The Post Purchase Flow: Actionable Ways Email Marketing Drives Revenue After the Purchase

Today we're talking about the post-purchase flow. Guys, this is so important. The relationship really starts after someone buys from you. Not after someone actually joined your list, I guess both, but we're going to dive into kind of this and why this is so important and Melanie, who's here today is going to share some actionable ways in which you can drive revenue after the purchase. Melanie, welcome. And how are you? Thanks, Chase. I'm great. Excited to be here. Um, my whole team loves you and your content. So we're ecstatic. We get to be a part of it. Oh yeah, I'm pumped. I know you were kind of briefly going through this before, and this is going to be jam packed, action packed. So why don't you give like a 30 second background on what you're working on? And then the floor is yours and cannot wait to take a bunch of notes. Totally. Yeah. Um, so we're kind of building the outsourced email teams for a lot of e-com brands, mostly, but also non e-com. So businesses that work kind of like SaaS, but maybe are not directly SaaS. Think about picking electricity online and things like that. Um, and we work on email and SMS with them. So very similar to what you do. And like I said, we learn a lot from you. So we're so excited to be here. Sweet. Let's do this one kind of question. Just to set the scene. So this is going to be applicable to both e-com brands and non e-com brands. Is that correct? Yeah. A lot of it will also be applicable to non e-com brands for sure. Amazing. All right. Well, the floor is yours. Let's do this. Cool. Yeah. So talking about the post purchase flow today, I think Chase gave a really good intro on like the relationship doesn't start after people subscribe to your email list and I'm a big metaphors fan. So I always look at the dating metaphor here. Um, I think if you look at email, it's like a dating metaphor, right? So you see a Bumble profile. That's like seeing an ad. And then I know Chase is married by now. So it's been probably a long time since you've been through this, but most people know, you know, you see a profile. It's like seeing an ad. If you swipe right on the profile, that's like clicking on the ad. You're kind of like, okay, I'm interested. I want to see more. And then I think email is the part where you make conversation, right? So when people get on your welcome flow, that's really your opportunity to wow them and say, okay, you're interested in us here, learn a little bit more. Maybe you want to come and make the purchase. And the purchase in this case would be your first date, right? But in a relationship, the first date's not the end of it, right? You're hoping to have a relationship, get married, have kids maybe. And the question is like, why are we forgetting that part in the email or in the customer journey and why is that important? I'm sure you've heard all of these stats before, but as you know, it's 5 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to retain an old one, old customers, not actually physically old, but you know, repeat customers spend 300% more than your new customers. They refer 50% more potential buyers and your customer retention. And this is by far my favorite stat, which is why I always tell people email is the most powerful channel you have, because if you increase customer retention by 5% and email is a really easy and free way to do that, your average profitability increases by 75%, which is huge. So I want to talk about a couple of classic emails that we send and maybe a couple of non-classic emails you send in the post-purchase flow. And one thing I will say is I couldn't find perfect example emails. So on one of them, you'll have to imagine a little bit with me, but we'll figure it out. So your first order confirmation, right? Your customer purchases from you and you have your more transactional order confirmation, which says like, Hey, thank you. You bought this and this is one. We'll probably ship it. And this is your confirmation, but there is also another opportunity to delight your customer. So in dating, we would say like, Hey, be excited for your first date. Give them precise details of where you're meeting and when you're meeting and make them feel comfortable about this decision to saying yes to a date. So for example, like don't just disappear and never talk to them again until the day of the date, same in email, right? Um, this is your opportunity to delight them and reduce the uncertainty. They just purchased from a brand. They have no idea who you are. They found you somewhere on the internet. Um, so reduce the uncertainty of them actually giving you money upfront without actually getting a product until in a couple of days. So build excitement. Um, I have this email here from welcome to the gates of fab. That's actually a welcome email. But my question is why wouldn't you send an email that's similar to this with just as much exciting content, reaffirming the community they're joining after they purchased, um, the Dollar Shave Club, this email is ancient. I remember seeing this email like six, seven years ago, but I think it's a really good email, even though this is a subscription. And basically what they're just saying is like, Hey, your next order is shipping soon. It's a great email to show how you can also use this moment to encourage people to add more to their cart, right? Oh, you just ordered this. You know what? Why don't you add these to your cart and we'll include it in your shipment. I'm not going to go into the logistic issues of this because not every brand will be able to do this. Um, but it's a great way to actually increase the order value right after they purchase. So thinking about this email as more than just like they have this transactional email, which I put the email transactional example on the right. Right. We're just like, Hey, yeah, we got your order. We're on it. We're buying it, whatever, but also use it to build relationship. Right. And I put an email