Catherine Langman:
All right. I’m thrilled to welcome onto the show… Welcome back onto the show, I should say, Narelle from our team, who is one of our wonderful account managers.
Catherine Langman:
And Narelle’s job of course, is to help our clients to plan and execute on successful E-commerce marketing strategies. Welcome back to the show, Narelle. It’s great to have you here.
Narelle Spencer:
Thanks, Cath. It’s good to be here again chatting with you.
Catherine Langman:
Exactly. We’re going to have a little bit of a chit chat about email marketing, about Klaviyo I guess specifically. Because we are massive fans of Klaviyo for E-commerce businesses.
Catherine Langman:
And just have a bit of a conversation about the things that are really working well with email marketing at the moment. And I guess just give our listeners some tips on how to do better with their own email marketing.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. When you go into Klaviyo, it’s such an intuitive system. And there’s a lot of prebuilt stuff in there to help people adopt the system, and start to get things in place.
Catherine Langman:
And of course, one of the really fantastic functionalities in Klaviyo, is the automated email flows. But when you go in there, there’s a lot to choose from.
Catherine Langman:
And it can be a little bit confusing, I’m sure, for many people who are new to the system and think, “Oh, my gosh. It’s so overwhelming. There’s too much to choose from. What should I do?” With our clients, what are the main flows that we focus on?
Narelle Spencer:
Well, you’re probably right about that. There is a lot in there, and so it does get quite confusing when you first jump into Klaviyo.
Narelle Spencer:
But probably starting from the beginning of the customer journey, which is you come to the website, and one of the first things that happens on a there’s probably a popup. And then that popup gets people to sign up to the newsletter.
Narelle Spencer:
Then that is the first, probably automation that people want to be looking at. Signing up to the welcome flow. That welcome flow will bring people into the newsletter list. And you’re looking at then making sure that there’s something that’s compelling enough for them to sign up for that newsletter list, for starters.
Narelle Spencer:
But I do see quite a few clients who come to us, who’ve just got their store going. And they’ve just got a popup that says, “Join the newsletter.” Well, it’s not really quite compelling enough.
Catherine Langman:
No. I don’t think anyone opens their eyes in the morning and thinks, “Oh, I haven’t got enough email newsletters. I need to sign up to some more.”
Narelle Spencer:
Definitely that’s the start, that popup. And then once they’re in there, the first email with that flow is giving the subscriber what they signed up for.
Narelle Spencer:
What was it? Was it a checklist or was it a free gift with purchase? Giving them all the details around what it is that they signed up for. A discount code, whatever that might be.
Narelle Spencer:
That’s the first email within that welcome flow. And then you’re moving into the second email, which is highlighting the problem of what your product or brand solves for the person.
Narelle Spencer:
If you talk to them about what that problem is, be empathetic with what that problem is. Then they’re going to realize that you understand them, and you understand the problem. Then you can give them the solution in that email. That’s going to help convert to a sale.
Narelle Spencer:
Then you kind of move through the social proof of your product and your brand, around your brand. Then people will feel trust, that they trust you. Into a product benefit sort of email.
Narelle Spencer:
And then again, you want them to convert. This is a flow that’s goes through up to four emails. As far as getting to the tail end, we want to get them to purchase. Pop in an offer with an urgent call to action. And then the last one, “Hurry up. You’re going to miss out on your offer if you don’t get that done today.”
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. If you don’t get moving on this one, it’s going to expire. Super duper important. I know that a question that I get a lot, I’m sure you hear it as well, Narelle, is, “What kind of offer or incentive should I use?”
Catherine Langman:
And I think that there’s the temptation to think that there’s a right answer and a wrong answer, and to try and avoid stuffing this up. Which I can completely understand. Shout out to all the perfectionists who are listening to the show.
Catherine Langman:
But in reality, you can certainly start by having a look through what you know about your ideal customer, and what they’re struggling with, or what questions they have. What might hold them back from making a purchase, and try and construct some kind of an offer or an incentive that targets that.
Catherine Langman:
But other than that, and let me give you an example here. In the past, we worked with the lovely Lou from Cake 2 The Rescue. And she initially would use a discount as her incentive to get people onto her list. And that certainly worked, but it wasn’t…
Catherine Langman:
Obviously, you give up some margin when you use a discount. But also, it wasn’t actually converting as well as she thought she could do, and so she switched that out for a gift with purchase. And she chose a gift, a product that she already was selling in her store anyway.
Catherine Langman:
But it’s something that her customers typically need to use to get a better result. They don’t have to use it. You could use her products without it, but you’d get a better result with it.
Catherine Langman:
And so that ended up converting better. She would win more purchases using that sort of an incentive. And obviously, she would make more money because it was a cheaper to offer that, compared to having a discount off the total order.
Catherine Langman:
At the end of the day though, you kind of need to test and try things. Which is really the moral of the story of any kind of digital marketing anyway, right, Narelle?
Narelle Spencer:
Definitely. And I love that example, that it does [inaudible 00:06:35]. Because sometimes, I also think that it’s easy just to go, “We’ll do the discount because I can’t think of something at the moment. something else.”
Narelle Spencer:
But it shows that if you do take the time to think about this a little bit more in depth, and understand what the problem is that your customer is facing. Then there could be a better solution that doesn’t cost you as much in terms of margin, and converts better. I think that’s a good example.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. I always love that story. It was fantastic. I guess once somebody comes to your website, if they’re not ready to buy it immediately, they’re probably going to sign up to your email list. Especially if you do have a carrot that you’re dangling like that.
