Email Marketing Solutions

Strategies To Improve Engagement, Deliverability, And Conversions So That You Can Maximize Your Email Marketing Channel.

It’s been a full year now that I’ve been working full time with ecommerce companies to manage, improve, and optimize their email marketing channels.

In that time I’ve worked with smaller companies (less than $10k/month in revenue), larger companies (over $500k/month in revenue) and companies that are just getting started.

I’ve worked with brands in the footwear niche, sportswear and apparel, food and beverage, household goods, and supplements niche. I’ve worked with course creators, EdTech companies, and Real Estate companies.

These strategies are simple, straightforward, and tested. 

You can get into the weeds with email marketing and try to hypersegment, build out two dozen automations, and create crazy emails…

But the best results come from doing the basics. 

And doing them well.

So let’s jump in. Here are the top 7 strategies that I’ve used to help improve and optimize email marketing channels…

1. Welcome Email and Flow

The first impression that you make with your subscribers can make or break the relationship.

It’s your opportunity to show off your brand voice, what makes your brand/company/product unique, and to begin to build emotional loyalty that’ll create a long-term customer.

So put your best foot forward and make sure that your welcome email isn’t a dud.

I’ve written dozens of welcome emails and flows. The first email should be simple, short, and to the point.

• Say Hello
• Share 2-3 things that makes your brand/company/product unique
• Provide the discount code, freebie, etc. that they signed up for
• Preview email number two
• End with a strong CTA and get out of their way

There is a small portion of your audience who is going to sign up and then make a purchase right away. You want to enable this behavior.

But there’s a larger portion of your audience who needs some warm-up time. That’s why you want to preview what’s to come. And then follow up with a 4-6 email welcome flow. 

I’ve experimented with some different flow styles, but this is the format that I like the best and has shown good results.

1. Welcome email
2. Email from founder (plain-text)
3. Highlight top product (connect to emotions and benefits)
4. Social proof
5. Reminder to use discount

You can obviously go longer. But if you do keep this framework in mind (it comes from Russel Brunson).

The first emails should appeal to emotion. Then to logic. And then to urgency.

So if you wanted to add an email between #2 and #3, I’d include a message that appealed to an emotion. But if you wanted to add an email later in the flow, you might appeal to logic.

Emotion, logic, urgency.

2. 9 Core Automations/Flows

The welcome flow is the number 1 automation that you need to have set up. IMO.

But to maximize your email marketing channel, you want to have a few other automations set up as well to optimize certain touchpoints.

Here the the top 9 automations that I’ve set up for brands:

1. Welcome 
2. Post Purchase 
3. Browse Abandon
4. Cart Abandon
5. Checkout Abandon
6. Back In Stock 
7. Win-Back
8. Sunset 
9. VIP

Each of these deserves their own post. (And you can find a few flow breakdowns in my other blog posts.) But for the sake of brevity, since I have 5 more strategies to cover, I’ll just leave you with this…

You don’t need ALL of these flows from day one. 

Start with your welcome, post purchase, and abandonment flows. Then build out a back in stock flow (if applicable) then a win-back and sunset. And finally a VIP flow.

It may take you a few months to build all of these out. But don’t try to make them perfect from day one.

It’s better to have them operational than in draft form. Once they are live, then you can examine the data, A/B test, and optimize.

3. Basic Segmentation

This might be the most impactful thing that I’ve done for clients.

Blasting emails to your entire list is one of the best ways to tank your deliverability and ruin your list.

Roughly 25% of your list will disengage every year. Not because of anything you do or don’t do. It’s just the nature of email. Needs change, interests change, life circumstances change.

So if you continue to email those subscribers who have disengaged, you’re going to see your open rates take a nosedive, less clicks to your webpage, and more and more emails land in the spam folder.

The best way to solve this?

Simple segmentations.

Engaged v. Unengaged

Prospects v. Customers

One-time Customers v. Repeat Purchasers

There’s a WHOLE lot more that you can do with segmentation, but this is where I start with all my clients.