here, which is non e-comm, but which is an email quoted in so many examples. And one of my favorite examples of how you can use this first order confirmation to get someone excited about the fact that they just purchased from you by being excited. So the hustle sent this one in the very beginning when people, which is the second email from the left, when people subscribe to the list and they just like wrote all this awesome copy, like, Hey, we're so excited. You gave us your email. This guy's celebrating that guy's doing shots. So don't underestimate the power of copy to get someone excited for your brand at this stage. Right. And then if you look at crate and barrel, they're using this to, Hey, thank you for your recent order. Check out some support. If you need one, it's here. And by the way, look at all these other products you can order as well. Um, I think does a really good job because they say like, Hey, thank you for ordering for your next order. Why don't you take 15% off with this discount code? And then also just a reminder of why was a good idea to order from us, right? Where we, uh, we recycle are really good for the environment. We're part of the revolution. And then for kin, which is like a non-alcoholic beverage supposed to replace alcohol. Um, I think it's also really interesting where they talk about what they believe in. So this is also a really good moment, right? Affirm the mission that people are buying into and not just the product. The delivery notification is also another one that we know and love and people send, and I just want to talk about why it's so important. So again, the date analogy, right? You're on your way to the date. Be communicative. Hey, I look forward to seeing you. Hey, I'm running 10 minutes late, right? Be on time, be courteous. And this is really the same thing. And again, it speaks to uncertainty, right? Uncertainty is literally the worst thing a customer can experience. Which there's a really good example of, um, there was like this whole marketing thing where they were, it was a train company somewhere and people were really unhappy because the trains were always late. And so they were going to say, okay, how do we make the trains arrive on time? And this one marketing guy came in and said, don't make it arrive on time. Just let them know when it arrives. So they put up this like electronic thing and it would just say like train arrives in like five minutes, train arrives in eight minutes. And customer satisfaction went up significantly. Why? Because they were actually just reducing uncertainty. So how do you do that? Just let them know where the shipment is like, Hey, thank you for snacking with us. This is what happens next, right? Um, we just sent out your order and it's going to take three days or something like this, or we got your order and this is the next steps. Again, like copy can be so important in this kind of stuff. Like here's, here's what's happened next. Like we whip up your snacks and our own dedicated allergen friendly facility, and then we box them with lots of love and then you're going to receive them in so many days. Um, also really interesting statistic is like 98% of customers say they want a notification of a package is held up compared to 79% of customers that said two day free shipping was important to their purchase decision. So it's more important to people that you're actually transparent and you communicate with them. Then that you're super, super fast. So reduce, use these moments to kind of have full milestones and communicate cool stuff in those milestones. Like, Hey, your package has shipped. Your package is arriving today. Amazon does that. So, um, your package has arrived. Again, make it fun, build excitement. And for subscriptions, this is a great opportunity to prevent returns. Like just letting people know, Hey, your next shipment's coming and it's on its way. If someone wants to skip a shipment, this is a really great time to do that. So this is one that not a lot of people send, which is, I call it the order confirmation. So most people have their order confirmation and then they don't send an email after the first purchase, or they send the same one. Now I like to think about the customer journey, just like with dating, you wouldn't treat a second date the same way you treat a first one, and you wouldn't treat a 10th date the same way you treat a second one. So think about your customer journey in terms of, okay, what part of the life cycle are they in? A purchaser is not just a purchaser. A one-time purchaser is very different from someone who's purchased from you 10 times. So we want to communicate that accordingly in the flow. So at each of these stages, you can also incentivize different behaviors. And always the famous Twitter example, which for the life of me, cannot remember how many users it was, so I just wrote X, but Twitter at one point found out that if a user follows eight accounts or something, then they become an active user. So if you, on your data side, know like, Hey, we see that when people actually purchase three times from us, usually they become what we call a lifetime customer, which as you know, doesn't mean they have to be with you for a lifetime, but what you consider life. So then you can say, okay, now we can incentivize this more heavily. So when I put in here, I was like, like, we're honored. Again, it's a lot of copyright. You just made us do a happy dance. Nothing feels better than knowing you trust us with your business, not just once, but twice. And then you can go on further from here. Um, one, and I'll show you kind of some of the flows we've built before in the old days, they looked like this because we really thought about, okay, the customer, if it's after the fourth time that they purchased, where they become a lifetime customer, let's incentivize each purchase till then. So the first purchase might have like, Hey, here's a discount for your next order, the second purchase might have something else like the third purchase might say, Hey, you're