In this video, I will be discussing how many email automation or flows you need and the ones which are most important. I will explain how to categorize each email automation, which are most and least important, also how many emails for each.
The welcome email is very important for first impressions, then the emails when they are looking at an item and if they don’t check out. Following up with the buyers is very important as they may have forgotten and then your reminder will guide them back to your website to complete the order.
So in this article, I will walk through email automation that I strongly recommend for you, for your brand to have, and I will divide them in high priority, medium priority, and low priority. So you know where to start, where to focus all of your attention, and then, when you have time, you can do the rest later.
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Just visit flowium.com/partner and see the details of our partner program, and we have a template there, email templates which you can send to your friend or somebody you know in the e-commerce space.
So the general idea is you need all email automation, what we call Foundational Email Automations for your Customer Lifecycle. What is Customer Lifecycle? I have another YouTube video about it, you can watch it to understand what it is and how does it work? But you need that automation to cover the Customer Lifecycle before you do anything else. So let’s start.
Okay, so I just opened our service frequently asked questions because this is again, as I said, this is the most common question we get from our clients. So let’s start, I will divide those automation into three categories, as I said:
- high priority,
- medium priority,
- low priority.
High Priority
So let’s start with the high priorities, so high priority are three automations.
Abandoned Cart
The first one is Abandoned Cart and we include between 4 to 7 email in that automation, depends on the brand, depends with yourself, depends how expensive your product and how much explanation we need to do.
Pre-Purchase
The second one is a Pre-Purchase, also known as Welcome flow. Again, it depends on your brand, but we do recommend between 7 to 10 emails to include there because it’s a long funnel to nurture your lead before you can sell them.
Post Purchase
And the last one for high priority is Post Purchase, so once somebody buys from you, you do want to communicate with them. You do not want to stop after you sell them something and stop, like, as you know, the biggest issue in e-commerce or in any retailer is one-time buyers.
The hardest job for you is not to convert them into a one-time buyer, but the hardest job is to convert them from one-time buyers to two-time buyers. So you need to have plus purchase, it’s very, very, very important for you to have it because you would be able to upsell, cross-sell other products or just serve them better.
Okay, so we just covered three automations for high priority, which is Abandon Cart, Post Purchase and Pre-Purchase, Welcome flow.
Medium Priority
Let’s talk now about the medium, so the medium ones are Bounce back, Browser Abandonment, and Exit Intent. So, those three flows are optional, at first, you need to focus on the high priority than those three.
Bounce back
Bounce back, it’s a, just Google, bounce back Klaviyo and they have a full article about like Bounce-Back Emails and I bet we use our schedule. The idea here, just to sell to first-time buyers again, in the matter of the same day, sell them something else.
Browser Abandonment
Then, Browser Abandonment, we have a video about this. So just again, check how to set it up.
Exit Intent
We have three emails in that flow and the last one, the Exit Intent, it’s aggressive flow, but it does work and it does magic in terms of conversion. So the idea here is, do want to sell them as soon as possible? Versus when you do Pre-Purchase, it’s like longer, a nurturing thing, you providing value, providing content, educating them about the brand.
Here, Exit Intent is just strictly on a sale, urgency, deadline, like, buy from us, that’s it. Okay, those are three medium priority flows and those are the number of emails per flow.
Low Priority
So, now let’s talk about the low priority flow. Again, those are the least important flows you need to create in your email marketing program. So those are Win Back, Sunset, and 2x Buyer.
2x Buyer
So 2x Buyer, again, like if somebody purchased from you a second time, you want to talk to them again and you want to acknowledge them, that they purchasing from you a second time. Typically, we have three emails in that flow, but the sky’s the limit. You can add as many emails in 2X buyer as you want.
Sunset
Sunset, this is the flow to clean up your list. So we include three emails, the goal here, to re-engage or call your subscribers who are not engaging with your emails. And the last one, Win Back, It’s somebody who purchased from you, is a one-time, two-time, three-time, five-times and they did not buy again from you for a specific period of time. So you just want to follow up with them and try to convert them into another sale.
Optional Flows
Also, I would like to talk to you about the optional flows. Again, this is like a dual high priority first, then medium priority, and then a low priority, and then optional.
So optional automations around your technology stack, maybe you use loyalty program or a referral program, review software, and you are able to build automations around both assaults, where we have a lot of email marketing around the loyalty program.
First, you focus and finish those three. When I explained this to our customers, they said, “I hear you, I understand you, but tell me what it is bare minimum? I’m just starting out and I want to start, like yesterday.” And I hear you, I understand you and it’s good for you. Like, I agree with you.
It’s better to start with something than just wait for that perfect email, perfect sequence, perfect automation to turn it on. So here’s my personal recommendation, takes those three flows, Abandon Cart, Pre-Purchase and Post Purchase, and include only one email in each. So three automations, three emails.
So this is the most important thing for you to do. This is the bare minimum for you to do, to keep going. Set it live, make sure it’s working, so everybody who visit in your site and subscribe, and receive something, anybody who start buying process, but they did not finish the buying process, they received something. Once somebody purchased from you, they received some kind of email communication from you. So those are three, the most important emails you must have now, yesterday, month ago, like do not delay.
How long will it take?
Another question is client asking us, okay, we want you, like us. Like, because we are a full-service email marketing agency to do it for you. Look, so how long will it take you to do it? Based on our experience, to develop all those automations, proper strategy, create email templates, create design, create the copy for all those emails. It will take between two to three months to implement, like A to Z, like start to finish.
And the next logical question, how much does it cost? In our business, the current plan that we charge for flows only, for automations only is 3,500 per month. So it takes two months, so it will cost $7,000 to do. If it takes three months, it will cost $10,500 to do. And why is such a big discrepancy between two months and three months? Because sometimes clients are very particular about their designed copy, so there might be, I will overexaggerate but like, hundred revision for what we put in each email or what kind of assets, how it looks like and so forth.
I hope I answered your question and if there are any follow-up questions, please let me know under this article and I’m checking comments every day, except Saturday and Sunday, probably, and responding to all of them.