Catherine Langman:
But oftentimes, people still don’t purchase straight away. Typically, the average conversion rate on an E-commerce website is about 2%, so you’ve got 98% of your traffic leaving.
Catherine Langman:
And so we want to try and get them back. But what would be the next most important flow, automated flow that would help bring that visitor back?
Narelle Spencer:
Yeah. [inaudible 00:07:38]. To be honest, this is one of my favourite ones, because it really does hook straight into your E-commerce store. It’s pulling the data from the store to trigger these flows.
Narelle Spencer:
There’s a browse and there’s an abandoned cart flow, and they’re two different placements at the site. Browse is when people are just on the site, and they haven’t actually added to the cart.
Narelle Spencer:
You can trigger an email at that point using Klaviyo. And not all other email marketing platforms do this, but Klaviyo does. And Klaviyo hooks straight into Shopify to do this. Again, makes it very simple to set it up and send it out.
Narelle Spencer:
And you can send out this email to those people who are just looking. And so you can send an email to them. They might have some questions still in their mind, but they’ve gone away from your website.
Narelle Spencer:
That email you send out could ask them, “Do you have some questions around the product?” And invite them to respond and ask you.
Narelle Spencer:
Because if you start a conversation with a customer, even if it is just an email format, the chances of converting are really high, because they’re taking the time to respond back to you. They’ve got that genuine interest in the product.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. They’re pretty warm [inaudible 00:09:00] at this point.
Narelle Spencer:
Yeah. Definitely warm. And the other thing is that the email is prompting them again. Once they’ve gone past, maybe they’re out there browsing around the internet for the product with other people.
Narelle Spencer:
But if you’re there in their inbox and asking them, “Do you want to take another look at this product?” That’s a good way of getting them back onto the website and converting.
Narelle Spencer:
That’s the browse one. But then you’ve got the next step, which is the abandoned cart. These people are really hot customers, because they have definitely some interest. They’ve put it into their cart, and their intention was to purchase.
Narelle Spencer:
Maybe they’ve being distracted, maybe there’s other stuff going on. Those are the people that you can then send out a different flow to, and that can be with more specific information.
Narelle Spencer:
That one will actually have, you have in your emails the actual product they were looking at. Again, they can see that product again. And the idea around those sorts of emails, is you want to try and dispel objections to the purchase.
Narelle Spencer:
There’s something you know that customers often ask you. I would put that into that email. Answer. You can even write the question and answer it yourself.
Narelle Spencer:
Then if that’s the same question that they’ve had, then you’ve dispelled that objection. And then they’re going hopefully go into a purchase for you.
Narelle Spencer:
And then also that urgency to buy now. You can pop an offer in there, or you can tell people that their cart is about to expire. That’s urgent enough. It doesn’t always have to be a discount. Again, you can say, “We’re holding your product in your cart, but in 24 hours it’ll be gone again.”
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. One example here that we’ve been working on recently, is with French Soda, which is a gorgeous great fun brand that makes raincoats and gum boots for children. And typically, their flows actually convert really well, but there’s always room for improvement.
Catherine Langman:
And anyway, she actually has four emails in that abandoned cart flow, and it converts really well. And one of the things that you can think about, sometimes there are specific perceived objections that people might have about your products. And you could certainly survey your customer base and try and work out what those are. That’s always possible.
Catherine Langman:
But in this case, it was like, “Have we got your size left?” And when you’re buying any kind of clothing online, that’s always a problem. And you certainly don’t want to miss out if it’s the last one left. That’s a good one.
Catherine Langman:
Then hopefully, by this point we’ve actually converted someone into a buyer. And definitely, if you’re thinking about the way that you’re running your marketing, you’re probably also spending time and money to actually get visitors to your website.
Catherine Langman:
Obviously, if you can then have these automated email flows going out, you’re going to end up converting more customers off that paid traffic. And therefore, get a much higher return on investment, which is obviously what we all want.
Catherine Langman:
But at the end of the day, if we’re going to try and build a profitable E-commerce business, we can’t be doing that just off the first purchase from each customer. We really need to try and bring them back as well. What’s the next flow that we like to focus on, Narelle?
Narelle Spencer:
The next flow is that post-purchase flow. And you’re right though about we want people to be coming back to the store, and how do we get them back?
Narelle Spencer:
I think that a lot of people just focus on their socials and hope that their customers are watching them on there, and the sales will just come that way. But if you’ve really got a good post-purchase flow in place, then this is getting straight into their inbox, which feels a bit more personal.
Narelle Spencer:
And you can also personalise your emails in that post-purchase flow, to advertise things that might be a good purchase alongside whatever they already have purchased. Or they could be maybe your product is a consumable, so they’re going to run out.
Narelle Spencer:
You target them at the right time for them to reorder again. This is all happens in that post-purchase flow. The first email is around thanking them for their order.
Narelle Spencer:
Again, make the customer feel like you care about their purchase. And then you add in any sort of product information around… There might be some tips and tricks there, or some expectations around delivery. That always helps in that first email after they’ve just purchased at that point.
Narelle Spencer:
If you can kind of tell them what the expectation is around what’s going to happen, when their order is going to ship, and things like that. That also helps from a business perspective. They’re not going to be emailing you the next day going, “Where’s my order?” [crosstalk 00:14:08].
Catherine Langman:
100%. But the anticipation levels are always going to be at their highest the minute after someone has placed an order. It is a really, really important time to be communicating with your new customers, so that you can give yourself the best chance of keeping that customer happy. Making sure they’re really enjoying their shopping experience with you.