going to be part of the VIP club if you enter, which means you get priority customer support, automatic entry into all giveaways. And my favorite of them all is order again. And there'll be a surprise in your order. Again, I know logistically, this can be a nightmare, but just having this little surprise factor of being like, Hey, when you order again, we'll put in an extra little surprise can be really huge. So I wrote that here, right? Like make your incentives funds. There's a surprise in your next order and things like this. Um, so just a couple of different examples here, like Blahman Actuals, they're going like, Hey, nothing kind of same copy, like you trusted us once and you're trusting us again and again and again, and that's just so awesome. And please give us some feedback. You have some, or this one is like, Hey, um, what's the password, right? Like you don't need a password because you're already in things. You're a Lama loyalty. You're in the Lama VIP lounge. Why don't you go and refer some people here? Um, and then here talking about kind of like the different stages, right? Like on the very right side, it's like, Hey, um, why don't you subscribe? You've you've purchased from us four times so far, right? You clearly, why don't you take advantage of the 10% discount that comes with it? Right. Or even here with the surprise on, right? Like your next shipment is ready for delivery hint. It includes a surprise, just kind of getting people excited to come back and purchase again. Granted, this is not the order confirmation too. This would be like more further down the flow, but just knowing like, okay, if someone is on their third order and we know the fourth order would get some to stick, why don't we add the surprise and the reorder email? So it went a little bit further down the funnel there. Um, this is my other thing, right? Like forget about offers. Um, offers are awesome and offers work. And I'm not saying don't do them, but I'm saying, think about email as a way for people to find their tribe. Like, think about being part of your brand as a way for people to find their tribe, make them a part of your customer community. So in the dating analogy, it's not really about how much money you actually spend on the date, but more so on like, does this person have the same values as I do? And do they get along with my people? And famously, people say people don't buy your product. They buy your brand, right? So more than anything, people want to connect and feel like they're part of something bigger. So there's a lot of ways you can build community. And there's a couple of examples here, right? The first one is like, share some content from your community. I know a bunch of actually non-ecom places where they, for example, collective, um, which is like, they do your, they do your taxes, I think. And they share a ton of their user stories and their services too. So there's a bunch of freelancers that use this company and they promote those people to their community. And they've really built this really nice freelancer community. Um, another way to build community, which I actually remember receiving this email by Coco kind, and it was during COVID and I was, it totally made me love this brand because they're sharing like an all hands newsletter. So transparency and just making people feel like they're part of your company and not just part of your brand can also be really cool, but they shared in this email is like, Hey, we just got into stores. Hey, our manufacturing actually was paused because of COVID and it's super stressful for us right now. So the transparency and making people feel like they're part of your team and not just part of like your customer base can also be really cool. And then of course, like doing things like using user generated content to show people like actual people using the product and talking about like, for example, how your community is doing different things like Ken is talking about, how's the community of non-alcoholic beverage drinkers going into 2021. And then I also love, obviously Chase, this is your tip. I think I'm pretty sure I got this from you, which was, um, leave a comment on Facebook and tell us how excited you are, such a cool way to build community and push people off of one channel to another, right. And I will say that a lot of brands I work with, they've done a great job building communities and Facebook groups where they really have people engaged. So use email to push people there and join your community outside of email as well. So this one, I call it the how-to email and the dating analogies show them how you like it. So this LPG 13, but, um, I love sending these types of emails the moment the customer receives their product, why they received their product. And now we want to say, Hey, your product arrived. Are you excited? Cause we are, here's how to use it. So encourage them to use it. Get them excited to use it and show them how to use it. So show them how to store your product. If it has specific storage needs and give them ideas on how to use it. So I love this one from Tenzo where they're saying, Hey, this is your Tenzo. Start your daily ritual. Here's a couple of recipes, right? If you're, if you're doing anything with food, recipes is a great thing to send the second they get their product. Um, if you're doing anything with supplements, like showing them a new routine, right? You want to get them to actually get hooked to your product when they arrive it and a routine helps them get hooked. So why not send them that type of email and for skincare, you know, skincare routines, really just sending them high value content on how to use your product and use it well, can be super, super beneficial just to your customer happiness, right? So none of these emails are targeted towards like, this is going to drive my revenue, but they're more targeted towards like, this is going to build the first purchase experience and increase the customer happiness and relationship we have with them. Um, I have a couple