across. You want your customers to remember you so they are more likely to purchase from you again.
Return Customer Welcome
This is a similar yet smaller flow to your New Customer Welcome. It’s acknowledging that a customer has returned and how appreciative you are that they have chosen to purchase from you again. The trigger for this flow is extremely simple, when a customer has purchased more than once, enter this flow. Boom. Simple. Nothing groundbreaking, just simple customer behavioural targeting.
Our top performing Return Customer Welcome subject line…
- Do you have a tissue?
This isn’t a huge profit generator as it’s more in the nature of a “relational” instead of “promotional” type of email.
Our top 3 performing Lead Generation to Customer subject lines…
- Re: Exclusive discount…
- Urgent: Yo, forgot your discount?
- Homie, last chance for your discount…
Lead Generation to Customer Flow
Oh this is my favourite! Why? Because it’s one of the highest profit generating flows that 
I’ve created to date. It takes a “un-engaged” visitor and turns them into an eager to buy customer using powerful copy designed by some of the world’s best copywriters. (PS. If you want to get my highly converting email templates completely free just click here) (hyperlink)
The way this works is first by utilising optinmonster. We create a pop up for each page uniquely and analyse the pages drop-off times with Google Analytics. Once we figure out when the customer is becoming “un-engaged” with the page and we’ve discovered the average exit time, we tend to put a pop up offering a 10% discount right at the point they are known to leave.
This way we aren’t affecting the customer journey and we aren’t annoying customers. We’re finding the least engaged, least likely to purchase and enticing them in with an incredible offer. With this trigger inside of Klaviyo, an email offering the discount we just promised them is instantly sent to the customer, inside is a great piece of copy letting them know why they should purchase from us and of course, giving them the discount.
VIP Flow
There always will be a small group of people inside every list who buy more than the rest. These are your VIP customers and keeping them happy should be your top priority. As long as you keep them happy and reach out to them making them feel special, they will keep on buying from you again and again and again. Make them feel special and give them special deals. They have bought from your store before and will buy again.
Its best to send them this flow either after they make four purchase interactions or once they spend more than $200 in store.
Our top 3 performing VIP flow subject lines…
- Unlocked – your VIP invitation from [Business Name]
- [First Name], what do you think?
- [First Name] Where did we meet?
Review email
Reviews are worth their weight in gold. Question is, how do you ask for legitimate reviewsfrom people who have purchased your products and loved them?
The best way is to send them a review email. Enclose a % discount or a something like $10/$20 in store credit and ask them to send you a review.
Our best performing Review Email Subject line…
- Care to share? $20 inside!
Re-engagement flow
The easiest people to speak to and sell to are the customers who you have worked with
before. Problem is most stores focus solely on finding new customers and forget those who you may have lost touch with. This re-engagement flow fixes that and brings previous customers from the un-engaged into the engaged where they interact more and have a higher chance of buying something from you.
Selling to someone who already knows you is a lot easier than selling to a cold prospect. That’s why this is such an important flow for any e-commerce store. These flows are designed to deliver an excellent return on investment.
Our Top 3 best performing Re-engagement flow Subject lines…
- Your Exclusive Invite to A $200 Shopping Frenzy
- {{ first_name|default:’friend’ }}, Look at What You Missed.
- Can I Bribe You Today?
Promotional Emails
Your 90 day promotional calendar
Having a 90 day promotional calendar allows you to do two things. The first thing is it gives you structure so you can create the rest of your content and tailor it specifically for a few key dates such as Valentine’s Day, Black Friday etc. The second is it gives your clients an overview of what they are getting.
How to write the perfect promo
Just a couple of months ago, we ran an end of year clearance for one of our clients. We helped them make more than $21,500 in less than 7 days using this exact strategy. First we sent out content email to the list to build a sense of anticipation. We also informed them there was going to be a mega sale coming up and to watch out for the offer in their emails.
