AMA: Email Marketing, How To, Best Practices

[AllenCrawley]

Over the last 5 years, I've gotten pretty good using email to generate sales.

Through trial and error, and through learning from some of the best ecommerce email marketers out there, I have been able to develop and implement some incredibly potent strategies. Although this is an AMA it is also a place where I will share with you how-to details of some of those strategies that I believe will take your business to another level.

While my experience is in email marketing for B2C physical products much of the information I'll share here can be used with service-based businesses.

Email is just another channel of revenue for your business. Just like brick and mortar, wholesaling, Amazon, eBay, and your own website are channels of revenue.

I know many successful people right here on the forum that rarely if ever, send out emails. I know for a fact that if you're not using email you're leaving a ton of money on the table.

My hope here is to help you use email correctly and more powerfully.

To start things off...

One of the most asked questions of me is,

"How often do you send out emails?"

My answer, "Every day."

One of the things I'll share is how you too can email every day without wearing out your list. Stay tuned.

Another often asked question is, "What email platform do you recommend?"

I use and highly recommend Klaviyo. It was designed and developed by ecommerce business owners for ecommerce business owners. It is expensive but if you have a great email system in place it's worth every penny. If you haven't started building your list or your list is small I'd recommend MailCheat(Chimp) to get started. It's free up to 2000 contacts. Much of the email strategies I'll share here will be shown via my Klaviyo workflow but they may actually be able to be implemented in other email platforms.

While I collect my thoughts and determine which "How-to" to share with you first (will likely be How to start growing your email list), please ask any questions you may have regarding email marketing.

 

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[MTF]

What are your average open rates? Do you even think about them or just focus on sales per email sent? Do you delete people who haven't opened emails in the last few months? How do you convert freebie seekers/low value subscribers (if you have any) into paying customers?

 

[ZF Lee]

Thanks, @AllenCrawley. I'm currently looking forward to doing more copywriting services in this area.

I have seen many lead magnets consisting of free reports or info products. Most of them are usually part of the goodies, such as TMF's 'Grab first 3 Chapters free'

How do you roughly design your lead magnets to draw in their emails? Do you have a philosophy to cater it to their relevance or timing? Do you test it (haven't seen anyone do it though) and use the more converting one?

Also, do you usually (or recommend) send emails in multiple media? I've seen Copyhacker use both video and text transcript, as well as Glenn's How to Double Your Business (text transcript with audio). Have your email readers found it to be stiffling or helpful?

 

[Greg R]

YES!!! I can't wait for this thread to unfold!

 

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[AllenCrawley]

What are your average open rates?

That depends on the segment of my list I'm emailing. If they are a highly engaged segment it's been as high as 80%. If it's a low engagement segment it can be as low as a few percent. I rarely email low engaged segments or my entire list for that matter. I'll go into deeper detail later about segmentation.

Do you delete people who haven't opened emails in the last few months?

Yes. I have a segment of "Not Engaged" people that I remove/delete from Klaviyo by export once a month. I then move/import them into MailCheat(Chimp) and start a Nurture sequence to try to get them to re-engage.

The definition of this segment is that they've received at least 30 emails, never opened any of those emails, has not been active on my website in the last 60 days and has never placed an order.

How do you convert freebie seekers/low value subscribers (if you have any) into paying customers?

One of the things I'll share in how to grow/build your email list is using free gift cards and hosting giveaways. There will certainly be freebie seekers here no matter how well you target. If they enter my list via a free gift card and they do not use that gift card within 24 hours they go into a "flow" or autoresponder sequence of 7 emails that we hope will convert them into a paying customer. I haven't checked the numbers for this recently but I do know we've converted up to 70% of them in any given month.

 

[AllenCrawley]

How do you roughly design your lead magnets to draw in their emails? Do you have a philosophy to cater it to their relevance or timing? Do you test it (haven't seen anyone do it though) and use the more converting one?

Currently, I rotate between lead magnets offered via my websites.

1. Pop up triggered on exit intent that offers a free $10 gift card. I use privy.com for this pop-up that integrates with Klaviyo. Headline of the pop-up is something like, "We're giving away 50 $10 gift cards".
2. A Spin-to-Win pop-up triggered on exit intent. I use the Wheelio shopify app for this.

