Kristen 0:00
Are the only emails that you send out weekly broadcasts that go out to your entire email list? If that’s you, first of all, know that you’re not alone. A lot of us start there with our email marketing, but you are leaving money on the table and missing out on some great opportunities to connect with your audience.
Kristen 0:20
So today, I am going to share eight different types of automated emails and email sequences that can work for you around the clock, turning more of your subscribers into customers by reaching out to them at just the right time. In a lot of cases, these are emails that if you had to send them out manually on your own, they would just never happen. So you would just miss those opportunities completely. And the best part is, you’ll set these up once and let them run in the background while you’re focusing on other things.
Kristen 0:52
Are you a digital product or course creator selling on platforms like teachers pay teachers, Etsy, or your own website? Ready to grow your business, but not into the kind of constant hustle that leads straight to burnout? Then you’re in the right place. Welcome to The Savvy Seller. I’m Kristen Doyle, and I’m here to give you no fluff tools and strategies that move the needle for your business without burning you out in the process. Things like SEO ,no stress marketing, email list building, automations and so much more. Let’s get started, y’all.
Kristen 1:31
I know when we talk about email marketing, you probably immediately think of those weekly broadcasts, and those are a great place to start. But email automation isn’t just for big businesses or fancy tech setups. It actually is super helpful for smaller businesses like ours who are selling digital products or services, and the tech is not that hard to set up on most email marketing platforms. And then the good thing about this is, once you get it set up, they’ll just continue working for you over time, and you won’t have to mess with them again, other than maybe to tweak emails for better performance.
Kristen 2:09
I’m going to walk you through all eight types of emails that I think you should be automating, but we’ll start with the ones I call the low hanging fruit. These are the ones that are really quick and easy to set up, and they’ll give you some results right away. Like I said, if you are just sending out those weekly newsletters, the occasional launch series, you’re missing out on a lot of opportunities to connect with your audience, to build relationships, and, yes, to sell them things. See, when everybody gets the exact same messages, regardless of what they’re interested in or what actions they’ve taken, things like, what have they clicked on? What freebies have they downloaded? Your emails just don’t hit home the way that they could, and you miss out on a lot of opportunities.
Kristen 2:52
Now, I know sometimes when we think about automations, we’re worried a little bit about emails being cold or robotic or maybe not making sense, but think about it this way. If you create the right emails and you’re using the right triggers, those are the things that set those emails off to go out to your subscribers, it’s actually kind of the opposite of cold and robotic. It lets you send really relevant content targeted to that particular subscriber.
Kristen 3:20
So for example, when someone downloads your resource about classroom management, you can tag them as being interested in classroom management and send them more content about that, while your subscribers who downloaded something that was a reading resource get something totally different. See, broadcast emails, those weekly emails we send out to everyone, those are like shouting into a crowded room. See, everybody’s hearing the same thing at the same time, and some people will be interested and a lot of them won’t.
Kristen 3:49
Those targeted emails are more like having a conversation with someone based on something they actually told you, because you’re sending them the content they are really interested in. And a lot of these get you higher open and click rates because they’re relevant to what that person actually cares about.
Kristen 4:05
Now the secret to making these emails work is using tags and segments in your email platform. So when someone does something like downloading a certain freebie or clicking a link, you tag them and it can kick off a sequence of emails tailored to that action that they just did. Now you want to be careful not to create hundreds of tags in your email platform. Think in terms of categories, not individual things, and that will help you keep it from getting overwhelming and super messy. Trust me, I’ve been there. I am actually currently working on cleaning up my tags because I have too many.
Kristen 4:44
Alright, let’s talk about those low hanging fruit sequences. These are a couple of pretty easy to set up sequences. They won’t take a whole lot of emails that you have to write, and they’re easy to trigger. The first one is a testimonial request or a review request. This is just a simple one off email that you write it once and you set it up to go out automatically a few days, few weeks after someone purchases something from you.
Kristen 5:11
Now the timing for this is going to depend on your specific product. Think about how long it takes for somebody to start seeing results from using your product. That timing is going to be your sweet spot to ask for feedback. So for digital downloads, printables, things like that, you might just want to wait a few days. But for something bigger, like a course, you might want to wait a few weeks before you ask for feedback.
Kristen 5:35
In this email, you want to make sure you’re making it super easy for them to respond. So create something like a Google form and give them specific questions, instead of just asking them to reply and tell you what they think. When you do this, make those questions as easy as possible to answer. Try to include mostly multiple choice questions with just a couple of short answer questions, and the more specific the question is, the easier it is for the person to answer.
Kristen 6:05
Let them know in the form that you want to use their testimonial on your sales pages or in your emails. I usually say something like, Do I have permission to use your answers in my marketing for this course, product, resource, whatever it is, and just have them check yes or no. And then, of course, as we all know, a little incentive never hurts. So maybe you offer people a discount on their next purchase if they take the time to give you feedback. That way, you’re able to incentivize that response, and you’ll get good testimonial, they’ll get a discount on a future purchase, and everybody wins.
Kristen 6:41
The next email sequence, I would encourage you to set up is just a little longer, and this one’s going to be a two email sequence, but it is still super easy to do. This one is an abandoned cart recovery sequence, and what this does is it grabs those people who added items to their cart but didn’t ever check out. This one is for you, if you have a way for people to buy directly on your own website, or if you’re using a checkout platform like Thrive Cart, or lots of course builders that have abandoned cart automations available for you.
