Pirate metrics: how to create an email campaign based on the AARRR principle. Part 5

On Pechkin's blog on Habré, we write a lot about interesting techniques for working with email newsletters . Earlier, we considered common mistakes when creating forms in mail letters, and today we bring to your attention an adapted translation of the note from the Sendwithus service team about which approaches to the development of letters help to increase their conversion. The first part of the material can be read here , the second - here , the third - here , and the fourth - here .

Money: introduction

You did it! You are interested in the user, he makes repeated purchases with you and even became the “evangelist” of your product. Almost became. Perhaps his basket is overflowing with goods or even abandoned, or maybe the period of free use of the product comes to an end, but you are determined to overcome all the difficulties that marketers face.

This is the fifth and final chapter in which we will finally talk about money (dolla dolla billz yall). Our goal was to expand the funnel at all stages to bring more users to the last step. In this chapter, we will describe in more detail how to use emails to push users to purchase, how to keep their interest after making a purchase, while they are still very inspired.
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Easy push: add new features and catch abandoned baskets

You know what your users want to receive, and you know when they are ready to surrender without getting what they want. Your user is only a step away from your purchase. You just need to find a way to push the user to purchase and automate this process. One solution to this problem (described earlier in this guide) is a letter about an abandoned basket.



Recently, the Baymard Institute conducted a meta-analysis of data on abandoned baskets from a huge number of suppliers. The average value was quite high - 65%, that is, only every third buyer completed the order. If you were to keep the interest of half of [potential basket customers], your income would double. But how to achieve this?

To truly understand how customers make purchasing decisions, and how this process is associated with sending letters, we decided to talk with some of our customers about reminder letters about abandoned baskets and what you can learn about your customers at those times. when they decide: to buy or not to buy goods.

Automatically generated letters should not look like they were written by a robot.

Our first interlocutor was Noah Taubman, a marketer and customer retention specialist with the help of email newsletters in MeUndies (a brand of gorgeous underwear and homewear). We talked about their abandoned baskets .

Since MeUndies developed their own version of the abandoned cart letter, they have been testing every change in the content of the letter to maximize its effectiveness. Noah says that he understood the most important thing - and this is not only knowing what topics [letters] people like (although this too). He said that the most important thing for them was the understanding that their users are smart customers, and by respecting their wishes, Noah was able to increase their overall interest and unity with the brand.

To test this version, they began to work on the text of the letters, in an attempt to do something more than “another letter about the abandoned basket” - and as a result, the style of letters became much less official. The bottom line is that, knowing your target audience is invaluable to maximize the benefits of communication with your user.

“The biggest response was received by the campaigns corresponding to our own unique style of communication, which we have been working out for the last 2-3 years. We have completely revised and modified all typical ineffective campaigns (for example, letters about abandoned baskets), ”he added.

And this really echoes the content of the previous four chapters: each letter is an interaction with a client, an opportunity to understand why this person chose you first and why he is still loyal to your product. Even if you ignore these facts, your users all understand this, so at least respect their awareness.

Imagine the best

We had the following conversation with our friend Ellie, who works in the field of digital marketing at TeeSpring . They are really interested in sending emails (given that TeeSpring is a marketplace), because they have to work with buyers and suppliers. We asked questions specifically about customers.

There is another interesting thing about TeeSpring’s strategy - they have a time limit on their purchase decision. After the campaign [mailing] begins, the final sale date is determined. Unfortunately, this does not mean that after this period, the user who left the order unpaid will automatically be offered to extend the promotion.

“We achieved the greatest success when we assumed that a client wanted to buy a course from us and simply forgot. We reminded him in a letter that "product X is in stock," and our conversion has increased significantly. "

So the important tip is to track and test your assumptions, not just the exact wording. This kind of micro-testing can give interesting results, as in the above-mentioned (real) letter about a forgotten product - these are trifles that can be easily forgotten.

These were general tips from Ellie and Noah, and many other marketers that we’ve interviewed over the past few years: the mailing list is what helps you test and improve your content, design, and even corporate ideology. Try to memorize the big and small tips from this article and try to put it into practice.

Do not offer a discount

Have you ever called a cable television company trying to cancel your subscription, and as a result received the same services with a discount of $ 10 a month and six months of free connection to HBO? Then you left yourself a reminder to call again and refuse free HBO, and everything repeated again? You don't want to be like this company, do you?

Probably the first thing you will do when working with abandoned baskets is to offer a discount, because it seems like an easy way to regain the interest of the client. But there are several reasons why you should not do this:

First of all, there is a possibility that the goods were not refused due to the price. According to a study conducted by Statista, which presents the most common causes of failure, the price factor usually appears in only three out of ten leading causes.

Even if price was the motivation, according to Chad White (Chad White), research director at Litmus: “When customers get incentive discounts, they get used to postpone purchases and become more susceptible to price.”

However, giving a discount is not always a bad idea, especially if you are completely desperate, but consider other options (so as not to form a client’s habit). An excellent example of customer return can be seen in a letter from Instacart:



Instacart Free Shipping

This letter came two weeks later after registering with Instacart, when I managed to walk around the site, but did not place an order. I like the fact that other options are offered here besides discounts: with the help of a letter, Instacart tries to identify possible difficulties encountered by new users of the service. So you can get information about the sensitivity of the client to the cost of delivery, regardless of the duration of its life cycle.