The pop up will not trigger regardless of exit intent if the visitor is on the homepage, the cart page, the checkout page or the thank you page.

I've tested numerous lead magnet offers on my website and these two are the best converting offers I've come across so far. However, I'm always testing.

Also, do you usually (or recommend) send emails in multiple media? I've seen Copyhacker use both video and text transcript, as well as Glenn's How to Double Your Business (text transcript with audio). Have your email readers found it to be stiffling or helpful?

I would guess 90% of my emails are promotional in nature. They usually contain a promotional graphic and copy text further explaining the offer.

 

[samuraijack]

what traffic source do you get the majority of your signups from?

 

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[amp0193]

Thanks for starting this thread.

You drop so many knowledge bombs on email stuff, it can be hard to remember it all.

This thread will be a great go-to reference.

 

[AllenCrawley]

what traffic source do you get the majority of your signups from?

1. Organic traffic from search and facebook.
2. Facebook ads.

 

[BD64]

Awesome thread in the making here. Thanks for offering up your hard-earned knowledge.

I just started working with a new ecommerce client who is using Klayvio so this is perfect timing

Few questions to get rolling:

1. What does a successful welcome series look to do? Right now we only have ~3 emails and they are mostly educational.

2. Can you get deeper into segmentation? Seems like Klayvio is really powerful here. In specific what are the 3 most important segments to have?

3. Have you run into any issues with deliverability?

 

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[Charnell]

Are you primarily working in B2C, B2B, or B2G markets?

 

[ZF Lee]

Another question.

Do you do 'soap opera' loops, as Russell Brunson calls it? Sending regular emails to keep the folks close to you with non-salesy stuff like newsletters, information articles, customer stories, etc? I know you've already said that 90% of your emails are largely promotional, but for the other 10%, it might be important.

If you do that, do you write the emails by yourself? Or do you get other experts in the field (for heavily technical products) or rope in Upwork freelancers?

There's also a risk of relying too much on outside parties to do your content. How might you deal with it?

 

[AllenCrawley]

1. What does a successful welcome series look to do? Right now we only have ~3 emails and they are mostly educational.

I don't really have a "welcome series" per se. Depending on how they enter my list dictates the series of emails or "flows" they go into. All my flows are geared to convert them to a paying customer. So it's my opinion that any flows or welcome series should give whatever information is needed to convert them into a customer. My flows can be as short as 3 emails to as many as 16 emails. I will include information about us and how/why we founded the company. Info about our products and our unique selling position. I will also include customer reviews. If they entered a flow through my free gift card offer or spin to win wheel each email also includes a call to action to use their card or code before it expires.

2. Can you get deeper into segmentation? Seems like Klayvio is really powerful here. In specific what are the 3 most important segments to have?

I plan to do a deeper dive into segmentation a bit later but I will share my 13 most important segments now. (I can't take complete credit for these segments. Most I learned them from masters of Klaviyo and ecommerce.)

1. Very Engaged (opened emails at least twice and active on website at least once in last 2 weeks)
2. Engaged (opened emails at least once in last 30 days)
3. Inactive (received at least 30 emails and opened emails zero times over all time)
4. Subscribers - non-buyers
5. Opened and Clicked but No Purchase last 14 days
6. Opened and Clicked but No Purchase last 30 days
7. Opened but No Click and No Purchase last 14 days
8. Opened but No Click and No Purchase last 30 days
9. All Customers
   
10. PRE-VIP Customers - $200 -$249.99 in revenue
11. VIP Customers - $250 - 499.99 Revenue and 2+ Orders
    
12. Gold VIP's Customers - $500-999 in revenue
    
13. Platinum VIP's Customers - $1000+ in revenue

With segments 10-13 you would want to determine what revenue numbers would be relevant to you. The above are just my numbers.

3. Have you run into any issues with deliverability?

No. I never send emails to my entire list at once. I always use segmentation. This is very important to maintain good deliverability.

I recommend reading Customer Centricity by Peter Fader. Focus on the Right Customers for Strategic Advantage.

