#50. How To Win Your Customers Back With Email | Podcast

Vira: 0:16

What is the better way to celebrate your 50th episode anniversary than to talk about how to win your customers back with email? And that’s exactly what we will be talking about today.

Alissa: 0:49

Hello, hello everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Email Einstein. Vira and Alissa here. We are two email marketers at an email marketing agency called Flowium. We are so passionate about email marketing, and because we love what we do, we want to share our insights with you. Flowium is one of the fastest growing email marketing agencies in the world. We specialize in providing a premium full-service e-commerce email marketing experience for all of our clients. Our service is tailored specifically for your business and is designed to help increase your online retail revenue by 20 to 50, that’s 5-0%, we deliver the right message to the right person at the right moment. That’s what we’re all about here at Flowium. And today’s episode is focused on an everlasting topic that we always get questions from our clients about. We always get questions from everybody that we know and their mom and their grandma. Everyone’s always calling us about this. So Vira, start us off. What’s our topic today?

Vira: 1:56

So today we will be talking about win-back emails and win-back campaigns. And actually, lisa, something that I just realized now when I started like going through our notes, it’s actually episode number 50, Alissa.

Alissa: 2:09

Oh my gosh.

Vira: 2:10

Yeah. Did we like celebrate or something? I didn’t realize it. I mean, we talked about it, but can Can you imagine like 50 episodes? It’s like 50, it’s like 5-0, like we say in our— And we said we were going to prepare for this and we haven’t and we failed. I mean, wow. 52nd episode is kind of like a year of our podcast.

Alissa: 2:34

Yeah, that’s a year one.

Vira: 2:35

It’s a big deal. Yeah. So let’s celebrate that one.

Alissa: 2:38

Okay. We’ll celebrate that one. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Vira: 2:41

If you guys have any ideas of how we should celebrate it. Our one year of our podcast, maybe we should do some sort of like a virtual party, or maybe we can do like a free consultation with you guys, or I don’t know, like a meetup, virtual meetup or something. That’d be fun, right?

Alissa: 2:58

That would be a lot of fun. That’s actually kind of cool if we hosted one of our listeners as like a celebratory— we’ll see, we’ll see what we can get our, our inside marketing team to do. Yeah, I like it.

Vira: 3:10

I like it. Cool. Yeah. So episode number 50. Thank you for those of you who stick with us for 50 episodes in a row.

Alissa: 3:20

Wow.

Vira: 3:20

So yeah, what is the better way to celebrate your 50th episode anniversary than to talk about how to win your customers back with email? And that’s exactly what we will be talking about today. Okay, so listen, you guys, no matter what industry you’re in, no matter what you’re selling, you’re selling socks, you’re selling mattresses, you’re selling whatever, your markers, every brand has different kinds of customers, different groups of customers. No matter how well you perform, you will always have lookers, people who just like come and go through your website. Look, you’ll have bargain hunters, people who just go there for the sake of good sale or good savings. You’ll have your loyal customers, those who buy regularly. You’ll have less loyal, and you will also have advocates who tell all their friends and family about how awesome your socks brand is. But listen, every business, and I mean it, every business has also this group of customers that we call lapsed customers. So these are the people who haven’t interacted with your brand in a while or they haven’t purchased from you in a while. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s nothing to be scared of. And again, this happens to everyone. Every business has them. But even though 70% of businesses agree that it’s cheaper to retain customer than it is to find a new one. And by the way, this number is— I think it’s 5 times cheaper to have a customer than to get a new one or like to nurture that customer.

Alissa: 5:02

We’ve talked about this in the past too.

Vira: 5:03

Yeah. So even though like 70% of businesses agree that, yes, it’s cheaper to retain customer than it is to find a new one, only like 30% of all the businesses make make any efforts whatsoever to actually win back customers that are being lapsed for quite a while. So think about it, by not like re-engaging that group of people, you are basically losing money. You’re leaving the money on the table. Is that how they say it? Or under the table? Or on the table?

Alissa: 5:30

That’s like a classic Andriy expression, leave the money on the table or don’t leave the money on the table.