Let the letters be "personal"

On the subject of using your data: in a Listrak survey, they checked just what intuitively seems reasonable: 71% of customers prefer to receive recommended products based on what they were previously looking for; 80% - “for” recommendations based on purchase history. DonorsChoose, our adorable customer, makes great use of this in practice. Letters from this company are created in the spirit of its value proposition, which says that everyone can change their lives for the better next to them - this is how it can be reflected in a letter with recommendations of projects that the user can support:



In DonorsChoose try to use non-standard techniques for the design of letters.

There is nothing better than a gift.

Speaking of charity, you should never underestimate the gift ROI (return on investment). This technique works equally well in SaaS and ecommerce. And this is a great opportunity to remind you of purchases that your client has not yet had time to make or pay for.



We like examples of letters from various brands of clothing, because they [letters], as a rule, are better decorated than others. Hey, SaaS companies, join the game and work on your newsletter!

How to turn freemium into a paid subscription?

Until now, we have mainly given advice on retail and e-commerce. But what if you run the SaaS service? For SaaS companies, this may be a new opportunity, but their most common problem is an attempt to convince the user to upgrade to the paid version after a free cut-down functionality, or free, but limited in time use.

Ask for user feedback

One of the ways to get potential buyers is to ask them what they would like to see in your product. Since it’s cheaper for them to write a review than to decide on installing the [paid] update, you’ll probably find out more about your customers [and push them forward through the sales funnel]. For start-ups in the early stages, this is also a great way to identify possible "evangelists."

In an ideal world, you would have a complex system that allows you to automatically mark users who left the service after the trial period expired and send them a letter asking them to test new service features that they did not have before, or offer a discount in exchange for recommending to friends.



But even a little attention to the client’s personality will help improve the situation:

Keep track of the use of product demos by your users.

I love this tactic because it is cheap. You may need the help of engineers to write down the logic of the process - it will depend on the size of your company and the degree of automation, but this is a great opportunity to “catch up” lost opportunities again.

Remind them they lose

In the examples above, this is well demonstrated, but you should always be sure that it is extremely clear to users what their next step will be. Does the user know what he is losing? Will he have access to his data?

Sell ​​a dream

At this stage, it is important to let the user know what benefit he will get by using the full version of your product. The easiest way is to send useful content (to attract the user's attention), and then convince the customer that he needs a full version of the product in order to experience all his capabilities.

Letter of Invoice

Letters-invoices, probably, are neglected more often than others, and this is a huge omission. By sending ugly decorated letter bills, you let the customer know that after paying the bill he is no longer interested in you. But this is exactly the moment when the customer is most involved in the buying process, so you have to do everything possible to make money on it. If you do not know what the ugly arrangement of letters of invoices can lead to, then you are lucky - we have compiled a list of six tips to help you.

1) The letter should be beautiful

This was often mentioned in each chapter, but at the stage of generating income this is still important: your transactional letters should be executed in the same style as your website and marketing communications.

2) Work on the content of the letter, do not attach attachments to it

Please do not send your receipts as an attached PDF (except in rare cases when a customer has made a big deal). No one likes that.

The reason why email is still the most valuable marketing channel is personal communication. If for one reason or another you have to force the user to leave the mail application, then let him go to your site (and does not mess with the files attached to the letter).



Attached files are a source of misery.

3) Use a valid sender address

Consider the following situation: sometimes you need to write a reply to a letter with an invoice: for example, you accidentally ordered something extra or, on the contrary, missed something, entered a postal or billing address with an error, made an inaccuracy in specifying payment information. There are other reasons, and they are all very urgent. Therefore, make sure your customers have a direct opportunity to resolve the problem as quickly and easily as possible.



And what if I wanted to answer? This action is very important. The user himself wants to contact you directly, to contact you. After you have so hard inspired them to interact with you, why don't you give them the opportunity to contact and ask them “not to respond to this letter”?

In many ways, this causes serious damage to the very strategy of “pirated metrics”. It is built around the things that the startup team needs to do on its own, because they are difficult to scale. Scaling up will require new resources to create opportunities for customers, but, having learned how to correctly calculate the return from these investments, we begin to understand that they are paying off with interest.

4) Offer a discount for re-ordering.

Unlike the situation with an abandoned basket, re-ordering is the behavior for which you want to reward the customer, especially if your business depends on repeat sales. This can be seen on the example of Redbox.

5) Ask the customer to write a review.

If you give the customer the opportunity to immediately leave a review, you will learn about possible problems that may arise in your sales experience. A great option is to install simple “Like” and “Dislike” buttons that do not require extra actions from the user - this way you will be able to assess the mood of people after completing an order.

If your product is a physical product, then you can kill two birds with one stone by asking to evaluate both the quality of the product and the quality of delivery. It also works great if you sell your product on the marketplace, or you already have a built-in review system that can visualize these ratings.

6) Plan your repeat purchase options.

This is a slow process. In many cases, this is an opportunity to once again remind about yourself. Sometimes it is an attempt to take advantage of past achievements and send another offer to a client in the wake of previous success. Regardless of what drives you, maintaining follow-up (after sales) customer relations is always helpful.

Good customer relations can also come in handy when selling seasonal products. Including the worst season: the tax season.

Conclusion

This concludes the fifth and final chapter of our guide. And again, you need to warn you: do not try to implement all these tips at once. Maybe it’s just worth bookmarking this page and going back to it when you run into difficulties, and you need an idea, or maybe you plan to test every one of the tips from this article every couple of weeks. The most important thing for you is the constant desire to become better.