5 smart email sequences for e-commerce to automate sales
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Learn the 5 smart email sequences that can transform your e-commerce business and boost revenue once you have them in place.
5 smart email sequences for e-commerce to automate sales
You probably know email marketing is something you should be doing in your online business, but where do you start.
It’s easy to fall into the habit of thinking that sending a regular email to your subscribers is all you need to do - and that may be where you need to start… just to get yourself in the game.
But if you want to be smart and strategic about marketing, you’ll want to think about implementing email sequences into your plan.
What is an email sequence?
This might seem like a slightly redundant questions because even if you’re not savvy to internet marketing but you have a good grasp of the English language, you can probably figure out what an email sequence is. It’s a series of emails that are connected (meaning they flow one after another) and are sent in a sequence to someone who is subscribed to an email list.
SIMPLE.
The catch with a sequence though is that it must have a purpose. There must be a specific reason why your sequence exists, and that’s where different types of email sequences come in to play.
One thing to know about sequences is that they’re generally automated from a behaviour someone takes. The most usual behaviour is opting-in to either a newsletter or a lead magnet. The automation is set up in your email provider to send out a sequence when someone.
Why use automated email sequences?
An email sequence is part of your brand - even if you are a solopreneur you have a brand - and your brand should:
Stand for something
Help specific people (or businesses)
Get results
These three things should be foundational pieces of your business that you have complete clarity on. Email sequences can be used to leverage these messages to gain your readers trust and get them to know and more importantly like you… but the ultimate goal (which may not be immediate) is to sell your offers.
Selling is what businesses are meant to do. Without selling your products or services you have a hobby (an expensive one at that!). But selling isn’t just about making money, it’s about getting real results for people. If what you sell can transform people’s lives, then it’s your duty to sell!
You can use all manner of marketing techniques to build the know-like-trust factor and make sales but email marketing, specifically email sequences is the best way to leverage your message and brand loyalty.
Here are 5 smart email sequences to automate your business:
1. Welcome sequence
This is the sequence you send to a subscriber when they first enter your world. It’s usually a fairly short sequence between 2 to 5 emails that introduces who you are, what you do and why. It also lays the foundations for what your readers can expect from you.
This sequence should only be sent once to your reader when they first subscribe. It’s like a giving them a tour of your world, but with the focus on how it benefits them. Because, remember, they’ve got to know what’s in it for them.
There are some segmentation and tagging that may need to be done during this sequence so you make sure your reader doesn’t receive this sequence more than once. It’s not too complicated if you have one offer, or one opt-in as that is the only entry point, but as you grow and add more opt-ins, you may need to think about the strategy you have to make sure your reader gets the welcome sequence once.
2. Nurture sequence
This can be part of your welcome sequence, but most likely it will be specific to an offer or an opt-in. This is where you need to get smart about your strategy on your customer’s journey and what offers you intend to provide your readers.
A nurture sequence is exactly what it says on the tin, it nurtures your reader on a path to then make an offer. It’s about taking them by the hand and leading them on a journey, where you have created valuable information and content, to help your reader make the decision to work with you or buy your product.
Often the behaviour that triggers this type of sequence is the focus of the nurturing. All roads lead to Rome as they say, and this is the same here. We want the content we provide in a nurture sequence to be relevant to the behaviour or action the reader took.
If the opt-in to receive a guide about how to make bread, then your nurture sequence will guide them on a journey all about bread with the intention to show them that:
You know what you’re talking about
They get incredible valuable information they can implement
They get offered the next step
And by offering the next step, I mean what’s the next logical behaviour they need to do when they get to the end of the sequence? In our example above, it could be a bread recipe book we offer.
3. Launch sequence
This is one of the sequence that’s generally not automated by behaviour. Most launches (unless evergreen, which means available anytime) operate on open/ close basis and so the timing is specific. This is when you’re launching a new product or starting a limited time offer or promotion.
A launch sequence, ideally, starts with valuable content related to the final offer, and then eventually segments the audience based on their interaction with that content and uses subsequent emails to sell the reader on the idea of the results they can get by accepting the offer made.