Vira: 5:38

So don’t leave the money on the table. Don’t leave them under the table, beside the table. We’ll show you guys how to get those people back into your, into your website. We’ll show you how to win those people back. And today I actually was going through some blogs preparing for this podcast today, and some businesses call them a flow, not the win-back flow, but wow-back flow. So they try to like wow their customers. They try to like really impress. Yeah, that’s cute.

Alissa: 6:07

I like that. That’s cute.

Vira: 6:08

I know. I think we should start calling it. Wow. Backflow. Wow.

Alissa: 6:14

Backflow.

Vira: 6:18

Oh wow. Yeah. But before we go there, I know Alissa prepared a very good, very solid pro tip of the week. Uh, the tip that you just like can’t miss. Alissa, what is it?

Alissa: 6:28

Well, and so this is in honor of my new unofficial role here at Florium, which, what did we call it? It’s the chief of goofy holidays. So In case you didn’t know, well, not today, the day that we’re recording the podcast, but today, the day that you are all listening to it, is Tuesday, June 22nd. And guess what today is? If you don’t know what today is, you’re missing out. Today is actually National Chocolate Éclair Day. So it’s a very important day that you must celebrate. And if you don’t know what a chocolate éclair is, I’m sorry, because they’re delicious. It basically looks like— gosh, Vira, you know what a chocolate éclair is, right? Yeah. Okay, okay, okay. I was like, please don’t let me be alone here on this. So a chocolate éclair basically looks like a sub roll, but it’s really like a miniature sub roll, and it’s not cut in half. In the middle, it’s filled with like delicious cream, and then the top is covered with chocolate.

Vira: 7:27

Nice.

Alissa: 7:28

And it’s wunderbar. It’s so tasty, especially with like your morning coffee or a cup of tea in the afternoon. So, and I apologize, I would imagine that there’s a more French way to say eclair. It’s probably like eclair or something like that.

Vira: 7:43

So good.

Alissa: 7:44

Well, actually the reason why my French accent was so good is because I’ve been watching, I would imagine that most Americans would call it Lupin, but it’s called, it’s Lupin.

Vira: 7:54

I watch it right now. I’m like on the season 1, but I just finished the last episode and I’m like, so yeah, Yeah, I—

Alissa: 8:01

Vira, you— so we’re on the last episode of part 2, season 2, and it’s— okay guys, listen, if you— sorry, this is totally off topic here. First of all, happy National Chocolate Week number 2.

Vira: 8:15

Yeah, right.

Alissa: 8:16

First of all, happy National Chocolate Éclair or Éclair Day. And pro tip number 2 on the side, if you have not started watching Lupin, L-U-P-I-N, or Lupin for those who are a little more French Inclined on Netflix. You need to watch it right now because it is the best show ever, like ever. And actually one of our recruiters, Gabriella, shout out to her because she’s awesome, but she actually recommended it to me and I was like, yeah, I don’t know because I’m not big on TV. And so my husband and I started watching it and we lost it. I was like, this is the best show I have ever seen. It’s great. Truly, it’s great. It’s in French. So if you don’t speak French, Sorry, but there are subtitles and the subtitles are really, really good.

Vira: 9:02

Really? You’re watching with subtitles? We are like, we have the English translation, like in Canada, you can like listen to him speak. Yeah. Wow.

Alissa: 9:12

No, it’s interesting that he— Well, maybe, maybe you do have the possibility to watch it in English. I’ve been watching it in French because I love listening to the French. It’s so like the way they talk is so…

Vira: 9:53

It’s like the best French impression ever.

Alissa: 9:57

Oh gosh. Anyways. Okay. Sorry. We digress. We digress. Watch Lupin, eat an éclair, and enjoy the rest of this podcast episode.