Catherine Langman:
Maybe trying to head off any kind of problems or common questions that they might experience when they do get the products. Obviously, that really depends on what you sell.
Catherine Langman:
I know for me, with my modern cloth nappy business back in the day, there were a lot of questions that people had about using the products once they got them. You can kind of head off any of that sort of thing.
Catherine Langman:
But the other thing that can be really cool as well, when you’ve just received an order from a customer. A first order from a customer. Like I said, that’s when the anticipation levels are at their highest.
Catherine Langman:
And it can be a moment, again, depending on what you sell and whether this is appropriate for your audience. But it can be a moment where you can go out with an email fairly soon after they’ve ordered. Not immediately, but fairly soon.
Catherine Langman:
And obviously, still do the whole welcome and thanks, and welcome them to your brand family, et cetera. But then offer them the opportunity to add to their order, by giving them either a discount, or a free shipping code, or something along those lines.
Catherine Langman:
And I know in the past, that Babiators have done this. I don’t know if they still do this, actually. But it was like, “Thanks so much. We’re really excited to have you in the Babiators family.
Catherine Langman:
“We’re just going to go and pack your order. Can’t wait to get this out to you. But before we do, did you need to add anything to it? And here’s a free shipping coupon.” And that can work really well. Because like I said, the anticipation levels are really, really high in that moment.
Narelle Spencer:
Because I think that’s a really great opportunity at that point, to try and sell another product to the customer. Because also, you’ve already gained their trust.
Narelle Spencer:
And often, that takes a long time to build up. You’ve already got that. They’ve already spent with you. [inaudible 00:16:27] at that point can work really, really well.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. And just bearing in mind, all of us. If we really want to build a profitable business, we really want to be aiming to get as many of our customers to buy at least three times. And the period of time over which that might happen is going to vary depending on what you sell.
Catherine Langman:
But if you can achieve two of those three, really within a 24 hour period, you’re doing pretty well. You put yourself in a better chance to become more profitable.
Catherine Langman:
And in case anyone is wondering why you need to have multiple purchases from customers to be profitable. You just really need to think of about things, like you’re spending money on your marketing.
Catherine Langman:
You’re spending money on advertising, you’re spending money on creating content. Or time. Hopefully, eventually paying yourself. If you’re a startup, you might not be at that point yet. But spending money on offering incentives probably.
Catherine Langman:
And so it costs to convert a first time purchase from a new customer. Yet, once you can bring them back and get those repeat orders from that customer, you’re automatically becoming more profitable from that customer. The more we can drive that, the better.
Narelle Spencer:
Yeah. [inaudible 00:17:55]. It costs you less money, but it also costs you less time. This is all on autopilot. That’s what I love about this as well with E marketing, is that [inaudible 00:18:03] flows are happening in the background. It’s quite nice.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. Exactly, exactly. A little bit less hustle, making a bit more money without having to work so hard. I think we all want that. One thing… What were you going to say?
Narelle Spencer:
I was just going to continue on with this post-purchase flow, but you carry on.
Catherine Langman:
No. Go, go, go.
Narelle Spencer:
Then I would just say that you need to have an email in there about prompting your customers to write a review for you. Because obviously, you want that social proof on your website.
Narelle Spencer:
It’s also a good opportunity to get that feedback from your customers, and make sure that the product is as they expected. But I find as well that a lot of people just use their review apps, that they might have already plugged into Shopify or whichever E-commerce-
Catherine Langman:
Platform.
Narelle Spencer:
… platform. Sorry. That’s the only way that they prompt their customers. But I find that actually, if you [inaudible 00:19:14] your post-purchase flow, where you can a bit more warmer, and it’s actually within your templated theme and the look and feel of your brand.
Narelle Spencer:
Ask for that review there, or let them know that they might be getting another email in the next 24 hours, to ask for a review, I find that that helps get that review, rather than just when it comes from the app itself.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. That’s a great tip. And I guess you’re just kind of adding to the system there. The marketing system, where you’re chipping away at getting that social proof.
Catherine Langman:
Which hopefully, we all know by now is super, super influential when trying to establish trust with a potential new customer, and get that first order. Getting that sort of system in place is really, really helpful to build that up over time.
Narelle Spencer:
And then towards the end of the flow, you’ve got your retargeting to purchase maybe another product or reordering the same product. [crosstalk 00:20:22]-
Catherine Langman:
A replenishment type thing. Yes.
Narelle Spencer:
Yeah. And I guess the thing is, that these flows aren’t necessary within a couple of weeks of purchase. These can go [inaudible 00:20:35] year. Depends on how long the flow, in terms of how often your customers order. These flows can go on over a year or even more.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. Well, that’s true, and you can actually have more than one offer. You might ask for that second order pretty much… Not immediately, but maybe within a few hours after the first order, like we were saying before.
Catherine Langman:
But then you might have something that’s cross selling to something different after a month or two. And then it definitely depends on what you sell, and what the buyer journey looks like, but you might come back a year later and encourage the next purchase.
Catherine Langman:
For instance, if you’re selling kids clothing, like French Soda or Babiators with their accessories. You’re often going to need the size up the year later. There’s so much opportunity to try and build automation around all of this stuff.
Catherine Langman:
And by the time the customer is receiving it, the messages are actually personalised to the customer, and where they’re at in their own buyer journey with you. Generally, you’re going to get a better response from that kind of level of personalisation with your communications.
