Unleash the full potential of your e-commerce business with strategic email marketing flows. In this article, we will discover how leveraging automated campaigns can revolutionize customer engagement, drive conversions, and cultivate long-term brand loyalty. From abandoned cart recovery to personalized product recommendations, these indispensable email flows will not only streamline your marketing efforts but also elevate your e-commerce brand to new heights of success.”
Whether you are a DTC store just beginning a pre-launch, a mid-sized DTC brand or a large enterprise Shopify Plus brand, email marketing powers both acquisition and retention successfully and this is an established fact already.
Here are 16 email marketing flows one must implement to ensure you don’t leave any money on the table ASAP as a brand.
Step Zero: Building the Perfect Popup
Pop-ups are the very first element one needs to think of when it comes to email marketing. A valuable email pop-up on-site helps you connect with almost every visitor, first time or returning customer and is your gateway to reduced costs and increased profitability for your store. It also helps channelise traffic from your paid channels to a valuable PDP or your collection page or better still gets your visitor to land a transaction, change order quantities and make purchases right from the emailer in your inbox.
Literally every single dollar that you spend on paid traffic that’s not helping you convert visitors into contactable leads (aka emails and phone numbers) is an unoptimized dollar spent.
As a best practice always get your site visitors information every time that they visit your store – then you can exclude them from the pop-up after they opt in. Once you have someone’s email (and/or phone number or both) you can remarket to them with new offers and campaigns forever or until they unsubscribe.
Some of the best tools that can help you create the perfect pop-up are JustUno and Amped. The entire goal of your pop-up is to get your email capture % to 12%.
So, lets talk a little more about what a perfect pop-up must do:
i. Capture the visitor’s name, email, and phone number. You want their name for email customization and you want both their email and phone number so that you have two ways to contact each subscriber.
ii. Lead with a valuable offer. This could be a discount percent off, a gift with purchase, a sample for trial or anything else. Remember, emails and phone numbers matter, are a form of currency to your brand. Make sure that you are offering the visitor a fair trade!
iii. A lead magnet/educational resource. If it’s not a discount, free sample, or gift with purchase, you could also ask the visitor to share their email and phone number for a valuable piece of educational content.
Learn why retention marketing is a key pillar for DTC growth and its ten benefits here.
Email 1: The post-purchase email:
This is one of the flows you absolutely need live before sending any traffic to your site. Post Purchase confirmation emails are even more important than the welcome flow.
To set this up, you just have to connect your Shopify store to Klaviyo or Sendlane and you can make it happen. Basically, anytime someone orders, they should receive a branded email from you immediately that includes:
i. A Thank You Note! Start with a thank you message. Bonus points if you include the customer’s name.
ii. Order Details: this includes a summary of the purchased items, including product names, quantities, prices, and the total cost.
iii. Order Number: this is the unique identifier for the order, which is important for any future communication or customer service questions that might come up.
iv. Estimated Delivery Date: An approximate date when the customer can expect to receive their order.
v. Shipping Address: A confirmation of the address where the order will be shipped.
When a customers order ships, make sure customers get an email with another personalized intro, followed by the shipping carrier information, and an easy link to track the package. Majority of your customer service complaints will come from people who say, “Hi, where is my order?” or “Hey, when does my order arrive?” If you can make that clear up front, you will save yourself a lot of customer support tickets and frustrated customers.
Email 2: The Welcome flow or the Welcome Series
This is the welcome flow that subscribers should get via your pop-up or after they made a purchase.
The welcome flow is the main introduction or face to your brand. This is because new subscribers have just given you permission to pitch them on why they should buy from your store.
Here is how you could plan your welcome series:
The Introduction Email
This email is you casually introducing yourself, sharing your background, and showcasing some of your value props and attributes.
i. Timing: Send this ASAP after someone subscribes on your site OR immediately after they make their first purchase even if they didn’t previously subscribe.
ii. Content: Include a warm welcome message, an introduction to your brand story, share a founder story, and what subscribers can expect from your emails (i.e., deals, new arrivals, product guides or giveaways, etc.).
