Your client should be using email flows

Email marketing is an invaluable tool for nurturing relationships and boosting sales. It also helps with social media marketing. Today, we're talking about flows. 

So, what is an email flow, and how does it work? Flows are a set of pre-written emails triggered by a specific audience behaviour or list. Lists could include new subscribers, people who have just purchased, VIPs who have purchased more than three times, etc. Using specific lists as triggers means you can influence which audience members go into each flow based on their behaviour.

Now, let's dive into which flows your clients should set up.

As with everything, you want to start with a warm welcome! The welcome series flow should be set up as a priority. Give subscribers an incentive to be there; offer a discount or free shipping as a thank-you for signing up. Incentivising early on is a great way to keep the list engaged and cross-market products to encourage the audience to purchase. They should do this further down the line, though; they don't want to hit them over the head with it, to begin with. 

Typically, the welcome series should consist of about five emails sent over two weeks to a month, so there's no harassment but gently reminding the audience that you are there, giving them a bit of insight into the story (to build brand loyalty) and that you have great products/services. 

Now they've been welcomed, let's get them to check out, through browse and basket abandonment flows. The two are subtly different but have the same goal - to get the customer to complete their purchase. 

Browse abandon flow - sends an email if a customer spends time on a specific product page but doesn't add to their basket. 

Basket abandon flow - sends an email if a customer adds an item to their basket but doesn't complete the checkout process. "We caught you looking"/"Don't miss out! Check out now" are our favourite hooks to encourage checking out. 

Our tip here is not to offer a discount or free shipping right off the bat. Remind the user first, then in a second email (if they've not purchased). That's when they're hit with a discount or free shipping. 

So now the customer has been encouraged to check out, but they still need to be nurtured to leave a review, purchase again, or just keep the brand in mind. This is where the post-purchase flow comes in very handy! 

Similarly to the welcome series, this flow should consist of about five emails over two weeks to a month. Typically, the customer should be thanked for their purchase, asked how it's going, and maybe reminded how to take care of or use the product. 

It's also nice to send an "About the company" email so they know who they have supported by making the purchase! The post-purchase flow is also the perfect time to ask people to follow on socials.

The 3rd/4th email (just as long as it's not immediate) is the time to ask for a review, again offering them an incentive for leaving a review - a discount off their next purchase/free shipping/a free item with their next order are all great motivators! 

Tip: Add filters so you're not asking for reviews from people who have returned an item.

The more your client gets to know their customers, the more flows they can implement such as Birthday incentives, win-backs and the more they can segment their audience for campaigns and newsletters. 

One thing to advise your client is not to be pushy! Their mailing list will most likely drive good conversions, but it's a two-way relationship. They should not just use it for the hard sell. They need to treat their mailing list like VIPs. But if they're doing everything 'right' and still not seeing results, tell them to clean the list and stop emailing the people who are ignoring them. No one likes a needy ex…