195 | Using Email Marketing to enhance your customer journey with Jessica Totillo Coster, Ecommerce Badassery
We have always known that selling on social media can be a challenge. Creating an email list is so crucial to your business's success. In this episode, I am talking with Jessica Totilla Coster about EMAIL MARKETING STRATEGIES FOR ECOMMERCE SELLERS.
Email marketing for e-commerce sellers is less risky than paid advertising and it gives you a chance to speak human to human to your customers.
Jessica Totillo Coster, of eCommerce Badassery, is an eCommerce and email marketing strategist that works with boutique owners and product-based entrepreneurs. She helps scrappy female entrepreneurs take actionable steps and strategies to scale their businesses.
We covered a lot in this episode: everything from how email marketing fits into your customer journey to attracting the right people, nurturing those customers and engaging current customers so they continue to purchase from you.
How to Get Started in e-Commerce, Retail, and Product Space
Jessica has always been a lover of product- from when she was a little girl with a new pair of shoes to getting her degree in fashion merchandising. She also owned a brick-and-mortar store so Jessica is well-versed in the experience of selling products.
When Jessica moved to California, she joined a large retailer and worked in their marketing department where she learned a lot about how the e-commerce industry works. As with a lot of corporate jobs, she soon realized that she loved what she did but didn’t love who she was doing it for. This is what led Jessica to open up her own business to help scrappy women scale their e-commerce businesses.
Email Marketing Strategies for eCommerce Brands
Email marketing is crucial for any type of business you have. Getting people on your email list is a great way to nurture them and grow your revenue.
Some ways you can get people on your email list are:
offering them a free download
supplying a discount code for their first purchase
creating a quiz to help them find the right product
Quizzes are a great way to get subscribers because it allows you to get them to the product (or service) that is most relevant to them and it allows you to learn more about your subscriber so you can send them targeted emails later on down the road.
The following websites are examples of exceptional quizzes:
Beard Brand (Quiz in middle of webpage)
Learn how to create a quiz on your own website.
HOW TO CREATE A WELCOME SEQUENCE
Once you get a prospective buyer (or past buyer) onto your email list, nurturing them is key!
An effective email marketing strategy for an e-commerce business is to implement a robust welcome sequence.
Typically, EMAIL WELCOME SEQUENCES ARE ANYWHERE FROM 3 TO 5 EMAILS focused on getting your new subscriber acquainted with you and your brand and getting them to self-segment into a category that will help you send them more targeted information.
Jessica Totillo Coster recommended the following emails for setting up a welcome sequence:
give them that discount code or free resource
introduce the founder and/or company
ask the subscriber to update their preferences (this is how they will self-segment)
send them a reminder of the discount if they haven’t purchased
Inside of our monthly membership, Proof to Product LABS, we have a whole training and workbook to help you set your own email list and welcome sequence.
HOW TO NURTURE YOUR WHOLESALE ACCOUNTS WITH EMAIL MARKETING
Once you have people on your email list, the next step is to show up consistently with valuable content so they will want to buy from you again in the future.
A WAY TO NURTURE YOUR EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS IS TO THINK ABOUT WHAT WILL KEEP YOUR BUYER FROM PURCHASING.
The example Jessica shared on the podcast was a company that sold products for painting nails.
A common hang-up for people buying this product was “what happens when I mess it up?”
So Jessica and her client worked together to create content and marketing around the idea that you can’t mess it up. They created videos that showed what people did when they messed up and how it was easily fixed.
This strategy allowed customers to have their biggest concerns addressed before they even purchased.
What hang-ups do your buyers have around buying your product?
Create 1-2 emails inside of your email marketing plan for the year to address those reservations.
Download our free guide to PLAN A YEAR’S WORTH OF NURTURE EMAILS FOR DIRECT-TO-CONSUMER AND WHOLESALE.
NURTURE BUYERS WITH A POST-PURCHASE EMAIL SEQUENCE
Once someone purchases from you, follow-up their purchase with an email sequence designed to thank them and educate them.