Vira: 10:07

Let’s get back to win-back emails, shall we? Even though I would totally keep talking about my favorite Netflix shows, but hey, let’s, let’s provide some value, you guys. Yeah. Win-back emails. What are win-back emails? What is win-back email? And when we email is basically a message that you send to your lapsed customers that you send to reach out to your inactive customers. So this is someone who have engaged with you in the past. Maybe they have purchased from you, maybe they’ve opened your emails, maybe they visited your website, but for a while now they’ve been inactive. They’ve stopped doing any sort of like contact. They stopped having any sort of contact with you. So what or who should you consider inactive customer? How long should you wait? Before you reach out, before you send them like a promotion or incentive or something? Well, that’s a really good question. That’s like I’m patting myself on the back for a good question that I just asked myself. Good question, Vira. So depending on what industry you are, depending on what you’re selling, how much your product costs, what is the typical sales cycle for you? The cycle is different and it depends on like a lot of factors. So for example, if you sell mattresses, you wouldn’t consider someone inactive after they haven’t purchased from you anything in a year. Because for most people, most people don’t change mattresses like every year, right? And same for other businesses that sell high-value, high-quality items that are created to hold up for years, right? Your customers probably won’t need to buy anything else from you or like a second item just like this within like a year or something. So for you, the win-back period will be longer. But if you’re selling, for example, a tea or the socks, let’s use our socks example since we started talking about it anyways. So if you were selling socks, on the other hand, it would be more reasonable for your customers to come back and make like a repeat purchase and come back and purchase some more since they are probably going through socks more frequently. Let’s just hope that they are changing socks more often than once every 5 to 10 years, right? So yeah, I know. Yeah. This podcast just got a weird, weird turn. Yeah. Yeah. No, but seriously though, your win-back window, it will depend very much on who you are selling to and what you’re selling. Usually with most of our brands, we use 60 days as the good framework to send that first win-back email. But if you’re, for example, Alissa, you have a client, right, who has like a different time delay because they are an industry that requires a different cycle, basically.

Alissa: 12:59

Yeah. So we have— so there’s actually one client that we were working with that sells furniture, and so their sales cycle looks more like— well, and the other thing is because of how long it takes to ship things, like everything is totally different. So if someone makes a purchase but they don’t make a purchase in like 3 to 6 months, that’s pretty normal. So their win-back cycle looks more like 180 days. Instead of the usual 60 days. But yeah, and so for them, like if you were hounding someone 30 or yeah, 60 days later asking them to buy another product, most of those customers haven’t even received their initial purchase yet because the shipping takes a really long time as well. So that’s just, you have to make sure that those delays are according to, again, like Vira mentioned, your sales cycle, but then also just like generally what your customer cycle looks like when they either make a purchase or don’t make a purchase or have touchpoints with you, et cetera.

Vira: 13:52

Right, and I had a client was selling coats and he was like, my business is very seasonal. So if someone like haven’t purchased from me like within 60 days, 90 days or even like, I don’t know, like 6 months, it’s not a big deal because for me that cycle is like up to a year. So if someone like haven’t purchased from them within like 12 months, that’s like a time to send the win-back sequence. So yeah, it’s a really good thing to understand who are you selling to and what are you selling and what’s your customer’s typical behavior. But basically a win-back can Dane’s ultimate goal is to bring that lapsed customer back. And when you notice that customers are not engaging, you should aim to create like some sort of content that can bring them back to your website as early as possible. Maybe you can provide some sort of interesting content to them, or Alisa will talk about all of the incentives that you can provide to them. You want to basically like reawoke that customers and don’t be alarmed if your open rates or click-through rates are not that great for like this. Sequence, it’s typical that this sequence has like lower open rates and click-through rates. And it’s natural because these are the people who are not your like advocates or fans, right? They, they forgot about you. So don’t be alarmed if that happened, but still try to do your best and try to deliver the value. And in the meantime, you should be asking yourself a ton of questions at the start to understand why the customer left, because maybe your emails are not the problem. Maybe you have a bad customer service, maybe you don’t have products that they really want to purchase from you. Maybe they were not happy with the product itself. So the win-back series is great, but dig deeper and try to find out the reasons why they left in the first place.

Alissa: 15:38

Yeah.

Vira: 15:38

And right now we’ll talk about all of the dos and don’ts of good win-back series. And Alissa, I know you have a ton of good tips for us.

