Webinar: Build Loyalty and Drive Revenue with Effective Welcome Journeys

Editor's Notes

1. End-to-end webinar
2. LIZ
3. Left first, then describe the right
4. LIZ At a minimum, we think you should be doing a 3 stage welcome series to capitalise on engagement.
5. So how do you start? Your first touch
6. Well, first things first, welcome them! They’ve just made it into the family, the inner circle, the a-list - so let’s make sure they feel welcome and that you’re happy they’re here! Ideally, you’ll want to send this email as soon as they sign up. 74% of people expect to receive a welcome email. This means they’re looking out in their inbox for a message from YOU, how cool is that? Next up: Set expectations - remind them of what content they’ll be getting from you, what the benefits are of them being on the list (whether that’s discounts, tips, early access to sales)! let’s make sure these reasons are consistent with the benefits you gave on the website.. Outside of the content they’ll get, this could be their first chance get a feel for your brand tone of voice, so make this email fitting. how do you communicate with your customers? Are you funny? Are your emails information packed? Let them get a taste for how you’ll be communicating with them in future. If you can, if you have the tools available, Recommend products based on what they were browsing. The majority of the people who have just signed up would have done so on your website, and while they were there chances are they had a look around. So if we’re wanting to boost conversions - let’s get those products in there and show them what they’re going to like. If you don’t have the tools to add recommendations, you can add your most purchased products.. Lastly - make sure you have clear CTA’s back to your website. make sure all image are linked - you don’t want to miss out on this traffic.
7. So now that we’ve welcome them - the Idea here is to build loyalty - so how to we do that? As we know, from the high engagement with welcome emails - you’ve got their attention. So this is your opportunity to tell them what makes you different? Why should they buy from you and not one of your competitors? Don’t try and wow them with product range - take the step back and get their buy in. You might get One-off revenue from sales and offers, but loyalty has to come from them feeling an emotional connection to you. Why do you exist as a brand? Why do you even make your products? Why do you offer that service? Is it because you believe in making money? Because loyalty will never come from that. Or is because you believe for example, everyone deserves a treat sometimes, and it should great quality with knockout flavour? You believe in supporting local communities? You believe in the power and value of tradition and heritage? You believe people should be able to access the internet at lightning speed and have information at the touch of their fingertips? These are the things that build loyalty, you need to get your recipients nodding along with you because, holy moly - they believe that too! That’s how you get their buy in, that’s how you start building loyalty.
8. I just wanted to highlight a few examples here that get it spot on. Lily’s kitchen on the left directly call out ‘WE BELIEVE pets deserve proper food’, ‘WE BELIEVE in natural ingredients’ - any one of their recipients who agrees with those - Hey - they’re bought in. Tom’s in the middle, talk about how their business started up. They talk about how the founder saw the hardships faced in Argentina by children without shoes - so wanting to help he started a company that would match every pair of shoes bought with a pair for someone in need. How many of you know you buy too many pairs of shoes and feel guilty about it - well guess what, they found a way to alleviate that guilt - and this email gets you thinking ‘yes, I do want to buy from you, that will make me feel good’ And then you have Intrepid travel on the right, pointing out what makes them stand out from the crowd, why their holidays are different - and why you’d pick them over another provider.
9. Okay so you’ve welcome them, you’ve told them all about your brand and put in place the building blocks of loyalty. So what next? What do you actually want them to do?
10. Take action right? And the timings just perfect, they already know why they’d choose you over someone else and they appreciate the value of your offering! So what else could possibly get in the way? This is your chance to alleviate any concerns they might have around trust, the payment process, security - so offering info on any of the process you know people have concerns about is a good call. This is also a great time to social proof. Show them reviews from your other customers. Your loyal customers are an amazing asset to you, and reviews, feedback, a community of them can help draw in new customers and retain lapsing customers. Next up and really important, make sure you have a clear CTA: buy now, book now - and if you can, offer inspiration/recommendations- sometimes people need a little nudge in the right direction. And they’re just about ready to go, so let’s get them to take that final step.
11. Now, I just wanted to take a step back here and talk about the psychology of social proof.
12. People are pack animals. We are more likely to do something when presented with evidence that others have done it According to the Pew Research Center, 82% of Americans read reviews before making a buying decision. A study from Nielsen in 2012 showed that 92% of people trust recommendations from their peers, and 70% of the consumers trust a recommendation from someone they don’t even know. So how can you use that information to your advantage?
13. Displaying quotes from happy customers is one of the most used and most persuasive forms of social proof online. If you own an e-commerce store, displaying customer reviews can increase the conversion rate by 207%. Don’t be too worried about negative reviews either - yes, we all strive for that dream where all the feedback is fantastic, but actually a healthy mix in reviews can help to build trust
14. At a basic level, displaying star ratings can be a really easy way to build trust. Taking it a step further, presenting real-time data to your visitors, such as “38 booked recently,” can help to build trust and create a sense of urgency. If it’s good enough for 38 other people, hey - chances are it’s good enough for me.
15. So those are the absolute basics, something everyone can achieve, and bearing in mind the engagement with welcome emails - an absolute no brainer.
16. But have you achieved your goal? Have you gotten them to make their first purchase?
17. JACK
18. Although we’ve given some rough timings for the welcome series, to really maximise success - you’ll need to think about your own buying cycle. If your average time to buy is 14 days and you have sent 3 emails over 72 hours and plan on ending it there, you have another thing coming. You’re ducking out way to early and letting your competitors swoop in. What if your time to buy is 3 days and they have not bought at that point, what are we going to do to fix it?
