E-mail & Lifecycle MarketingNatala Menezes | May 18, 2012

rain snow, get my hustle onCountin cash every morning before I leave homefamily I love, don’t wanna leave this World aloneand before I leave home, leave home

I pray to God I won’t, loyalty is all I know

birdman

Lil wayne

About @natala• Product + Marketing + Talking

obsessed with making awesome products by listening to customers and capturing insight.

• Sent MILLIONS of emails. A few folks unsubscribed.

• Philosophy major. Silicon Valley native. • Good at breaking HTML

REFER.LY

Abbey Road, the morkie

Why care about lifecycle marketing?

User Adoption

Loyalty

Growth

Meaningful engagement converts customers into fans.

When = MOMENTUM

• Touch the user when they can build their momentum and WIN.

When? Milestone user events

Registration / Onboarding Purchases / Referrals

User does a behavior that drives adoption Takes a specific action (adds friends, visits a specific page, etc.). This is the hard part – you will need to dig into data and understand

your customer conversion funnel.

Key Events Holidays, sales / discounts, new features (maybe)

Testing

• A/B testing is good. But you need volume.

10,000 emails sent

30% open = 3,000

10% CTR = 300 clicks

• 1% = 30• 5% = 150

Key Metrics• # of E-mails Sent • Open Rate– %-age of people who “opened” your e-mail– Actually “saw your tracking pixel” – lots of room

for error– Industry averages vary, 20-30% is good.

• Click Thru Rate– %-age of people who click a link. – Links higher up, or buttons should get highest

CTR– 2 – 15% is good for “VIP link”

Example Emails• Trigger: I’ve got

money to “reinvest”

• Image = who I’m impacting

• Content shows my impact (so I feel awesome)

• I don’t have to read to know what to do

Have you met Liezel?• Triggered by inactivity, combined with Women’s

History so I’m part of something “bigger than me” (more momentum)

Twitter Follower

Who?

Why I might care

Call to Action

Checkmark is trusty

What happened?

Check the preview

• It seems like it might be a tragic end…

End of the journey.

• Actually the note was about something awesome.

• But who reads e-mails?

Example Template

What to do why to care

Link to other interesting content that helps achieve your CTA- Video on how to use product- How to get help- User story of someone doing

something awesome

Best Practices• Photos!!

– Bigger is better, avoid stock images that look stock, but higher quality images are key– Test your image size in multiple e-mail formats and mobile– Always label images

• Have the e-mail come from someone specific– Respond to emails! Just like support – Community manager / marketing manager for basic e-mails, CEO for important or welcome

emails

• Copy is KING. – Think about the preview line– Engaging, witty. Brief.

• HTML vs Plain Text?– Worry more about mobile.

• Frequency– Vary by industry. Daily for ecommerce, bi-weekly. Determine how much effort you can do.

Don’t code 1st.

• Tranche your users for getting started waves

• Create Cohorts by user attributes / activity• Tag them in your e-mail platform• Send manually in waves. Rinse. Repeat. – Test copy– Test email style– Test frequency

• Then code.

CAN-SPAM Act• What to know:

– Don’t lie. Your product did not make someone sprout wings.

– Have an opt-out. When people opt-out, remove them from your list.

– Display your address & contact info.

– Differentiate between promotional and transactional content.• Promos: Buy this! Do this! We love you!

– Newsletters, lifecycle e-mails, welcome notes.

• Transactions: You just bought a baby unicorn. – Receipts, notifications / alerts

They might shut you down.

Loyalty Email Marketing

• Drives user engagementyou want them to do something

• Drives brand awareness understand your product benefits