Narelle Spencer:
Yeah. That’s what I do like about this as well. You can personalise them to be to the point of, “You purchased X product, and now we think that you might need the next size up a year later.”
Narelle Spencer:
Customers do feel that, “Oh, actually, they’re paying attention.” And once you realise that a business is paying you a bit of attention, then you are more likely to-
Catherine Langman:
Stick with it. Yeah.
Narelle Spencer:
Purchase [inaudible 00:22:15].
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. 100%. Now, over time, hopefully everyone has got some of these things in place, and they’re going to be building their list. And hopefully, you’re also sending out regular email communications to your whole list, or segments of your list.
Catherine Langman:
But over time, you will find that there are people who are becoming disengaged. Maybe they don’t need what you sell anymore, and that’s definitely the case for anyone selling baby or kid stuff. The customers are growing up, so they don’t need you anymore.
Catherine Langman:
But point being, at some point, you’re going to have a bunch of contacts on your list who aren’t engaging with your emails. What do we do to try and resolve that situation in as automated a fashion as possible?
Narelle Spencer:
Yeah. What we can do there is we can set up a re-engagement [inaudible 00:23:08] flow. These are for the people who haven’t been opening any emails, and you can set this up for a specific amount of period. I’m not sure, Cath, do you know if there’s a good timing for this? Is it six months or three months?
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. Again, it depends on the buying cycle, really. And you have to really think this through for your own business and your own customers.
Catherine Langman:
If your customers are typically buying every year, then you don’t want to cut them off your list sooner than that. Really think it through on a personalized basis like that.
Catherine Langman:
But then what are some of the options that we can use to try and maybe first bring them back, and see if we can reengage them? Because sometimes, people just forget or they need to be given a reason to come back. We don’t want to just cut people off our list straight away.
Narelle Spencer:
Yeah, certainly. I think that the first place to start is to try and reintroduce them to the problem that they came to you in the first place for. And then what that solution was that you were offering them at the time.
Narelle Spencer:
Or even if know that your product, there’s another problem that other products solve. Trying to just reintroduce them to your products and the brand again. Just putting it in front [inaudible 00:24:35] again that you’re there.
Narelle Spencer:
Hopefully, you get an open from that, because then they might move into another flow that you’ve set up. Which is more of a different re-engagement, so they’ve opened that email. You’ve got another flow set up going, “Okay. These people open. Now, we’re going to take them through this journey.”
Narelle Spencer:
But if they [inaudible 00:24:55] they’re on that list and they still didn’t open that first email from there, then the next step is probably to offer them an offer. One that they [inaudible 00:25:04] because haven’t interested for a long time. We kind of just want them to get engaged quickly.
Narelle Spencer:
Then it would be better [inaudible 00:25:13] the next one is that the offer is ending. They still haven’t taken it up. We’re just going to get them to see that they’ll miss out, if they don’t take up the offer today.
Narelle Spencer:
And then once [inaudible 00:25:28], then if they still don’t engage with the emails at all, so they’re not opening it. Then we’re probably suppressing them from our list.
Narelle Spencer:
Suppressing doesn’t necessarily mean that you just delete them. You don’t have to delete them. You can still keep them there. You’re kind of just making them inactive, so that you’re not sending to them each time.
Narelle Spencer:
And that just helps from a perspective of going into spam filters all the time. If you’re sending to a list that’s not engaged, then Gmail and the likes of those sorts of inbox people.
Narelle Spencer:
They’re just thinking, “Well, you must be a spammer. No one is opening your email.” This is why you want to clean up the list all the time, and start suppressing the people who aren’t engaged with you.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. 100%, 100%. Another way to reengage that I’ve done successfully with a few of our clients, is to run a competition or a giveaway. And what we’ll actually do is, yes, we do email them.
Catherine Langman:
And I know that sounds weird, but the point is not to necessarily get new people on your list with this particular strategy. It’s about re-engaging people who are already on your list, but then also run some ads to an audience based off that list of unengaged people.
Catherine Langman:
And the goal really is to get them to reengage. Yes, they are opting in again, because they have to sign up for the competition. But if you can do that and really get them to then go to their email, and open that up, and confirm their email address. You’re going to actually reengage them that way as well.
Catherine Langman:
That’s just a different option to achieve that end goal. And obviously, if we can reengage them, we can increase the number of people who are opening the emails.
Catherine Langman:
Then more people are going to see what is in your emails over time. And you will obviously increase your revenue generated from your list, if more people are seeing them. That’s pretty cool.
Narelle Spencer:
It is cool.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. I want to quickly dive into next about working with your lists and managing your lists. Now, I was talking recently on an episode. I did an episode a couple of weeks ago about how to squeeze the most out of your email list.
Catherine Langman:
And in that particular episode, I was walking you through how to I guess kind of audit your own account. How do you actually tell whether you emails are working, and how do you work out what opportunities there are to improve them?
Catherine Langman:
If you don’t know how to do that, go back and listen to that episode. It’s just from a couple of weeks ago I think.
Catherine Langman:
But one thing that I do see a lot when I audit accounts, is lots and lots of different lists. And I do understand how that happens, but it is not great. Not best practice to have lots and lots of different lists in your email account.
Catherine Langman:
Because what can happen is you have contacts on more than one list, and you can end up accidentally sending them emails that they don’t want. And that can really give people the wrong impression, and you don’t want that with your audience.
Catherine Langman:
When it comes to managing your lists, you want to have one main list. I’ll give you a caveat for this. You might have a separate list if you’re managing wholesale contacts within the same email platform. You definitely want to have a separate list for wholesale contacts.