of different examples. So, you know, seed while they're basically saying like, here's how you store this product. Here's how you dose it. If you want to combine it, this is what you do. And if you have questions, reach out to us, this Nike email is not the actual email they sent, but they sent an email a while back and I've spent probably an hour trying to Google and find it and I couldn't find it, but their email was how to squat. And it looked very similar to this. And it was just a rundown of how to squat. And there was no push to purchase, nothing pure content. This is how you squat. So if you're selling like apparel, athletics apparel, that's really something cool to think about. Like what's something that my, most of my users do that I can help them do better. Maybe it's squatting. Maybe it's something else. And then this one from Prima is not actually a post-purchase one because they're pushing people to shop, but I wanted to show you what a really good example would be of how you can use a brand or how you can use a nightly routine for after someone's purchase, right? You could say like, Hey, you got our new masks. Step one, make a nice bath tonight. Step two, brew yourself a tea. Step three, lay in the tub with our mask on for 10 minutes. So fun stuff like that. And then for a George Stone crab, which they sell claws, basically just showing them how to crack them, how to eat them. If you have a product where you have a lot of instructions in the box, email is a great way to reiterate those instructions. Okay. So this is a standard one. And the only reason I'm mentioning the give us feedback email, because I'm sure you all know feedback emails. Is because I think it's a really cool thing that you can do here that most people don't do, which is getting feedback from first time purchasers in terms of customer surveys. So these are none of the example emails here, and I would usually send this as a plain text email, but you know, we're very used to saying like, Hey, come in and give us feedback. And with AMP, which was a really cool technology, this is going to get easier and easier where people are probably going to be able to actually give feedback within the email. So they'll never have to leave it. So definitely look into AMP, but that's a whole other rabbit hole. Um, but I want you guys to think about like, you have people who purchase often and you have people who only purchase once and never come back. Why not consider sending that specific or setting up a specific email for that segment that actually asks them, why did you only purchase once? Right. And then building a conversation. Email is also a learning tool. It's a communication tool. If you think about it, if you had a store where people come in, in person, you actually get to talk to them and make a conversation with them. So think about the post purchase flow also as an opportunity to do that. And I'll give another example of how you can do that a little bit later. Okay. The cross sell, which is also really, really typical email, but I have a little caveat here because a lot of brands who sell one time products forget about this. So again, this typical email we know, but I want you to think about the cross sell more as like, how can you, how can you utilize your data? Right. You have a ton of data, especially if you're in Klaviyo. You have a ton of data about your customers. So have you ever looked into what trends there are? And I'll give you an example. Hey, everyone who buys cookies from us usually ends up loving the brownies. That's what we see in the customer journey. And then you can go and create a specific post purchase part of the journey where you target people who buy cookies and specifically send them brownies, right? You can also do this as a campaign. You don't have to automate it, but you technically have the opportunity to do that. So now you're targeting them with something really personalized, which is awesome because personalization always equals more revenue usually and happier customer. So think about it, not just from like, okay, let's just cross sell them anything, but look at the data and think about, okay, what makes sense here? Um, and even things like, Hey, this shirt will look really great with the pants you bought last week, right? If a customer buys pants from you and you have a couple of bestseller shirts. And granted, this gets way harder if you have more and more excuse, right? But, um, if you have smaller skews, it's pretty easy to do. So just like really talking about and connecting these kinds of data points in your emails. Um, I also, so this is also kind of an idea I got from chase where chase, I knew you did this in the, in the browser band of an email one time, I think where you're saying like, Hey, um, click like what your favorite late night snack is, and we'll show you what t-shirt you should buy. So you can also do this in the post purchase flow, right? Like, Hey, roll the dice here and see which, uh, which the, which product that got the shoe gods choose for you next, right? Like what, what should you add on? So I think you can gamify it here. And it's really, really interesting. And the other thing is like, if you have a product that you only normally sell once like a Peloton, don't forget about actually recommending it for friends and family, right? If they have the product and they have it for four months and you know, that's usually the timeframe where people are pretty happy if they reorder, why don't you say, Hey, it's time to gift your friends and family a pack. So don't just use it as a referral in terms of like, Hey, get 10. If you give 10, no, actually buy them the product as a gift. So really kind of building that into your flow. Okay. The subscription email. I just put this in here for people to know and see it's nothing fancy, but I still don't see a lot of brands do this, which is like, why don't you push people who buy from you a lot to go and subscribe, right? You can do it during the first part of the email, like welcome, subscribe and get 