 

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[AllenCrawley]

Are you primarily working in B2C, B2B, or B2G markets?

B2C

 

[AllenCrawley]

Another question.

Do you do 'soap opera' loops, as Russell Brunson calls it? Sending regular emails to keep the folks close to you with non-salesy stuff like newsletters, information articles, customer stories, etc? I know you've already said that 90% of your emails are largely promotional, but for the other 10%, it might be important.

If you do that, do you write the emails by yourself? Or do you get other experts in the field (for heavily technical products) or rope in Upwork freelancers?

There's also a risk of relying too much on outside parties to do your content. How might you deal with it?

The 10% I reference earlier may include some of the things you listed here. Honestly, I should probably do more in this area.

All emails are written by me.

 

[AllenCrawley]

How to Start/Grow Your Email List​

This is obviously not an exhaustive list of tactics to grow your list but they are my best-converting methods for a physical product based business. YMMV

People enter my lists via one of the following:

1. $5.00 coupon offer located in the website footer.
   
2. Pop-up (exit intent) offering a free $10 Gift Card to the next 50 people.
3. Spin-to-Win Wheelio Pop-up (exit intent) - I rotate between the Gift Card offer and Spin-to-Win. I do not run both at the same time.
4. Giveaways - I use Clickfunnels for our Giveaway registration because it allows me to make a one time offer and upsell right after they register.

The $5.00 coupon offer in the footer:

We implemented this in November 2018 and it is performing extremely well. Very simple to integrate. We coded ours to immediately display the coupon code right in the footer once they entered their email. Surprisingly, our 24-hour conversion rate on this little "almost hidden" tactic is over 15%. I think part of the reason it has a high conversion rate is that people think they found something kinda hidden and want to use before someone finds out, lol.​

Gift Card Pop-up:

This is just a simple pop-up that triggers on exit intent. Our offer is a gift card for $10. We only require an email address. Now, this is just a simple $10 coupon code but we frame it as a gift card because it has a much higher perceived value. Use what ever dollar value works for your business. If you sell $1000 products you may want to offer $100 or $200 gift cards. If the cheapest item you sell is $10 then you will need to figure out if a gift card offer will even work for you. If this is your situation you may consider restricting your gift card to a minimum purchase.

The copy on our pop-up...​

We're Giving Away $10 Gift Cards to the Next 50 People
No strings attached. No minimum purchase required.
Enter your email below before they're gone.​

Spin-to-Win:

We use the Wheelio app but there are others out there. Again, triggered on exit intent. The wheelio app is what we use most often. Maybe once every couple months we'll switch back to the Gift Card offer until we get our 50 people then switch back to wheelio. Wheelio will not land on any losing slices so every spin is a winner.​

Giveaways:

Later on, I'll go deeper into how to do giveaways that not only grow your list but make you money. Teaser: our last giveaway had 999 registrants (99% opt-in rate) and we converted 12.5% of them into a paying customer immediately after they registered. The upsell that followed then converted 30% of those customers.
​

Once someone enters our list they go into a Flow or series of emails designed to convert them to a paying customer as soon as possible. Soon, I'll cover what types of flows to use for each of the tactics above and what your emails should contain.

Stay tuned...


.

 

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[AnAverageJoe]

This is golden. I'm about to start my third attempt at an ecom store, and I was planning on going heavy on email marketing. Thank you so much for putting this together, can't wait to follow along.

 

[AllenCrawley]

Quick Tip:

Join your competitor's email lists. Big and small. Also, join the email lists of businesses that offer complementary products to yours.

Join email lists of a couple huge brands whether or not they're in the same category as you.

Doing this will provide some inspiration and insight on how you can promote to your list.

.

 

[Charnell]

Quick Tip:

Join your competitor's email lists. Big and small. Also, join the email lists of businesses that offer complementary products to yours.

Join email lists of a couple huge brands whether or not they're in the same category as you.

Doing this will provide some inspiration and insight on how you can promote to your list.

.

Big piece of advice right here!!

I created a burner email address solely for this. Should be essential for anyone doing email marketing, even experienced folk.