Catherine Langman:
And then the other time I would use a separate list, is if I am doing something like a giveaway or competition, or if I’m attending a… If I have a stand at a trade show or an expo.
Catherine Langman:
Oftentimes, when you’re attending those sorts of events, most exhibitors will have a giveaway or something like that, where visitors to those events can sign up and try and win something.
Catherine Langman:
And it’s a great list builder to do that, but it’s never going to be the best quality list. And so I always want to keep that kind of a list separate from my main list initially, and I’ll run them through a sequence of emails. A flow of emails, kind of similar to your new subscriber welcome flow that we were talking about before.
Catherine Langman:
But typically, you’re going to get a lot of unsubscribed from that sort of a list, so you want to get that out of the way before you then merge those contacts into your main list.
Catherine Langman:
Those would be the only reasons you want to have separate lists. And then you want to have everybody else that’s your main marketing list on the same list.
Catherine Langman:
And you can definitely use tags, and you can segment your list based on behavior. And there’s all different ways that you can kind of slice and dice that list, if you want to get a little bit more granular with who you’re sending particular marketing emails to.
Catherine Langman:
I know in the past, I’ve had success with some clients doing things like segmenting the list, based on those who’ve bought before and those who haven’t.
Catherine Langman:
This is where I’m talking about your email newsletters, not your automated emails. And sending a different newsletter email with a different offer or incentive to those two different lists.
Catherine Langman:
If people have bought before, they might go for a volume incentive versus somebody who’s never bought before. They’re probably going to need more of a trial offer.
Catherine Langman:
Again, it depends very much on what you sell and how you might slice and dice that list. But if you’re a bit of a culprit for having lots and lots of different lists, I would honestly encourage you to go and clean that up. Download all your contacts or merge them together into one segment, so that you don’t have multiple instances of the same contact.
Catherine Langman:
You might get into trouble with emailing people who’ve asked to unsubscribe from one list. Did you have anything there you wanted to add, Narelle?
Narelle Spencer:
[inaudible 00:31:36]. I have seen the segmenting before work really, really well. I really liked your example of using it. I’ve seen it mostly used in the flows.
Narelle Spencer:
But certainly, it can be used for just normal campaigns, and that’s a great way to use it to send to those people who’ve already purchased. Give them a different offer, to the people who haven’t purchased. I think that’s great.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. That’s a good way to keep the success momentum, as you get really a lot bigger and a much bigger list, versus the earlier days. All right. I want to chat next about how we can maximise the potential for your emails to actually hit your customer’s inbox.
Catherine Langman:
And as a second best option, hitting the promotions folder is much better than the spam folder, for instance. We want to avoid the spam folder at all costs.
Catherine Langman:
It’s not going to be 100% foolproof to do this, although there are 100% foolproof ways to make sure your emails all end up this in the spam folder, so we don’t want to be doing any of that. Let’s kind of chat through some of these suggestions, Narelle.
Narelle Spencer:
Yeah. I guess the first one is just improving your subject lines, because that’s the first thing that people are going to see or have to get through those filters for you. There’s things that you can do, like making sure that the character limit is under 70.
Narelle Spencer:
That’s probably more from a user perspective. If something hits my inbox, if it’s more than 70 characters, I’m probably not going to see the end of it. And if you’ve got an offer in that subject line, and it’s way past that 70 characters, I don’t know about it. And so I’m not opening that email.
Narelle Spencer:
That’s [inaudible 00:33:31]. Then you can test using emojis to see if that helps get your audience’s attention in their inbox. Because you’re bombarded with a gazillion emails a day, so sometimes just using a fun emoji can help get seen in an inbox.
Narelle Spencer:
But again, test it because sometimes as well, some emojis can get you in the spam box. And there’s no rhyme or reason either for that.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. I guess you won’t know until you test with that sort of thing.
Narelle Spencer:
Exactly. And then the last thing… Sorry?
Catherine Langman:
No, you go.
Narelle Spencer:
[inaudible 00:34:11] trying to stay away from using all capitals. If you write a subject that’s all in capitals, you’re definitely going to end up-
Catherine Langman:
It’s like you’re shouting.
Narelle Spencer:
Yeah. [inaudible 00:34:22]. Your customers aren’t going to be happy, because they’ll be like, “Why are you shouting at me?”
Catherine Langman:
That’s right.
Narelle Spencer:
But also, you’ll [inaudible 00:34:28] spam folder, in the spam box.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah, that’s a good one. The other thing I was just going to say as well, you might want to just be mindful of some really promotional language. Because things that are super promotional… And by that, I meant words like free, or percent off, or discount.
Catherine Langman:
Try and steer away from putting that stuff in the subject line. And then even at certain times of the year, there are words that are probably going to move you into the spam folder more often.
Catherine Langman:
For example, at black Friday. I think Black Friday, Cyber Monday last year, my spam folder was full of those sorts of words in the subject line.
Catherine Langman:
But on the flip side, if you can entice people to open. I’m not talking about being click baity here at all. We want to still be saying stuff in the subject line that relates to what’s inside the email. We don’t want to make stuff up just to get people to open an email.
Catherine Langman:
But if we can use words that are maybe a question, or something that sounds really enticing, or interesting, or engaging, or funny, or whatever. And we can increase that open rate because we’ve spent time on the subject line.
Catherine Langman:
Then again, the more people who open the email, the more likely you’re going to make more money from that email. And so obviously, that’s the end goal that we want to achieve here.