If you do NOTHING else but create an engaged segment to email to, you’ll see all of your email KPIs increase.

And while you may be sending to fewer email addresses, you’ll actually see MORE opens, clicks, and conversions.

That’s because as you email providers like Google, Apple, and Outlook that your emails are worth opening and reading, more and more of your emails will land in the inbox.

Once you’ve done that, taking an additional step to craft unique messages for your prospects and customers will increase clicks and conversions immediately. 

4. Deliverability Foundations

In the last section I mentioned landing in the inbox more frequently.

There’s NOTHING else you can do that will have a bigger impact on your email marketing than landing in the inbox.

So in addition to segmenting your list, here are a few other steps you can take to improve your deliverability.

• Set up a dedicated sending domain and ensure that your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records are set up properly
• Avoid using overly spammy language, especially in your subject line
• Include more text than images in the body of your email
• Make sure to have alt. text for every image
• Check all links, and try to reduce the total number of links

Above all, send emails that are valuable to your subscribers. Whether that’s entertaining, educational, or inspirational.

The more that your subscribers open, read, and click your emails… the better.

5. List Cleaning

Final thought on segmentation and deliverability.

You should clean your list at least twice a year, if not every quarter.

Cleaning your list refers to manually suppressing any unengaged subscribers.

This improves the quality of your list (which helps with deliverability) and reduces your monthly ESP cost (as most charge based on active subscribers.)

Best practice is to send all unengaged subscribers through a sun-set flow or re-engagement flow first. And then if they don’t re-engage, you would remove them from your active list.

Cleaning your list doesn’t mean that you lose all of the customer data.

It just means that the subscriber is no longer active, cannot receive marketing messages, and doesn’t count towards your subscriber total.

You can still create look-a-like marketing audiences using unengaged subs. You can re-market to them with ads. And there’s always the chance that they re-subscribe.

6. Consistent Campaign Cadence

One of the biggest “fears” that my clients have had is that sending too many emails will alienate their subscribers.

And as a result, I see too many brands go the opposite route. 

They send too few emails.

I can’t tell you what the magic number is. But it’s probably more than you’re sending right now.

However, whatever that number is… being consistent is key.

When you send one email (or no emails) per week and then bombard your subscribers with 3, 4, or 5 emails in a week because you’ve got a special sale or launch… people are more likely to unsubscribe than they are to purchase something.

Massive changes in campaign frequency aren’t good.

You can always increase or decrease frequency as needed. But do it gradually.

For example, if I’m working with a brand that’s only been sending one email per week but has a launch coming up in a month…

I’ll start increasing the cadence.

So in weeks one and two, I’ll send a second email. Then in week 3 I’ll include a third email. And in week 4 when we launch, I’ll be able to get away with 4-5 emails.

This is why planning ahead is crucial. 

Also, as you increase cadence… make sure you’re segmenting and only sending to your engaged audience.

7. Plain-Text Emails

Finally… my bread and butter.

Plain text emails.

I appreciate a well crafted, highly designed email as much as the next marketer.

And those emails have their place.

But there’s a limit to what those emails can accomplish (especially if you’re a smaller, lesser-known brand)

In my experience, text beats images every time.

If you’re not including any plain-text or text-heavy emails in your strategy, give them a try.

And if you need someone to help create those emails and to come up with strategy…

I know where you can find someone.

TL;DR

If you scrolled all the way down here, I’ve got a quick recap for you.

The seven most impactful strategies that I’ve used to improve my clients’ email marketing channels…

1. Welcome Flow
2. 9 Core Automations
3. Basic Segmentation
4. Deliverability Foundations
5. List Cleaning
6. Consistent Campaign Cadence
7. Plain-Text Emails

What Should YOU Do Next?

1. Follow me on LinkedIn for daily email tips and what’s working now
2. Leave a like or a comment on this post to let me know what you thought. 
3. If you need an email list manager for your brand or business, send me an email at ben@henkenmarketing.com or fill out this form and I’ll be in touch.
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