Alissa: 15:48

So there are a lot of things you should be doing if you’re going to do this win-back, which you should. So yeah, let’s get— let’s definitely dive into that. So the first thing that we’ll talk about in in terms of what you can do. So you can do flows and you can do campaigns, right? But we’ll talk about the dos for these. Both of these options are pretty standard for both. So in terms of what our typical win-back series looks like, our standard kind of templatized version is made up of 4 emails, sometimes 5 depending on the account manager that’s working on it and kind of how in-depth the brand is. Usually again, the delay as a standard is 60 days after the person originally placed their first order. And they have not placed an order since then, then they’ll start to kind of get into this flow. The first email is typically an intro, some kind of like, hey, remember us? We haven’t seen you in a while. What’s going on? Where you been? That sort of thing. Some account managers that work here at Flowium and also some brands that we’ve seen, they will include in that initial kind of like hi again email, they’ll also include an offer in there, some kind of incentive And then the next email to follow will be another, an incentive reminder rather. So in that first email it’ll be, hey, we’re giving you 15% off so you can come back and make a purchase with us. And then that next email will go out like the next day, just reminding them that they have 24 hours left. ‘Cause it’s always an urgency offer, right? We’ve talked about that in the past. So that’s the standard. And then 30 days later, if the person still has not purchased, then the third email will go out. That’s another offer or another incentive. Hey, you didn’t take us up on the 15%, here’s 20% so you can come back. And then the following email will be a reminder of that 20%. And then at that point, the win-back flow will end. And there is a chance, it is likely that the person will start to go into the sunset flow depending on how it’s set up and depending on kind of what definitions your customers need to meet. But there is potential for that. So in terms of a templatized standard version of a win-back flow, there’s an example for you. And that’s actually what we use internally. Now, when it comes to what to do when you’re setting up your version of a win-back, So there are sort of 5 things that we would do, and one of them Vira’s already touched on, but I’ll just kind of drive this home. The first thing is you definitely want to make sure that you are sending the campaign, the win-back campaign, if that’s what you want to do, to the appropriate audience or triggering the win-back flow at the appropriate time. That’s a really big deal because if you’re starting to send win-back tailored messaging to your customers and they either don’t need to be won back because they’re still in that very beginning, early stage of their customer journey with you, or these people have already had an opportunity to be wowed or won back and they just weren’t interested. Sending them another win-back sort of message is a really easy way to piss people off, right? So you wanna make sure that your audience is correct when it comes to how you segment for the win-back campaign. But then you also wanna make sure that you’re triggering appropriately time-wise when you do set up that win-back automation. So again, going back to like a mattress example, for a win-back campaign, you’re not winning these people back within 60 days, but you probably do wanna look at winning them back in like a year, 2 years, 3 years, 4 years, something along those lines, right? And that’s only if you sell mattresses. Like if you sell accessories as well, get an idea of what the lifetime of that accessory is and then try to win back the customer based on that like replenishment requirement, right? So that’s the first thing, making sure that you do send the right messaging to the right person at the right time. We talk about that all the time. The second thing is do let your customers know that you’ve noticed that they’ve been gone. And I think this is just like an ode to human nature where it’s nice to know that you’ve been missed, right? So like when I went on maternity leave and then I came back and some of the people that I work with and some of my clients said, you know, I hope everything’s well, hope your baby’s good, but we really missed you. And that’s really nice to hear, you know, because you think, wow, you know, when I left, like I wasn’t replaced easily. Someone missed me. And so it’s nice to do that for your customers, right? So when you do try to win them back, let them know that you noticed that they were gone and that you miss them. It’s that age-old Kelly Clarkson song, right? Kelly Clarkson song. Since you’ve been gone.

Vira: 20:23

We bring so much value to the world with our podcast, Alissa. Like so much value.

Alissa: 20:30

Oh my gosh, I’m cracking up. But making sure that you let your customers know that you notice that they’ve been gone, it just gives them like a warm fuzzy feeling in And it connects, it reconnects them to your brand and reconnects them to who you are. And it shows them, it may even help them to think like, oh, it’s not just a robot who’s sending this email out. It’s someone who actually cares. And sometimes that messaging looks really great from like the owner of the company, the CEO, someone who’s really at the top who kind of works directly with the customers as much as possible. That’s a really nice thing to do. When I canceled my Zoom account, my own personal one, ’cause I got one through Flowium, but when I canceled mine, I actually got I got an email, and this is a little bit different in terms of it wasn’t a win-back email, but I got an email from the CEO that said, “Hey, Alissa, just wanted to let you know, I appreciate that you canceled your Zoom account, but one of the things that I really wanted to confirm is to make sure that there wasn’t anything that we did wrong that caused you to cancel. And as a CEO, like, this is something that’s on my radar,” et cetera. And I was just like, “Whoa, the CEO reached out because he cares.” So again, there are different ways to kind of phrase that initial email to let the customer know that you realize that they were gone, but definitely something that you want to address. So that’s a big do. So that’s number 2, do let your customers know that you’ve noticed that they were gone. So number 3, do offer an incentive with a deadline. So this one we can kind of keep short and sweet because it’s something that we’ve always talked about since episode number 1, all the way through to episode 50, which is whenever you offer incentives, you need to make sure that you add urgency for your customers. Because if not, they will give you every excuse in the world to use that 20% discount. Oh, I’ll do it at the end of the month when I get paid. Oh, I’ll do it next week. Oh, I’ll do it in 3 months when I feel like I need the product more. So you need to add urgency and let them know, hey, you’re getting 20% off, but you’ve got 2 days to make good on this offer. And if you don’t, see you later. And a lot of our customers actually panic when we talk about adding urgency because they think, oh my gosh, yep, but then no one’s ever gonna buy. Yeah, people won’t buy. And that’s not true if you have a good product.