The Second Welcome Warm Up email:
Here’s where you explain why you deserve a purchase. Walk your customers through your product benefits, what makes you better than the competition. For example, if you have a particular ingredient, tell your reader how that ingredient benefits or enhances their life. This could also be an educational email around what makes your product unique.
i. Timing: 48 hours after the welcome email.
ii. Content: Offer a light discount (free shipping or a free sample or gift with purchase). If you use a discount code, make it something easy to remember for later (i.e., FREESHIP or SAVE10)
Email 3: Product Showcase Email:
i. Timing: 72 hours after the second email.
ii. Content: Highlight one or many of your best-sellers. Include customer testimonials, social proof, and reiterate reasons to buy.
Email 4: Showcase social proof:
i. Timing: 72 hours after the third email.
ii. Content: Bring all the social proof. Share your best customer reviews, UGC, influencers who have posted, press coverage snippets, what your mom says about the product, etc. If they haven’t purchased yet, this should get them over the edge.
Email 5: Give them a last chance:
i. Timing: 1 week after the fourth email.
ii. Content: Include an irresistible offer to get them to purchase. Talk about what the brand is known for, showcase your hero product, and add more social proof and a limited time offer.
Email 6: Give them the benefit of the doubt:
i. There’s a chance they don’t want to buy because they don’t trust you.
ii. Redirect them to buy in retailers or marketplaces you’re sold at Target, Amazon, Nordstrom – this showcases credibility.
iii. Redirect them to buy in retailers or marketplaces you’re sold at Target, Amazon, Nordstrom – this showcases credibility.
Having this setup properly means that you can drive sales in your sleep which is the ultimate goal of any business owner.
It might take a few weeks to perfect these flows.
Once the flows are setup – it’s all automated and once you build it, test it, and realize that it’s working, it can just run!
The other thing I would include here is the founder story email.
After your welcome flow (or maybe somewhere within it) you should try a founder story email. This could be designed in Klaviyo or it could be a really simple plain text email from the founder so that it feels more real.
Within this email, you want to share the story of why the founder started this brand and what they hope to achieve with. Bring their personal connection to the brand and why it matters. Remind them that you are still a small business and thank them for being a part of your business journey. Consider offering a custom discount code like “Founder10” for 10% off to drive another sale.
Emails 7-10: The abandoned browse, add to cart, and initiated checkout recovery flows
The next essential emails to set up. Pretty much all big ESPs that integrate with Shopify can help you automate this.
Also, about abandoned carts – Research from Baymard Institute said that 69.82% of all online shopping carts are abandoned. That means that 7 out of 10 people who add a product to their cart on your site bounce without completing their purchase. They also estimate that ecommerce stores lose roughly $18 billion in revenue annually because of cart abandonment!
That’s why these flows matter!! Think of these three-tiered emails.
i. Browse recovery (send this to someone who was browsing the site but didn’t add to cart).
ii. Add to cart recovery (send this to shoppers who have added to cart but bounced before purchasing).
iii. Checkout recovery: Send this to shoppers who initiated checkout but bounced before completing their purchase. Obviously, every email will have slightly different copy based on which tier it is.
An example of a great abandoned cart email that you could send 1 hour after a shopper session would be:
Subject Line: What’s with the wait! (Customer’s first name?) Your bodyscrub and organic sandalwood facewash await.
Hey (Customer name)
We noticed you left some items in your cart and we must say, you’ve got great taste!
We understand that life gets busy, so we saved your cart for a smooth return.
Additionally, to make your decision a little easier, here’s a 10% discount on today’s purchase with us.
Your items:
i. Organic Sugarcane & Turmeric Body Polish
ii. Organic, Cruelty Free Orange & Sandalwood Face Wash
P.S. This discount is just for you and will expire in 48 hours. Don’t miss out!
For abandoned carts and or abandoned checkout recovery emails, the best practice is to offer a discount. For users who just browsed i.e. for browse abandonment flows, you don’t need to add a discount. Just a reminder that prompts them to come back and buy.
Email 11: Post Purchase Upsell
The next email to add to your toolkit after the above three tiered series is the post purchase upsell email. In general, you can get pretty technical with your post purchase upsells and cross-sells based on data but the best practice is to send this 1-5 days after they make their first purchase and again 2-3 weeks after if they don’t convert.
