Email tactics and tips to make you an extra $250k this quarter

CRM 301

After doing so many email audits, I combined the most insightful recommendations and fixes below. If you want us to audit your email program (sign-up unit, flows, campaigns, etc.), fill out this form on the Sharma Brands website!

Sign Up Unit

• Most brands have an opt-in rate of 1-3%. According to Klaviyo, the average opt-in is 3%. You’re better than average; you should be at 6-9% for email and 3-6% for SMS.
• To keep the SMS opt-in rate high, offer a slightly better discount for SMS capture than for email submission. For example, offer 10% off for email submission but 15% off for SMS. Or offer free shipping for email and 10% off for SMS.
• If you want to maximize the opt-in rate for your pop-up, combine Black Crow’s predictive engine for email with Amped, a SaaS tool designed to maximize email pop-ups. The result is an opt-in rate of 12-15%. 
• Some of the best pop-ups ask someone to first opt-in to the discount, by clicking the CTA, and then getting the opportunity to collect the email address. You can do that within most ESPs too.

Flows

• Amongst your flows, your first email in the welcome flow will have the highest open-rate. Because of that, you should maximize what you have int he email. Consider adding:
  • UGC content (before and afters, wearing the clothes, unboxing the products, etc.)
  • Reviews/customer testimonials
  • Press quotes or quotes from PR placements
  • Us vs Them comparisons
  • Founding story of the brand
  • Third-party testing and results
  • Highlights of any materials, ingredients, scents, etc.
• The first hero image of this email will also get the most views, so you should constantly be A/B testing it to make it 1% more effective.
  • I am a fan of incorporating a design that combines the discount code, social proof, and CTA, with an image that makes it easy to know what the product does.
  • The same applies to the welcome flow on SMS—A/B test consistently, and remember that SMS is easier to A/B test since there’s no hard creative, just text.
• There is so much opportunity for testing within email and SMS. Here are some low-hanging fruit ideas:
  • Subject line — easily A/B test for open rate
  • Preview text — this is what shows up in the push notification and email client
  • Emoji vs no emoji
  • Different-styled hero’s and CTAs
  • Discount offer (with and without expiration urgency)
  • Plain text vs fully designed
  • Copy within the email
  • Reviews / press highlights — keep A/B testing these to optimize CTR
  • Product benefits — certain benefits will drive higher CTR
    • If you collect any zero-party data on the opt-in form, you can use that data to build conditional branches, depending on what users select.
• Any time there is a discounted offer or product linked, your URL should include the coupon code as an automatically applied offer. Meaning, when you click the link, it shouldn’t require someone to go to the checkout and then add in the discount code; it should already be applied. See how to do that on the Shopify blog, here.
• Don’t use a generic code like WELCOME15 in your welcome flow, for three reasons:
  • A generic code isn’t believable to expire soon
  • A generic code can easily get leaked and can cause misattribution or unintentional discounting
  • A generic code doesn’t make anyone feel special with their code
• Make sure your order confirmation emails are sent from Klaviyo rather than Shopify for greater customization of the copy, design, and overall representation of the brand—this is what people see after you take their money.
• Your post-purchase emails should include a banner with a CTA that benefits you — this could be:
  • Signing up for the loyalty program
  • Signing up for SMS (if they aren’t already)
  • Joining a Facebook group
  • Sign up for marketing emails (if they aren’t)
  • Upgrade your order to a subscription
• The post-purchase flow should help the customer understand what to expect from your product and detail how they can maximize it. 
• A/B test using the subscribers’s first name in places like the beginning of an email, within a text message or within a subject line. 
• If you are pushing any discount codes in browse, cart or checkout abandonment, include the dollars saved as a result of the discount, when they purchase.
  • You can even do this with cash back, since you, the brand, save a lot more with cash back versus with discounts off the gross revenue.
• Your review collection email, should not only focus on collecting a review, but also any sort of UGC content that can accompany it or demonstrate the product in use.

Campaigns

• With campaign imagery, don’t get too fancy and lose sight of clear CTAs.
• Design for mobile and both light & dark mode. Test across multiple devices before sending with something like Litmus (https://www.litmus.com/email-testing).
• Always ensure there is a headline and CTA above the fold — most people only view an email for a few seconds.
• Pay attention to opt-out rates. A sudden increase may indicate you are sending too frequently.
• Make sure to optimize the images inside your emails and compress them to load quicker.
• While most of your campaigns might be promotion or offer related, it’s always beneficial to weave in some brand-building, nurturing, and storytelling.
• When you run promotions, you can give early access to your SMS list, and make it clear in your email campaigns that SMS subscribers see the sales first.
• Don’t send every email to every subscriber. Here is how we like to segment out the users:
  
  • Tier 1 — engaged last 30 days. Receives every email
  • Tier 2 — engaged between 30-60 days. Receives every email
  • Tier 3 — engaged between 60-90 days. Receives every other email
  • Tier 4 — engaged between 90-180 days. Receives weekly email
  • Tier 5 — engaged 180+ days. Receives 2 emails/month
  • Sunset everyone with no engagement over 18 months