Vira: 22:35

It’s the other way around. Yeah, totally.

Alissa: 22:37

Exactly, exactly. And we’ve seen that notoriously with a lot of our clients. When you provide an awesome offer and you give a strong level of urgency, customers will buy because they think that’s the only chance that they have to get a good deal on whatever product you’re selling. So making sure that when you do give that win-back incentive, which is definitely important to offer because you are trying to win them back or wow them back, you wanna make sure that there’s always a deadline on there. So then that way they’re not giving you even more reason to delay and they’re not pushing out their ability to be won back. So that’s number 3, do offer an incentive with a deadline. So we’ve got 2 more, right? Number 4 is do provide value. So this is a big one, and this just goes back to delivering the right message to the right person at the right time. When you are trying to win back or wow back these older customers that you just haven’t heard from in a really long time, it’s really important to give them something that they can kind of hold on to that’s of value and gives them something that they can actually utilize in their lives, right? One of the biggest pieces of feedback that we’ve received from this podcast that we’re really thrilled to hear from our listeners is that a lot of the things that we talk about are very practical in terms of adding value to whatever they’re currently doing in their email marketing. So it would be another thing altogether, right? If Vira and I sat here all day talking about email marketing theory, but never actually gave you guys concrete steps that you could actually apply to the email marketing that you’re implementing for your brands. And you should do Do the same thing in your emails with your customers. So if you’re going to give them something that’s going to contribute to their life, make sure that it actually contributes. And it’s not just like, hey, we’re going to talk about cool ways that you can look at water. Or, I mean, that’s very, very random and just came off the top of my head, but you get what I mean. You want to give them something that is of value. And if you don’t have anything that you’re giving specifically of value, whether it’s like a PDF or some kind of content that helps remind them of the value that your product actually gives in their life. Because it could be that they purchased something from you 60 days ago and they’ve been using it, but then they just kind of forgot about it. Remind them why they purchased it in the first place. Remind them why it was so important and remind them why they need to continue having it in their life. Because through doing something like that, you’re reminding them of the value that you provide as a brand through your products. And then you’re also giving them a chance to remember and then look to continue that by buying more from your brand. So providing value in those emails, that’s huge. And that’s really, really important because the customer is always concerned with, well, what are you going to do that’s going to be good for me?

Vira: 25:19

Just like you said, providing value, it’s not just a discount, not just incentive. It can be a PDF. I know that Glossier, if you know this brand, I think they are like a makeup brand or something. I think they are geniuses when it comes to email marketing and marketing. By the way, check them out and subscribe to their list. No, I’m not sponsored. They have this different, like, lead magnets and there’s different incentives. For example, they have created like a secret playlist on Spotify and you can only find it by leaving your email and like getting that list. Or sometimes they send you something like the wallpapers for your computer, like specifically.

Alissa: 25:55

Wow.

Vira: 25:56

Yeah. And you can like only get it through the email by clicking on the link of the email. So it doesn’t have to be like a discount because there are a ton of brands that we work with who don’t do discounts. For example, this one brand that we work with, they sell leggings and yoga, like wear and stuff like that. So I know that in the Winback series we have included like a few really fun content-heavy emails, for example, like 10 ways to style your leggings. And then the owner of the brand, she shows like 10 different outfits with the same pair of leggings in that email. I think it’s genius. Or like build your basic wardrobe with like this, 3 staples from our brand or something like this. So it can be even fun. It can be educational, it can be fun. Remember how we talked about it? That content has to either educate, inspire, or make someone like smile.