You can use Klaviyo’s integration with Shopify to automatically recommend products in the same category or craft an email using data that pulls from what other customers who also bought this item shopped for from your brand. This can all be dynamic and 100% automated for you once you set up the flows. You just have to set up the if this then that triggers inside of Klaviyo to make it happen. At this point you can also leverage Carthook or Rebuy for powerful upsell and cross-sell flows. Simply plug them into Klaviyo and there you now have a rocking plan to reduce churn and maximize profits!
Email 12: Refer a friend email:
After setting up your post purchase upsells and cross sells, begin looking at adding a refer a friend email to drive more word of mouth. Turning your existing customers into advocates is the fastest (and cheapest) way to scale a brand without using paid ads.
Social Snowball rocks here. They have some pretty incredible features where subscribers who participate can receive points, commissions, discounts, free products, and cash payouts from your brand.
The name of the game with referral programs is creating a strong enough incentive for someone to want to recommend your brand to a friend. Once you can get this flywheel working though, it’s one of the most powerful engines for growth that exists today.
Email 13: Product Feedback/Customer Surveys
The next email to land is product feedback/customer surveys.
Here you could use Okendo or fairing.
For product feedback, it depends on the product and use but you should send this email 2-3 weeks after your product was delivered. Make sure the customer has had time to consume or use your product before hitting them with this flow.
Again, you could also offer a discount, or offer an incentive, if they do complete your survey which could be an automated email that is sent to the customer as soon as they submit. These product feedback emails help gain deep product insights that the brand can leverage to spur product innovation and plug gaps in your product and service lifecycle journey critical to prevent churn and drive-up engagement.
Some of the areas you could identify: What did the customer like or dislike? Where could the brand or product experience improve? I also like sending these as plain text emails with a link to your survey and a note from the founder. This just feels more personalized and typically has a higher opt-in/engagement rate from what I’ve seen.
Email 14: Promo Templates
After you have nailed everything above, the next thing to create are promotional templates.
You should have an email template for 10% off and 20% off sitewide etc or other product specific sales that you can run at a moment’s notice when you want to drive more revenue at the end of the month.
Another email you could launch is the New Product Drop email that can be templatized as well.
Whenever you drop a new product, variant, colorway, etc, you can have this email showcase various angles about the product benefits.
Email 15: The Back in Stock Email
Running out of inventory is a common trend amongst DTC brands and you should have back in stock emails prepped in your library of templates as well.
Email 16: Holiday Campaigns
Holiday campaigns are a great place to begin building for mini-peaks across the year. You could do this on a quarterly basis or, at the beginning of each year.
Think emails for the major holidays that are relevant to your brand or if you plan to run a sale.
If you are in the US, that’s typically:
– Easter
– Mother’s Day
-Memorial Day
-Father’s Day
-July 4th
-Halloween
-BFCM
-Thanksgiving
-Christmas & Hanukkah
-New Year’s Eve
-New Year’s Day
Obviously, there are multiple other holidays that might work for your brand so you typically just have to pick and choose.
Learn how to create an awesome email marketing strategy for your DTC store here. Also, learn more about Klaviyo email marketing solutions here.
Once you have these emails under your hood, you are certainly off to a world brimming with elation, our triumphant Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) entrepreneur stands on the pinnacle of success as profitability becomes a tangible reality for his thriving online store. Through unwavering determination, innovative strategies, and a deep understanding of customer needs, you have not only achieved financial success but also created a brand that resonates with consumers, marking a testament to the power of strategic vision and entrepreneurial spirit.”
Learn why future Successful DTC Entrepreneurs will choose Shopify for growth here.
Smarte Digital Inc. is an ecommerce retention marketing partner for modern DTC brands. We offer exclusive pricing offers for our ecommerce strategy consulting services and our lifecycle marketing services such as email marketing, SMS marketing services for Q1 2024.
We are also offering a free martech stack audit for Q1 2024. To identify gaps in your tech stack and optimize your martech stack, lets chat. Strengthen your foundational retention strategy now for growth, book a free 30 min discovery call with us at https://smartedigital/contact-us.