Then we sent out the promotional emails themselves. The smart thing we did though was segment the list into list who opened and those who did not open our first emails. The people who did not open our first email got re-targeted with several follow up emails.
We then sent out an email 12 hours before the offer expired and another email with less than 4 hours of the offer remaining. The result was more than $21,500 in added revenue through email marketing in less than 7 days. Perceived urgency and scarcity play a BIG role in e-commerce email marketing.
Reason #1 – Ownership
People will purchase for a sense of ownership. That’s why when you are looking at buying a car, the salesman always wants you to get in the car and go for a test drive. It creates a sense of ownership, you start to imagine what it would look like in your driveway, what the neighbours would think, how the wind would feel going through your hair cruising down the highway…you get me. You have to incorporate this into your copy. Give your customers a feeling of ownership.
Reason #2 – Logic
Is it a logical step? Does it make sense for the customer to purchase? Are you selling them shaving foam before they bought a razor? Pretty obvious, but it’s a step which has to be included when you’re writing sales copy.
Reason #3 – Social Proof
Having Social Proof or third party validation is absolutely ESSENTIAL when you are selling e-commerce. Just this element alone can increase your conversion rate by upwards of 10% when you use it on your landing page or product pages. Imagine what it could do to your email conversions!
Reason #4 – Scarcity/Urgency
This is the final step to a promotional campaign. Scarcity helps customers make a decision quickly. Sentences like, ‘stock is running out’, ‘flying off the shelves’, ‘limited time only’, ‘15 minutes remaining!’ etc. add a sense of scarcity and urgency to your emails. If you don’t make it seem urgent, people will put it off and often not come back to buy. Fear Of Missing Out is a deadly tool when used properly.
- Where to outsource?
- Who should I hire?
- How do I hire effectively?
You may be asking, how can one person do all of this Jason? One person could, but it would be a great loss of time, energy and resources. Instead, what we do here at E2 is hire specialists for particular roles.
One of the key places I have found to be a wealth of talent when outsourcing has been Facebook. Once you start letting people know what you are all about, you start attracting like-minded people towards you. Some become your clients and some become your team members.
I live in Australia and typically it costs $200 every time I put out an Ad on SEEK, an employment advertising portal. I have hired close to 20 plus people in the last 12 months alone, so if I were to put 20 ads on SEEK, and let’s say I found the right person every single time, I still would have spent $4000. Instead, I attracted the right people through the value and content I gave away. I saved myself $4000 and found a very talented, hungry and loyal team.
Not a bad tradeoff if you ask me.
The next question, how to hire effectively. Here, I go by my gut instinct. I can feel if someone is up to the task or not. Rather than paper certificates, I look at how passionate that person is to do that particular role. I always insist on either a face to face meetup or if that’s not possible, a call on skype. If someone can’t make time for me, I know they don’t treat me as a priority (instant trigger to NOT hire). I also ask them where they see themself in the next 3-5 years. If they hesitate, you can sense that hesitation in their voice.
Hire slow but fire fast is, and will always be, a golden rule.
Here is a brief breakdown of our organisation flow:
- General worker who is responsible for installing E2 Templates for relevant emails.
- Our executionist (honestly we still can’t come up with a better name, but he is our backbone and handles everything from tech to execution) Does integration & set-up of pop ups + the layout of emails.
- Copywriter cleans up content.
- Our executionist creates split tests.
- Graphic designer creates graphics.
- Team installs.
- Team documents the completion. This is critical as we have had people come in and ask us to do the whole setup, then dispute and ask for a refund. Documenting allows you to have proof of work you’ve done.
- Ask client to confirm to go live.
- Turn flows live!
If this sounds like something you are interested in or if you have an eCommerce store, the best investment you can make is to go through what probably is the best eCommerce email marketing course out there on the internet. You can watch my free live training and learn the exact strategies I use when dealing with Multi-million dollar store owners!