Alissa: 26:47

Oh, like entertain. Yes. Yeah. Entertain, entertain. That’s right. Educate, inspire, or entertain.

Vira: 26:53

Yeah. So just like bring, bring value. It doesn’t have to be the monetary value, right? It can be like anything of value to your customer. And again, it comes down to knowing your customer, knowing what they want to get from you, knowing their aspirations, knowing where they are in their life. So, yeah. Yeah, a ton of ideas for you guys.

Alissa: 27:11

I love that. I really love that. And it’s true. It’s very true. So the very last thing before we go into the don’ts, the very last do, number 5, do provide some updates. And when we say updates, we mean like new products, changes to your brand. If you’ve recently updated your brand image, that’s a really good time to let them know things have changed. If you’ve updated your website, let them know of things that have changed. I have a client who’s actually adding a community center to their website.

Vira: 27:38

Nice.

Alissa: 27:39

And I’m really, really excited for that to roll out because I’ll be able to use that change on the website as a win-back opportunity for customers who haven’t purchased in a really long time.

Vira: 27:49

Where that community is going to be, is that like a Facebook group or something?

Alissa: 27:52

So they’re calling it the community center, but it’s the brand that we were doing the, the lady of the month for, the Lululu lady of the month. So we have been kind of like curating all those stories with the images of the women that we’ve done spotlights for, for that brand. And so what we’re doing is we’re kind of combining all the stories into one part of the website and then using it as an opt-in opportunity for people to come forward and say, oh, I want to share my story. I want to be part of the customer spotlight.

Vira: 28:20

I think it’s really cool.

Alissa: 28:21

So that’ll be like the community center. But once that rolls out, then we can send out a win-back campaign to the entire list or to the list of subscribers that we haven’t heard from in a while or haven’t purchased in a while and say, hey, by the way, come check out the new update to the website. It looks really cool. You’ll be very interested to see the community of LuLaLu ladies who make up our customer base. So it’s a good website update and a good opportunity to showcase those changes, but then also unapologetically tap the shoulder of those customers that we haven’t seen in a while and say, hey, did you see what’s new? So do give updates if they are applicable. Don’t give random updates that don’t exist. So like one client wanted to do a product update, but they hadn’t launched any new products for the last 5 years. So it didn’t really make sense for us to send out an email that said to their win-back customers or their, their potential one-back customers, hey, come check out our new products, because there are no new products. That just looks really silly. So making sure that if it’s applicable, you do provide some updates, whether it’s a new product change, a new website change, just a branding or imagery change altogether. Make sure that you include include that when you are trying to win your customers back because it’s a good excuse to get in touch with them. So those are your 5 dos. And now we get into the don’ts.