THE GOAL WITH A POST-PURCHASE EMAIL SEQUENCE IS TO GIVE THEM THE INFORMATION THEY NEED SO THEY CAN HAVE SUCCESS WITH YOUR PRODUCT AND COME BACK TO LEAVE A POSITIVE REVIEW.
The email sequence Jessica suggested looks like this:
A quick email thanking them for buying + a little more about the founder or company
An educational email explaining how to use the product
Some ideas for explaining how to use different products could look like this:
If you sell GIFT WRAP, show different ways to use the gift wrap in a short video or blog
If you sell GREETING CARDS, give people tips on how to write a letter. You can even give them a template. (Brighida from Yardia does a great example of this in her emails)
If you sell PLANNERS OR JOURNALS, create a video tutorial on how to set up their journal or planner
Check out your CUSTOMER SERVICE INQUIRIES for ideas on what buyers are struggling with and create email content around that
Acquisition vs. Retention in Email Marketing
When you start out with email marketing, your biggest focus is going to be acquisition. You need to be getting people on your email list.
Once you have an established email list (even if it’s less than 500 people!), you can turn your attention to retention.
IN FACT, JESSICA SAYS TO NEVER SPEND LESS THAN 60% OF YOUR TIME ON RETENTION WHICH IS WHY NURTURING YOUR EMAIL LIST IS SUCH AN IMPORTANT COMPONENT OF EMAIL MARKETING.
Common Mistakes for Product-Based-Businesses in Email Marketing
The biggest mistakes Jessica sees with business owners are:
making it more about themselves
not being consistent with email
Remember, you are NOT going to annoy your customer! Even though you feel like you have said the same thing a million times, your reader has likely not seen you say that thing a million times.
There are ways to share the same story in different ways and this is key to building that relationship with your buyer. Don’t reinvent the wheel. If you share something in your weekly email, break up that 1 thing into 2 or 3 posts of social posts in the same week.
JESSICA ENCOURAGES EMAILING YOUR LIST A MINIMUM OF ONCE A WEEK.
Be consistent with emails by sending them out on the same day each week.
If you feel hesitant about emailing your customers that much, use our free download “PLAN A YEAR’S WORTH OF NURTURE EMAILS FOR DIRECT-TO-CONSUMER AND WHOLESALE,” to guide you through this process. In it we talk about:
Content pillars for your emails
Types of emails to send
Creating templates to use
PRO-TIP: If you are struggling to find something to post on social or email your list, go back into the archives and find your highest engaged post or most opened email and reshare that! Really, it’s that easy!
In Conclusion…
As Jessica said in our conversation, you have to be really intentional with your time. As a product-based-business owner, you are likely doing a lot of the work on your own or with a small team. Your time is valuable!
One of the best things you can do for your business is to CREATE AN EMAIL MARKETING PLAN THAT WILL SAVE YOU TIME AND KEEP YOU CONNECTED TO YOUR BUYERS so they keep buying from you.
You can do this by:
establishing an email marketing plan
writing a welcome sequence for both wholesale and direct-to-consumer- buyers
sending a post-purchase email sequence to educate buyers
Quicklinks
Here’s a quick recap of all the links shared in this post
MEET JESSICA:
Jessica is an eCommerce & Email Marketing Strategist for boutique owners & product entrepreneurs. She supports scrappy female entrepreneurs with actionable steps & strategies to grow and scale their eCommerce businesses. After 20+ years in retail, owning her own multi 6-figure brick & mortar boutique and 3 years as the ONLY employee of a 7-figure eCommerce store and having the pleasure of learning from the top experts in the digital marketing & eCommerce industry - now she’s sharing everything she learned the hard way so you don’t have to.
CONNECT WITH JESSICA
Website: ecommercebadassery.com | Instagram: @ecommercebadassery
Facebook: @ecommercebadassery | LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jessicatotillo
Connect with Katie Hunt
Katie Hunt is a business strategist, podcaster, mentor and mama to four. She helps product based businesses build profitable, sustainable companies through her conferences, courses and coaching programs.
Website: prooftoproduct.com | Instagram: @prooftoproduct
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