4. Webinar or online event sequence
This sequence harnesses the readers’ emotional desire for results. There can be two entry points for this kind of sequence - a direct sign up by readers already subscribed to your list, or sign ups through and offer made through an ad, a blog post or through an affiliate (someone who promotes your work for you based on a commission they may get on a sale).
For those new to your world you can choose to either keep them in a specific ‘funnel’ for the launch and then release them to your list, or allow your welcome sequence to still run to them, plus your regular content that you send as part of your long-term strategy (ie. your weekly or monthly newsletter.
Once they have signed up, you then want to make sure they attend your webinar, so a webinar show-up sequence is important to implement. You want as many people live at your webinar or online event as possible so you have to coach them to show up for your presentation by letting them know the value they’ll get by attending live. This may consist of 3 to 5 emails and will include notifications to remind people the event is about to start.
But it doesn’t stop there. Once they have attended the event, if you are offering something at the end, you’ll want to send post-webinar emails to make sure they catch the replay (if they didn’t get there live), and also coach them through the decision to buy your offer.
5. Purchase follow-up sequence (or post-purchase sequence)
One of the biggest mistakes I see people making is that once they get the customer they forget about them. This is different if you offer one to one services because you will be serving your client through the service they purchased, but for those that offer DIY or information products, there’s nothing worse than being loved on and woo-ed to then, once you hand over your money, be dropped like a hot potato.
The relationship needs to continue after the purchase has been made, so a follow up sequence is essential to continue to nurture your customers. One of the reasons for this is that it’s cheaper to sell more to a current client or customer than it is to acquire a new one. This is called the lifetime value (LTV) of your customer.
Think long term - if you serve your current customers well, then they’re most likely to want to either continue working with you or want to buy more for the next step in their journey.
A follow-up sequence entails one or all of these emails:
Checking in with your customer that they have everything they need
Step by step guides of how to use your product or service
Engaging with them to check they are happy and/ or to request feedback
Methods of Sequences
We’ve been through the types of sequences you can use, now here are a couple of methods within those sequence that you can implement.
Soap opera sequence
This term was coined (I believe) by the great Andre Chaperon. This can be used as part of a nurture sequence and is automated. It’s a way to engage your audience through the use of storytelling and high drama. This is particularly useful if you can use ‘story’ to tell your journey that leads your reader to the solution to their problems.
How it works in a soap opera is each episode usually finishes on a cliffhanger which makes the viewer want to know what happens next. Employing this tactic into your emails can create high engagement and incredible open rates because you set your reader up with curiosity… they have to know what happens next!
Coaching the conversion
This is a term I first heard from Ry Schwarz, an incredible email copywriter. It’s where you have to really know your prospect. You need to know their pain points that mean they can’t sleep at night plus their ultimate desires.
It may sound harsh but you need to highlight the pain they’re in because often people sweep that under the rug because either they’ve not looked for a solution or everything else they’ve tried has failed so they think they have to live with their current reality. It is our duty to stir up their emotions so they realise that their current reality is not something they have to put up with. That there is in fact a solution!
And of course we need to paint a picture of the potential future they have in store. Again stirring their emotions for the desired outcome or kind of life they want which leads into your offer or solution.
People always have resistance to buying things and so we need to coach them through their decision. Addressing their objections to why they think they shouldn’t invest is an important aspect of salesmanship. And this is why it’s so important to do your research on your target market so you can address every objection they may have.
And of course we need to show proof. We need to allow them to see that it’s possible not just through future pacing, but through testimonials or case studies of happy clients.
The process of coaching the conversion is something like this:
Pain
Desire
Solution
Objections (addressed)
Proof
These can be weaved into your emails rather than an email for each one, because no one want to read an email all about their pain! Get creative in how you apply these tactics in your emails to coach your prospects through the decision to work with you.
Hopefully you now have a better idea of how email sequences can help you to build the know-like-trust factor but also make sales in alignment with your ethics and integrity.
These sequences are something you can implement as part of your overall marketing plan alongside the regular emails you use to engage and educate your audience. Remember, this is something you build up overtime as you hone your business message and really nail down your target market and niche. Don’t get caught up in the idea that you have to have all this set up before you can make offers. Take one step at a time and slowly you’ll build an automated machine for fully engaging with your readers and making sales.
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