Vira: 29:43

I feel like all of my don’ts are just like opposites to your dos. So whatever Alissa said, just follow that and don’t do the opposite. But yeah, I have like a few little things to add. So my first don’t. Don’t treat your win-back customers like any other customer or like your new customer. And that’s— I feel like that’s something that a lot of brands forget, is that these people, they’ve been once in love with your brand, right? You already had a relationship with these people. So why treating them as completely new people when customers have like broken their pattern of engagement with you and haven’t interacted with your brand for a long time, even though for them, like their relationship as of now, it’s nonexistent, but they might still be like into you, at least on like some levels. So because you already have some knowledge about that customer, about their behavior, about what they purchased, you can actually tailor the offer like the correct offer for the correct customer and you can like provide the maximum value to them. You can personalize your messaging, you can personalize the visuals, you can deliver the campaigns basically that are directly targeted to what the customers are interested in. So for example, if they previously bought like a specific product from a specific product line or say they only purchased products from this product line, it is safe to assume that maybe they want to purchase something else from the same line. Or if they only purchasing, I don’t know, like clothing for women, like exclusively for women, maybe it’s like a safe bet to say that, okay, we will not be pushing men’s clothing to them just because this is what we know about this customer. So it’s not just about win-back series, like in general with email marketing and with marketing, I think in general as well, and with all the marketing, the more targeted, the more relevant your messaging and your email is, the more chances to convert you have. So that’s number one. Don’t, don’t treat them like any other customer. Don’t do it. Number two, I found it on Klaviyo blog, to be honest, full disclosure, found it on Klaviyo blog and I laughed so hard. So number two, don’t guilt them into coming back. And it made me actually smile because gosh, I received like so many emails like this, so many like needy come back to our website emails that don’t even like provide any value to me as a customer. So don’t try to guilt your customers into coming back. Instead, you want your overall tone of the email to be fun, to be positive and not negative. Guys, we have like enough negativity in our lives as is with everything that is going on in the world. Just be the, the ray of sun in their email box. Don’t bring any additional negativity if you’re trying to win the customers back. Back, do it, but do not like guilt them back into coming back. So here’s the example. I don’t know if I should share. I’ll probably share this example. It’s an example of email that I personally didn’t like. But Alissa, you tell me, maybe, maybe it’s just like my view. Maybe it would resonate with some, with someone. So this is basically from, from like service that helps create some like sort of visuals or like infographics and stuff like that. So here’s their Email a few days ago. I thought you and I really had something going on. You created me and even spent some time with me, but before you could complete me and turn me into a masterpiece, I wasn’t meant to be. You abandoned me. And it was like, I know, I understand what they were trying to achieve here, but it’s just like, not my vibe.

Alissa: 33:19

It’s really dramatic. It’s so dramatic.

Vira: 33:22

It’s a bit like too dramatic. We are talking about freaking like Instagram post or something, but that’s like my personal opinion. And like, on the other hand, there is this like other service that I received an email from. They have this really cute, really short email. Hello, anyone home? We noticed you haven’t opened any of our emails in a while. Are we sending them to the right place? And you just have the CTA link to, I assume, email preference page. I’m saying yes, keep them coming. So it is less aggressive. It is— it does not require any like additional like action from you as a customer. They give you, on the other hand, they give you the option to unsubscribe from the list. And if I mean it’s a healthy like unsubscribing from the list, it’s like a healthy thing. This people, if they unsubscribe from your list or if they will update their email preferences so you only like deliver the right message to the right person, it will help you as well. So try to be like as positive as possible and don’t guilt customers into coming back to your website.

Alissa: 34:28

Yeah, it’s awkward. Even this, uh, hello, anyone home one that you’re talking about, it is cute. I agree with you. It’s a little stalkerish. Oh yeah, a little bit, but maybe that’s just me. And the subject line, hey, are you still there? That reminds me of like, uh, in 6th grade when everyone was on— gosh, this is dating me because if anyone is younger and listening to this, they won’t even know what this is— so AOL Instant Messenger, AIM.

Vira: 34:53

AIM. ICQ, is that the one, or it’s a different one?

Alissa: 34:58

No, it might be a different one. So AOL, uh, America Online, I think is what they call, like, what it stood for. So it was like the dial-up, like, service that everyone used for their computers. And we had this thing called AOL Instant Messenger, what was like instant messenger chat. It’s kind of like, Vira, maybe you used MSN Messenger more because I think MSN is what most people used outside of the US, but we used AIM. And so if you were talking to like a friend or like a crush or something, and your crush would say something that was kind of like risky, like, oh, I like you. And if you didn’t respond right away, they would always go, uh, are you still there? Hello, are you still there? And it was just like, yeah, relax, I’m just thinking about what you’re saying. So when I see that subject line, I’m like, uh, maybe, maybe. But the hello, anyone home? Yeah, I’m, I’m Yeah, I maybe, maybe.

Vira: 35:55

So it’s not, it’s not your vibe. That’s totally fine.

Alissa: 35:58

It’s not your vibe. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Vira: 36:01

Guys, so try to be as creative as possible, but try to connect with your customers through the value and not through the guilt.

Alissa: 36:09

Yeah.

Vira: 36:09

Not to guilt trip them. Not the creepy guilt. No. Yeah. Yeah. Just like maybe add a few pictures of cute puppies or like kittens or something.

Alissa: 36:19

Or penguins.

Vira: 36:20

That works. Penguins, baby penguins.

Alissa: 36:22

Penguins, anything cute. Anything cute does the trick.