10% off, or even during the first order email, but think about it further down the road, right? Like if someone has purchased from you four or five times, they can save a lot of money with subscription. You can even do the math for them. So my favorite part is doing math for people like, Hey, you ordered from us five times. If you had subscribed, then you would have saved like so and so many dollars. So just kind of really doing that, um, I think is important. And in the dating analogy, I forgot about my dating analogies, but subscription is kind of where you're asking them to marry you. Like there's a lot more commitment. So, um, yeah, don't forget about this. I'm mentioning it because I know it sounds like a no brainer, but probably 70% of the brands I work with still forget that email is a great way to turn people to your subscription, which is a great way to build a recurring revenue business, which is a great way to build a healthy business. Okay. This one I think is really interesting. And I want to bring this one up because again, I think people are under utilizing it. So people send birthday emails and people send anniversary emails, but you know, in the dating analogy, you wouldn't miss your significant other's birthday. And you would use any milestone on opportunity to celebrate a relationship or celebrate relationships, usually a healthy relationship, but you're also not buying them random gifts. You're buying them gifts based on what you know, they like. So how can you use that in email? And I want to bring up like the personalization in terms of your data. Right. You have a lot of data about your customer. If you're celebrating a milestone together, like you've been with us for a year, why didn't you celebrate things? Like you've been with us for a year. You've ordered from us four times, you know, things like that. And Klaviyo has that data. It's not, not very hard to send them that data, especially if they're subscribers. You've been subscribed with us for a year. You've saved so many dollars on your subscription. Those are things you can easily do. And people love hearing about themselves. You know, the Spotify rap. This thing goes viral every year and all Spotify does is take their data and send it to you in an email. And it goes viral and it's an incredible marketing tool for them. Why? Because people want to know about themselves. That's why silly Buzzfeed quizzes work. Like tell us your favorite pizza and we'll tell you what city you should move to. Right. People want to know about themselves. So, you know, obviously if you send a milestone email and you're like, Hey, one year anniversary, one year ago is when you subscribed to us. Go get a coffee on us. Awesome. Great customer experience, delightful. But if you go even further and you're like, Hey, you subscribed one year ago. And here's all that happened in our relationship that builds a much stronger bond. And then on the birthday email. So obviously I get so happy when people send me birthday emails and I'm an email marketer. I don't know why it works so well with me, but I thought this was an interesting concept I heard about as well. And I don't know. On which podcast it was, but it was on a podcast. Um, and it's like, Hey, we missed your birthday. So kind of like with black Friday and cyber Monday, you want to be sending your emails a lot earlier now, because you want to get out of the noise of everyone sending black Friday, cyber Monday emails, the same analogy holds on the birthday email, right? Hey, we missed your birthday. Oh my God. We're so terrible. But here's an even bigger discount because of it can be kind of nice as well, um, because you won't be competing with all the other brands in the inbox. And then the last thing I wanted to bring to you guys, like I said, is people forget that you've built an audience of customers, that's also your best guinea pig audience, right? So parachute here. This is when they're trying text updates. So if you're ever unsure of something, a new product, a new marketing channel, an ad, maybe a video, something you want to roll out. Don't forget to use your, and this is not a flow. This is more campaign, but don't forget to use your purchasers as your test audience, right? Your significant other is usually the first people to see something new you're trying. Whether it's a trend or a new beard style or whatever. So use your purchasers as your test audience. Like, Hey, we're trying out SMS. Let me, let us know how you like it. Um, so, and then you can see the feedback and what you'll know is like, these are your hardcore customers. These are the people who love you most. If it bombs with this people, probably not a good idea to roll it out because this is also your target customers. So, um, yeah, that is, I think all I have for you today. Wow. This was fantastic. I'm going to give you a virtual round of applause. This was so, so good. Thank you so much for, you know, you clearly, you clearly spent a lot of time working on this presentation. You clearly know what you're doing. I thank you so much for anyone that might want to work with you. Anyone that might want to follow you. What are some of the ways in which people can find you or get ahold of you? Yeah, great question. So we have a pretty funny name, which is the email marketers. You can find us on there. Anything's the email marketers, www.emailmarketers.com. And if you want to connect with me personally, I'm on LinkedIn a lot. Um, if you're more of a Twitter user, I'm working on my Twitter, but yeah, those are some good ways to find me. Cool. So your, your website's theemailmarketers.com and then on LinkedIn, people will just find you under your name. I'll, I'll drop your LinkedIn. And then what is your handle for Twitter? It's Ms. No, I think it's Mballkey4. Yeah. Okay. There were four other Mballkeys before me. So awesome. Yeah. I'll make sure we have that. Thank you so, so much. This was absolutely incredible. I really appreciate you. Of course. Thanks Chase. Yeah, of course. All right. Cheers.