19. Is your product a high or low value product? Does your product last for a long time? Is it perishable? You should also consider your target demographic Example If you have a low cost product with and a product life cycle of 1 product per year per customer and but your target market is low income families, depending on your CLTV and AOV, that could actually be a high value product to those customers and more trust than you think needs to be built. In the same vein if your product has a high AOV but your customers are all enterprise grade with high budgets, a similar structure may need to be employed as above. On the other hand, if your product is something you sell multiples of or is perishable in a short period of time we might need to consider being more offer led.
20. The whole point of this welcome journey comes down to why you want to send it. This means that the customers interaction with journey and the next steps of the journey should be dictated by that fact. If the customer has already bought, do we really want to send them an offer?!
21. Remember that email is important and tends to drive more ROI than any other marketing channel, but you may You may have higher converting channel or need the power of email in order to drive more traffic to one of these other sources of conversion Call centers are expensive, and therefore tend to have a much higher conversion rate or it simply would not exist We have SMS customers that convert 50% of all SMS sent Direct mail has an average conversion rate of 33% and was the highest growing channel of 2018 Consider your social audience and what you want to achieve with it
22. Considering the silos above, lets try to remove the silos in order to increase your general conversion rate. Make sure to use tracking so email can be used as assist (GA tracking is really important so you can show the touchpoint) or DDI’s for email generated phone numbers. Making sure to phrase the question of how can you help? Also empathising with the customer about their decision will help here too. This is an opportunity to drive up your social proof to the next level by re-incorporating reasons of why your customers love you.
23. If you have a higher converting channel, pop them over there Multi stage journey based on channel interaction What is your highest converting channel? Can you send your customers there? Don’t be precious about your conversions, it is your organisation that wants to make $$$
24. LIZ
25. If we know it’s tricky to get someone who’s signed up to make a first purchase - offering an incentive can be a great way to encourage them. In terms of what the incentive is… i’m afraid it’s time to consult your data again. We keep banging on about it, but it’s really important. Have a think about it, don’t necessarily jump straight for a % discount, not that there’s anything wrong with that if that’s what will work. Do you have excess stock that you need to get rid off? Could you offer a free item with their first purchase? Have a think about why your customers don’t purchase. Is it that they’re not happy to pay shipping? Or actually, do you know you have a big problem with people making a repeat purchases in which case you could let them know about your loyalty scheme. Do you have products that you know become a repeat purchase and drive loyalty - could you offer a specific offer on that? Or send that as the free product? Or have a more long-term offer where they get a reward after their 2nd or 3rd purchase, like the ocado example above? Using personalised discount codes, along with tools like countdown timers can really help make the person feel special and create urgency. You might decide you’re only going to offer an incentive if they haven’t purchase after the first 7 days for example, But if you’re going to offer this incentive to everyone who signs up - make this clear at the sign-up point - as it can really help boost your rate of list growth.
26. JACK
27. This great sample design by Behaviour Design sums up the type of content you need nicely. Everybody likes rewards and appreciation. A shot of dopamine gets released and mediates pleasure in the brain. The increase in the dopamine level also encourages our brain to remember the prior action so that we can repeat it to get the reward again. In other words: rewards make us come back for more. Another thing to consider is when and why you are adding discounts to your journey. You can just be upfront and incentivise the sign up in the first place… though another thing to consider is... If we’re unsure when we will get a “treat,” we continue to act – just in case. This phenomenon is known as the partial reinforcement effect. Even if the reward disappears entirely, this behavioral pattern will continue for a while because we don’t know if it’s just a longer pause than usual before the next reward. Intermittently reinforced behavior is more persistent than behavior that is acknowledged each time it occurs (Nevin, 1988). So if you want consistent behavior, don’t reward people every time they do something. So in this case, we have failed to convert them in the time frame we deem acceptable, it is time to act!
28. Imagine you overhear your boss talking to the HR manager about giving you a raise of £200 per month. How would you feel about this surprising boost in pay? How would you feel if you hear your boss saying he wants to cut your salary by the same amount? Talk about what your potential customer will lose if they don’t purchase, rather than what they would gain by buying. We tend to give losses twice as much psychological weight as we do gains (Tversky & Kahneman, 1992).
29. Every CTA, like a button or some other form of graphic or text, which guides your users and tells them what to do next, is an external trigger. Even the smallest tweaks in copy, color, position, or size can lead to huge lifts in conversion rate: Black and Decker, for example, saw a 17% increase in click-through rate by using “Buy now” instead of “Shop now.” Even two words on a button can have a huge impact on essential metrics. We have to make sure that the call to action is clear for its next step, but also infers what you want the customer to do. In ‘Shop Now’ could mean anything, while ‘Buy Now’ has a clear goal.
30. Though welcome emails have some of the highest engagement rates across all emails - there are unfortunately always going to be those who slip through the net. And if you don’t act to bring them back soon - it becomes harder and harder.
31. Liz
32. You can do this before the basics in order to enhance the power of your journey, though in order for maximum success this is important
33. You can do this before the basics in order to enhance the power of your journey, though in order for maximum success this is important
34. How do we then use this data?
35. If you have questions - we’re happy to help - email us If you’re existing - speak to AM or CSM