Narelle Spencer:
Yeah. I think that humour is a good one. Because I think that we’re just so used to seeing all the sales jargon in our inbox, that when there’s some humour, you’re like, “Oh, what’s this?”
Catherine Langman:
Gets me every time.
Narelle Spencer:
[inaudible 00:36:10]. And then if you can then follow that up in your email and keep to the tone, then you’ve really got some audiences there looking at your email.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. 100%. Which obviously, again it depends on what you sell. If it really doesn’t make sense to what you sell, don’t use humour. There’s certainly some sorts of products out there.
Catherine Langman:
Even some of our clients. We’ve been working with Keepsakes By Nicoleta. And with her products, it really would not make sense if she was trying to make her audience laugh.
Narelle Spencer:
No, no. Her jewelery is absolutely beautiful. And to be honest, actually you just reminded me that it was her emails that we built for her. She had some really extensive flows in her emails.
Narelle Spencer:
And I think that when we looked back to track them, and make sure that they were all working, I think that we saw that they had paid for themselves in a month. The work that we did for her, the email marketing had already paid for itself, and it was really good to see.
Catherine Langman:
So good. Yeah. And then she’s got those for life now, so that’s awesome. What’s the next thing that people can do to try and maximise the potential of emails hitting the inbox?
Narelle Spencer:
Yeah. I think there’s one thing that a lot of people don’t realise that you should be doing, especially if you’re moving from one platform to another. And that’s actually warming up your email list.
Narelle Spencer:
If you’re moving from, say MailChimp over to Klaviyo, you actually have to change your DMS setting. That essentially is where you’re telling inboxes or Gmail that emails are now coming from this setting or this user. And that was a different user to what the MailChimp was set up as.
Narelle Spencer:
If you go out with your whole big list, and it’s not particularly engaged, then it’s going to start thinking that you’re a spammer. Because people aren’t opening or engaging with your emails.
Narelle Spencer:
A great way to warm up the platform as such, probably not just the list. The platform. Is to just send a few emails to your most engaged audience.
Narelle Spencer:
You can get that data from the previous platform. Who’s been opening your emails. I can’t remember. Sorry. You might know the answer to this, Cath. If you could get that data from, if you integrate MailChimp with Shopify [crosstalk 00:38:46]-
Catherine Langman:
Yeah, I think it does. It brings over the star rating. I’m pretty sure.
Narelle Spencer:
Yeah. Just another way to do this, which is good. Then you want to [inaudible 00:38:58] those highly engaged people on your list, and then just warm up.
Narelle Spencer:
And then you’ll be known as a good sender and you’ll have good reputation. And then when you start sending out your actual campaign, then you’ll be okay. You won’t be going into the folder.
Narelle Spencer:
You can start your flows, to be honest. Your welcome flows, they’re all new people who are coming onto your database. It’s not that you have to wait to warm up the Klaviyo platform, and then start your flows.
Narelle Spencer:
The people who are in your flows are highly engaged anyway. Then through your [inaudible 00:39:39] and through just post-purchase, and things like that. You can start those. But before you send a full campaign, I would just warm up with a few emails to your most engaged people first.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. Really great tip there. And we also talked before a little bit about list cleaning, but definitely getting unengaged people off your list is also going to help the rest of the emails land in people’s inbox as well.
Catherine Langman:
Super important to do that every now and again throughout the year. The next thing we’re going to have a quick chat about, is the actual design of your emails. And are there some dos and don’ts? What can really help shift the needle when it comes to the actual email design?
Catherine Langman:
And if you haven’t listened to the episode a couple of weeks back, definitely go and do that. But if you did, you might recall that I spoke about how you want to keep track of things like open rates and click through rates. As well as how much money that you’re making from your emails, of course.
Catherine Langman:
But if you’ve got a really great open rate, but the click through rate isn’t fabulous, the first thing you want to look at is the design. And what does it look like on mobile, and what does it look like on desktop? What are some things that people can keep in mind, Narelle, when it comes to their design of their email?
Narelle Spencer:
Yeah. Well, I think that probably when you’re first creating your emails, you need to make sure that it’s kind of a short and snappy email, that grabs people’s attention pretty quickly.
Narelle Spencer:
Because everyone is so busy. Everyone has got a lot of email in their inboxes these days. Really, there’s no point creating an email that’s got three pages long of text on there. People just won’t read it. [crosstalk 00:41:34]-
Catherine Langman:
No essays then?
Narelle Spencer:
If you’re creating an email like that, then you might need to come back and look at maybe sending three emails a week, rather than just one. You don’t have to send it all out in one email.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. 100%.
Narelle Spencer:
And [inaudible 00:41:51]. I was going to say it’s important, but I guess that I’ve seen as well a mix of this. I was going to say that you have a mix of imagery and text, because people have different ways of how they absorb information, so having a mix of it helps.
Narelle Spencer:
But sometimes, we’ve found with clients that their audiences actually, they prefer text over imagery. And so their text emails work better than just straight image, and vice versa. But again, it’s one of these things that you just have to test with your audience, and then you’ll know the right mix with your email.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah, definitely. And I guess just on that text note as well. When you add an image into your email, there’s the option to put some alt text in there.
Catherine Langman:
And you definitely want to do that, because there are a number of people who have their email inbox settings not downloading. Not to automatically download images.
Catherine Langman:
And so if you’ve only got images in there with no alt text, it’s just going to look like a bunch of empty squares. And people will have absolutely no idea what the gist of the content is.