Vira: 36:25

Babies would work too. Alissa, maybe we should hire Henry just for the sake of like creating Win Black series. He’s cute. He can bring us a lot of—

Alissa: 36:36

He is so big now. Oh my gosh, he’s so big. I’m like, what are you doing, dude? You’re like 4 months old, relax. He’s like moving around everywhere and just— yeah, yeah.

Vira: 36:48

Yeah, so Just guys, use, use something cute and don’t be negative in your inbox. Okay, so the last one, the last don’t, don’t keep people in your Windex series flow if they re-engaged or if they have purchased something from that sequence. So that’s like something that I’ve seen a lot of like rookie brands are doing. They set up the sequence like a discount and then discount reminder and then maybe like some sort of blog or something, but they don’t make people exit from that flow after someone have purchased. So can you imagine like purchasing something from that series.

Alissa: 37:23

Oh my gosh.

Vira: 37:24

Using the discount. And then, and like next day you receive this email like, hey, you still have this discount to use and the discount is probably not even working because most of the time it’s like one use per customer, right? So be careful with these things. That’s like a rookie mistake that I keep seeing like all the time. Don’t keep people in your Windex series flow if they have purchased, if they have re-engaged before the final email, make sure you remember to add like that condition that removes those who have made a purchase since entering the flow. And it’s not just for the win-back flow, it’s like for all of the flows. That’s like the condition that we use for all of our flows for abandonment cart, welcome flow, post-purchase one. Once they did the action that you wanted them to do, once they did it, just like remove them from that sequence and have some other like sequence in mind for them. So yeah, so that’s, that’s basically it for my don’ts and we can talk a lot about the mistakes that people make, but we are trying to be like as positive We wanna be positive, right? As constructive as possible. Let’s be positive.

Alissa: 38:23

We wanna be positive. We wanna be positive. I like that. I like that a lot. We wanna be the sunshine in everyone’s inboxes. Well, yeah, in everyone’s ears, I guess.

Vira: 38:32

I guess in our case.

Alissa: 38:34

In our case. So guys, thank you so much for listening to our 50th podcast episode. So exciting. Don’t forget to subscribe and share this podcast with your friends. And as always, if you like what we do, please leave us a review. We would love it actually. If as you guys are starting to leave more reviews, you just let people know the value that you find in our podcast, because then we can get more listeners and then we can get more email marketing nerds. And then we will live in a very happy email marketing nerdy little world. And that’s our goal, right? Everyone should become an Email Einstein. So make sure that you do leave a review, talk about some of your favorite things, and we can get some more people on here that will also become email marketing nerds. If you have any questions at all that you’d like us to feature on our podcast episodes, please send them in at flowium.com/ask, but I’m also gonna add a little asterisk to this and say, if you have any ideas for our 52nd episode on how we can celebrate a year of Email Einstein, please send those suggestions in either to flowium.com/ask or vira@flowium.com, V-I-R-A@flowium.com, or alissa@flowium.com, A-L-I-S-S-A. @flowium.com. And that’s what we’re gonna ask from you guys. That’s your homework. Think about how we’re gonna celebrate our 52nd podcast episode.

Vira: 39:59

Let’s have a party.

Alissa: 40:01

Let’s have a party. Yeah, we should do—

Vira: 40:05

we should prepare something, something special. But next week in our episode number 51 is gonna be another reason to celebrate because we are gonna have guests from Klaviyo on our podcast and they will be talking about SMS. SMS marketing. And I know you guys have a ton of questions. I personally have like a gazillion of questions. SMS marketing is very new, but it’s already very, very powerful. So come back next Tuesday and ask your questions if you have any, just like send them our way.

Alissa: 40:35

Like Alissa said, SMS questions.

Vira: 40:38

Yeah, there’s a lot.

Alissa: 40:39

SMS, there’s a lot. My biggest question for them is going to be why? Is it good? Why are we doing this? So I want to hear how skeptical I can get. Come back next week.

Vira: 40:54

I already got like a ton of questions from our colleagues, like from our other fellow account managers who have like so much questions about SMS.

Alissa: 41:04

Yeah. Yeah, it’s a big topic.

Vira: 41:06

So guys, next Tuesday, you can’t miss it.

Alissa: 41:09

Thank you, guys. And we will see you next week.

Vira: 41:12

See you next week.