According to a 2016 report from Listrak the average eCommerce business’s email list is 65% non-purchasers. That’s a highly depressing that stat that screams “OPPORTUNITY”.
Yes, there’s an opportunity to send those people already on your list an offer, or series of offers to try to get them to convert.
But many of these people will have signed up a long time ago, they’re probably less interested in your business now then when they made that leap to sign up – after all they haven’t yet got around to buying! The moment someone signs up is a great opportunity for you to sell to them.
To make that happen you have to quickly increase their interest and trust in your business, by sending them the right content, and you have to quickly ask them to buy.
That is the job of a great welcome sequence – and that’s where I see the biggest opportunity, targeting new enquirers as they sign up and getting them to progress to buy before they get stale.
A Great Welcome Sequence will Drive your Sales
Not convinced that email signups and welcome sequences can bring you lots of sales?
Let me tell you about Project Repat (we had Nathan Rothstein of Project Repat on the podcast, so take a listen to find out more).
Project Repat sell a personalised quilt. The customer buys the product, the sends in a set of their favourite T-shirts for the team at Proejct Repat to cut up and sew into a blanket. That’s a transaction which requires the customer to put a lot of trust in the business – they are sending them their favourite can’t-get-it-again t-shirts.
Nathan and his team recognised they would need to beat down each of the customer’s worries before they could get that purchase, and that the best way to do that would be with email marketing. So their entire strategy was to get the email sign up from a new visitor – not the purchase.
By optimising their pop up and welcome sequence they’ve achieved:
- $2million in sales in 2015
- Sign ups from 8% of visitors
- 25% of those signups go on to buy
They have optimised and tested every aspect of the popup, not just the call to action, but also the design, where it deploys, when it deploys – basically every single facet of that popup.
They’re constantly optimising it – so go to the site, take a look at the pop up and get on the list for their welcome emails.
Shoes of Prey – using email to help the customer choose
The companies who do welcome sequences best are often those who have to.
Project Repat have to because they have to build trust with their customer to get the order because of the way the product is delivered.
Another business who have to work at their welcome sequence are Austrailian retailer Shoes of Prey who sell bespoke ladies shoes – you can go to their website and design your perfect pair of shoes. Then they’ll make and send them to you.
Just like Project Repat the customer needs to trust that the shoes they design will be the shoes that arrive, and this time the customer doesn’t necessarily trust themselves to create a good design to start with! On top of that Shoes of Prey have deal with a high price point, AND a very complicated buying process – there are 1,000s of options and designing a pair of shoes takes a fair bit of time.
Before you can start using the shoe-builder the customer has to sign up, they then receive emails designed to help the customer design their shoes with confidence.
(I don’t know if the shoes of prey emails are a specific welcome series, it may be just their broadcast campaigns – BUT the content approach is perfect for a successful welcome sequence).
Emails include:
- How to chose your perfect heel height.
- The most popular leathers this season. (always good to have a bit of social proof in there)
- Our most popular blogs of 2016 so far (each one of which is about shoe design and fashions)
- 5 ways to wear your black court shoes
Head to the site and get yourself signed up
What makes a great welcome sequence?
If you want to construct a great welcome sequence for your business it should include elements that increase trust, tell the customer more about your business and products, and ask them to buy! That might include:
- Customer reviews
- Bestselling products, or Top Reviewed products
- The story of the business or the products
- Details about how the products are made
- Addressing key barriers to purchase (for Shoes of Prey – helping customers chose what they want; for Project Repat – explaining that the customer has 12 months to send their t-shirts in) you will need to research what these are!
I’d love to see more great welcome sequences – so please share yours in the comments below.
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