 

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[AllenCrawley]

We recently experimented with a co-branded giveaway with 4 other companies.

The giveaway was managed by a company that specializes in hosting giveaways.

All we had to do was donate a $200 gift card to our website for the winner and a coupon they would email to each registrant. We gave a $5 off coupon for each new registrant. We also had to email our list about the giveaway at least twice.

I really didn't have high hopes for this campaign but thought it was worth a shot.

The giveaway ended yesterday and a winner was chosen this morning. The winner already used their gift card on our website.

I was pleasantly surprised this morning when I also received a .CSV containing over 3600 registrant emails. The giveaway company said that it had already been sanitized to remove all non-US, Canadian and Australian emails. I'm not sure how good the list will be but I will likely import the list into MailCheat(Chimp) (vs. Klaviyo) and start a "nurture" campaign. We'll see how it goes.

 

[Andy Black]

Interesting update.

The giveaway company said that it had already been sanitized to remove all non-US, Canadian and Australian emails. I'm not sure how good the list will be but I will likely import the list into MailCheat(Chimp) (vs. Klaviyo) and start a "nurture" campaign. We'll see how it goes.

Do you go through a process to sanitize lists you've received before sending emails?

 

[AllenCrawley]

Do you go through a process to sanitize lists you've received before sending emails?

I will remove any duplicates but that's about it.

 

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[BD64]

I will remove any duplicates but that's about it.

Are these segmented in any way yet?

 

[AllenCrawley]

Are these segmented in any way yet?

No. Since some of my subscribers and customers were indeed on this giveaway list I've deleted them from this particular list. So, this is just a list of non-buyers that frankly, may not be worth a hill of beans. That's why they'll go into MailCheat(Chimp) in a nurture campaign that contains about 10 emails.

Anyone who doesn't open any of those emails will be deleted. Anyone who opens and clicks through will be imported into Klaviyo and segmented as Active. Opens but did not click will stay in MailCheat(Chimp) until they clickthrough.

 

[Andy777E]

Hi,

I have software Services to sell in a niche IT domain. We have certified US Staff and soon hoping to be partner with Company (Fortune 1000 company and well known). I have few CEO,CIOs,CTOs emails, linked in etc. So basically B2B. How should I approach contacting them?
We also have an application which serves using same tool- and we can give away free! It should soon be officially listed if partnership with company approved.
Appreciate any input!

 

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[DustinH]

This came at just the right time. I'm configuring my email marketing sequencing. I need an automated system for 1) brand new leads to build trust and authority with me, and 2) a long-term weekly nurture system that is information-based content.

I've never done email marketing and don't know how to set it all up, create automation, execute, etc. I can create the content for the informational emails but the rest is overwhelming.

 

[AllenCrawley]

Hi,

I have software Services to sell in a niche IT domain. We have certified US Staff and soon hoping to be partner with Company (Fortune 1000 company and well known). I have few CEO,CIOs,CTOs emails, linked in etc. So basically B2B. How should I approach contacting them?
We also have an application which serves using same tool- and we can give away free! It should soon be officially listed if partnership with company approved.
Appreciate any input!

This really falls outside of my expertise, to be honest. I'm more B2C but I do know some members here have good success cold emailing B2B. This would seem, to me, best to approach them from an educational based position via email and then reaching out over phone?

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Thanks Allen, great stuff here. Moving to GOLD -- this is the kind of stuff a guru will sell at a seminar for $10K. Instead its here being revealed by someone deep in the trenches of business, thank you!

 

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[Andy Black]

Hi,

I have software Services to sell in a niche IT domain. We have certified US Staff and soon hoping to be partner with Company (Fortune 1000 company and well known). I have few CEO,CIOs,CTOs emails, linked in etc. So basically B2B. How should I approach contacting them?
We also have an application which serves using same tool- and we can give away free! It should soon be officially listed if partnership with company approved.
Appreciate any input!

https://quickmail.io/podcast/

 

[Guest12120]

@AllenCrawley would you mind sharing what percentage of your sales come from email marketing?

I have been using email marketing more than before with one of my clients but I think we can still do better. We are at 12% in the last 30 days.