Catherine Langman:
You do want to put that alt text in for sure. But yeah, good point though, about testing more image heavy versus text in your emails, and seeing what your audience responds the best to.
Catherine Langman:
I guess I’ll say, too, with the text. Regardless of how much text you actually have, try and keep to short sentences and short paragraphs. And the reason I say this, is because the vast majority of us are now looking at our emails on our mobile phones.
Catherine Langman:
And if you have long sentences and long paragraphs, it’s really, really hard for people to read and take that information in on their phone. It’s just too blocky, and too chunky, and hard for people to really comprehend. That’s not going to help anyone.
Narelle Spencer:
For me, when I see that I just switch off. I need to have some images for me to get my head in the game.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. 100%. And then there’s also some other considerations that we really want to make sure are in there. For instance, some calls to action buttons. What else can people-
Narelle Spencer:
I think that sometimes people forget that. I think they [inaudible 00:44:12] emails together, and they maybe put in the text that they’ve got this offer.
Narelle Spencer:
But they really haven’t put a clear call to action on what they want the person do. Like, “Head to this page to get your free gif with purchase.” Or whatever it is. [crosstalk 00:44:28]-
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. Shop gum boots here.
Narelle Spencer:
[inaudible 00:44:33] feels like you’re dumbing it down for people, but it’s not that you’re dumbing it down for people. It’s just making it really simple and clear what the next step is for them. And you get it wrong, basically.
Catherine Langman:
That’s right. And not assuming that just having the image hyperlinked, is enough that people know to click on the image to go and find the thing. Because not everybody realizes that.
Catherine Langman:
And I guess we’re also all super busy. We’re often multitasking when we’re looking at our emails on our phone. You just got to try and make things really obvious and easy for people, so they don’t have to go hunting.
Narelle Spencer:
Yeah, definitely.
Catherine Langman:
One other point to point out here, too, is when you are putting images in your emails, you want to keep them to maximum 600 pixels wide. And that’s just so that it’s going to give you the best chance to display properly in people’s inbox, especially when they’re on their mobile.
Narelle Spencer:
Yeah, that’s definitely [inaudible 00:45:32]. I just wanted to say about that as well. Often, I’ve found that people are putting bigger images in. Their actually file size are a lot bigger as well.
Narelle Spencer:
If you [inaudible 00:45:42] mobile range and you’re downloading data, it can take a long time to download. If you keep to those 600 pixels wide and keep the file size small, then people will see those images
Catherine Langman:
100%. Yeah. And we want people to open our emails. We don’t want them to think, “Oh, I don’t want to chew up all my data. I’m just going to leave it and not actually open it.”
Catherine Langman:
That’s a good point. The next thing that we really need to make sure we have sorted out, is making sure the email list and the online store, or your email platform rather and your online store, are talking to each other and they’re properly integrated.
Catherine Langman:
And that’s obviously super easy to do with Shopify and Klaviyo. What’s the reason why we want to do that?
Narelle Spencer:
We want to just make sure that we’re getting all the code, the JavaScript into the store. Because the JavaScript is actually going to help from the perspective of it’s going to pull in your catalog for you, and it’s going to allow you to embed some forms.
Narelle Spencer:
If you wanted to have a signup form on your homepage, you can actually use the Klaviyo embedded forms. And that could be inserted on your homepage.
Narelle Spencer:
And then the other thing is the tracking for open rates and things like that, and moving from email, through to Shopify, to a conversion. All of that.
Narelle Spencer:
If you don’t tick the box, it’s just an easy box when you’re doing the integration. It just asks if you want to do that. If you don’t tick that, then you’re going to miss out on all these features, so it’s important that you do tick it, and then you’ll get that.
Narelle Spencer:
And then you want to tick that you’re syncing your subscribers to from Shopify to Klaviyo. And that makes sure that anyone who’s going through the checkout, they’re signing up to the newsletter at that point. They’ll then go straight into your Klaviyo, and then obviously you’ve got all your flows set up, and they’ll receive the emails from that.
Narelle Spencer:
And then I guess lastly, with the setup with Klaviyo, they always have a double opt-in to start with. And I know in Australia here, we can actually change that to single opt-in. That’s not the same for everyone. I think in Europe and the US, you can’t have that single opt-in. I think it has to be double opt-in. Is that right, Cath?
Catherine Langman:
I think, yeah. Definitely, some of the jurisdictions are a lot stricter with that. I don’t think it’s across the whole of the US, but certainly in parts of it, for sure.
Narelle Spencer:
Yeah. Definitely in Australia, we can have the single opt-in. You just go into the settings, and then basically change it to a single opt-in, and then click update with settings. And then that changes it. That just means that when people subscribe to the email, they don’t then get an email that says that you need to-
Catherine Langman:
“Click here to confirm your email address.” Yeah.
Narelle Spencer:
And go through that. Although, Cath, I think that recently, I’ve heard you saying that sometimes these opt-ins are good to keep in, so that you’ve got that engagement.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. And this is the thing. Like everything with digital marketing, there’s no blanket rule that is hard and fast that works for everyone. And so there’s pros and cons with doing both ways.
Catherine Langman:
If you turn off the double opt-in and you just go for their single opt-in, you can set things up so that you’re limiting the friction between people coming to your website and purchasing.
Catherine Langman:
Literally, you can have that popup opt-in set up, so that they sign up. And then you give them whatever the coupon code is on the thank you popup. And they can purchase straight away without leaving your website and going to their email.
Catherine Langman:
The downside of course, is they haven’t gone to their email to find that email, and make sure that they’ve confirmed their email address. And by doing that step, they’re actually helping with those engagement signals inside your email account.
Catherine Langman:
If you do have the double opt-in in, you’ll ultimately end up with less people on your list. They’ll be on your list, but they won’t be confirmed and you won’t be able to send marketing emails to them.
Catherine Langman:
You’ll end up with less people, but they’re probably going to be more engaged. And so it might be something, where if you’re in a jurisdiction where you can just go with a single opt-in.
Catherine Langman:
If you’re just getting started out in your business, and you really need to make the absolute most of every single email that comes onto your list, you might want to go single opt-in only.
Catherine Langman:
And then as you get some traction, you might want to swap it over. And if you do that, you’ll need to have some strategies in place to make sure that they do go and click that link to confirm their email.
Catherine Langman:
The easiest way to do that, really is to on the popup thank you screen, is to literally have some very explicit instructions of how they go and find that mail. And what they need to do with it, so that they can then get their incentives.
Catherine Langman:
You definitely would not be giving them their coupon code, until they’ve gone and done that. And they’d have to get it from their email inbox.
Catherine Langman:
Hopefully, that makes sense. I always feel a bit bad when I can’t give people a hard and fast rule, that you should do this. You do really need to about it for the individual situation.
Narelle Spencer:
And again, it always comes down to testing. What works for one person or one business doesn’t always work for another business, so [crosstalk 00:51:17] have to test.
Catherine Langman:
No. You do have to test, and you have to be happy to sometimes not get it right. It doesn’t mean you’re failing, it just means you are taking a scientific approach.
Catherine Langman:
You have a hypothesis, you test something out, you see what happens. And then when you see what happens, then you can make a decision to do more of the same, or decide to test something else instead.
Catherine Langman:
There’s no shame in trying and testing, and things not working out. It’s just that learning iterative approach, which is super important with all things E-commerce. And I guess to round us out.
Catherine Langman:
Well, actually there was one last little thing we were going to point out, that’s a great functionality of Klaviyo specifically. And that’s the Facebook Klaviyo sync. What’s that all about?
Narelle Spencer:
That is just making sure that you’re syncing your audiences with Facebook, so that [inaudible 00:52:16] retargeting them.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. Given that Facebook has a few extra limitations on tracking and retargeting audiences, and things like that. Since the apple iOS update last year sometime, it’s really beneficial if you can integrate or sync your Klaviyo audiences, your Klaviyo lists to Facebook advertising. And then you can show ads to people who are on your email list, which is super cool.
Catherine Langman:
But yeah, just rounding us out. I guess reviewing our performance metrics. And again, this is stuff that I was talking about in the episode a couple of weeks ago, so we don’t need to dive into that in a great amount of detail here.
Catherine Langman:
But it is really an important part of the email marketing process. I know most small businesses who are literally wearing every hat in the business, or most of the hats, and are pretty time poor.
Catherine Langman:
I know that this is why this step in the process gets missed. But we can’t ever really know if what we’re doing is working, if we don’t review the results that we’re getting.
Catherine Langman:
You don’t need to make this really tricky or difficult, or anything like that. You can just literally use a spreadsheet and document out each week, what the open rates, click through rates, and revenue generated was from each of your emails.
Catherine Langman:
Or you can just write it in your Productpreneur Success Planner, if you have one of those. And you can learn over time. That’s the kind of content that my customers love. That’s the kind of content, or incentives, or subject lines, or products that they want to see.
Catherine Langman:
You can really learn over time, what is getting the best results from your email marketing. And then as you see those trends, you can button down more on doing more of what works, and generate more revenue from the list of contacts that you own.
Catherine Langman:
That’s going to help you become a much more profitable, successful business long term. Did you want to add anything to that there, Narelle?
Narelle Spencer:
[inaudible 00:54:22] I think with a few of our clients that we’ve seen that exact thing, where we could go in and review their metrics. They haven’t had time.
Narelle Spencer:
And I [inaudible 00:54:34] maybe French Soda was one of those clients, where they already had all of the flows in place and had campaigns going out. But we could review it and then we could finesse, and now we’re getting even better results.
Catherine Langman:
Yeah. Exactly, exactly. Which at the end of the day, nothing is set in stone with digital marketing and with E-commerce generally. Nothing.
Catherine Langman:
It’s always changing, and I know that’s really frustrating. Sometimes, we just wish that the world would stand still for five minutes.
Catherine Langman:
But the fact that you might review your performance of your flows or your campaigns over time. Again, if there’s room for improvement, it doesn’t mean that you’ve failed at any of this. It’s just how it works. We learn, and customers might change, and we adjust course accordingly. And over time, we improve, which is great.
Narelle Spencer:
I agree.
Catherine Langman:
Thanks so much for jumping on the show with me again today, Narelle. It’s been a great conversation. It’s a bit of a meaty episode, so listeners, I hope you enjoyed that. And hopefully, you’ve got a few notes there for things that you might be able to with your own email marketing, to get better results.
Catherine Langman:
And of course, you’re always welcome to jump inside our free community. Our Rockstar Productpreneur group. You can find that. If you’re not already a member, just head to CatherineLangman.com/Rockstar.
Catherine Langman:
And you can always get some really great ideas and inspiration from what other people are doing in that group. And of course, if you need some help at the end of the day, you can give my team a shout and we would love to help you. We will look forward to being with you on the show again next week. Bye for now.