Kristen 7:19
The reason this is so effective is because these are people who added something to their cart. They were a click or two away from buying and something happened. Maybe life got in the way. Maybe their kids needed something, and they just need that friendly reminder to come back and finish their purchase. Abandoned cart emails can usually recover anywhere from 10 to 30% of those almost sales, which is pretty amazing, if you can get that out of writing two quick emails and then setting it up on an automation.
Kristen 7:49
So the first email should go out just a few hours after they leave your site. This is just a friendly, Hey, I noticed you were looking at this. Your card is saved, if you want to come back to it, with a direct link to their cart. Then the second one goes out a day, maybe two days later. And in this one, I would address why they might have hesitated, what might be making them question this purchase. And you can even offer a little incentive. Maybe you offer a 10% discount for them to complete their purchases. When you think about timing on these, you don’t want to wait too long to send out that first email, because you really want to catch them while they’re still thinking about it, and keep that one helpful, not pushy. I saw you were checking this out, and I wanted to make sure you could find it again. And then in that second email, think about what might have made them pause before buying and try to address those questions or concerns that they might have had.
Kristen 8:46
Now, depending on where you are selling your offers, your platform might have abandoned cart functionality built in, so you write your emails right there in the platform, or you might need to do it through your regular email provider or through a plugin. If you are on WooCommerce, then I recommend a plugin that is called WooCommerce Cart Abandonment. That one will automatically recognize when carts have been abandoned, and you’ll create your emails right in the plugin in your WordPress dashboard to send out to those people. You’ll also get stats in the plugin for how many of those abandoned carts are being recovered.
Kristen 9:25
Alright, let’s move on to some sequences that are a little bigger and require a few more emails, but they’re still totally worth it in the right circumstances. Automation number three is an educational nurture sequence. This sequence is all about giving some value related to your products and educating your new subscribers and bringing them over to your point of view without doing any hard selling. The goal here is basically to show people that you know your stuff and you can help them with their problems. These are great for new subscribers to your list that you really want to nurture before you start selling things to them.
Kristen 10:05
Now, typically, there’s no need to create anything brand new for this. You can go in and repurpose your very best blog posts, podcast episodes, even social media posts, and turn them into emails to send out to these new subscribers. And keep in mind your new subscribers, and probably even some of the old ones, haven’t seen all that great content that you’ve created over the years. So this type of nurture sequence makes sure that they get to see your greatest hits, if you will, those things that really are going to help them the most.
Kristen 10:37
When you are coming up with what to send out in this nurture sequence, think about the questions that people have before they buy your product, or the things they need to learn from you, maybe some mindset shifts they need to make before they’re even ready for your offers, and answer those or help them to make those shifts in their thinking. So for example, if you know you’re going to sell math resources, then maybe you want to share your favorite tips for how to run math centers for teaching fractions, different things like that, that show that you really get what teachers need, and it helps them get ready to purchase your math resources down the road.
Kristen 11:17
Now most of these emails can be just simple, straightforward emails, either delivering all the content right in the email, or delivering a little piece of it and sending them over to a blog post or a podcast episode for the whole thing. But if you sell something like courses, then consider maybe using at least a couple of these emails to give people a taste of your teaching style. So maybe you share one lesson from a course or a video training in the same format as your course, so that people are able to kind of see what it’s like to learn from you before you ever even talk to them about the fact that you have a course to sell them.
Kristen 11:55
As far as triggering a nurture sequence like this, you might consider doing that right after people go through your welcome sequence, and you can do it based on tagging from what types of opt ins they signed up for. So if they signed up for an opt in a certain category, you can send them educational content to nurture them around that topic, as opposed to sending them generic information that you send to everybody.
Kristen 12:19
Alright, sequence number four is a product launch runway sequence. Now, whether you are launching your offer live and there are set open and close dates for when your cart is open, or you’re running this on evergreen, you can’t start selling people until you have warmed them up. So the goal of the product launch runway sequence is to create some anticipation, warm people up and get them interested and ready before you start talking about your offer and asking them to purchase something. This usually starts anywhere from two to four weeks before you’re going to open cart. And if you’re on an evergreen type of sequence, then you just let this sequence run first, and then move them into a sales sequence after that.
Kristen 13:07
You can start this out by talking about the problem that your product fixes. Think about the general process that we go through when we’re buying, that buyer journey funnel, where the first thing that your buyers need is to be aware that they have a problem. So start by talking about that problem, and then you want to create a desire for them to solve the problem. You want to share stories about how other people have solved this problem. Hint, hint, they’ve probably used your offer, but you’re not going to really talk about that part yet. You want to start building some interest and excitement, and that desire to have a solution to whatever you’re going to be selling them before you ever introduce the fact that you have a product or a course or whatever it is available for people to purchase.
Kristen 13:58
And then number five is the sales sequence. So after you’ve done your pre launch runway, it is time to move into your actual launch series. If you’re doing a live launch, this is probably going to be five to seven emails going out over the course of a week. If you’re doing something on evergreen, then you might stretch these emails out over more like two weeks, or even closer to three. The goal of these emails is really to show off your offer from lots of different angles, so that all different types of buyers can connect with it.
Kristen 14:28
See, we all make decisions about the things we’re purchasing in different ways. Some of us are very logical. We need all the details. We need all the FAQs answered. Some of us are more emotional buyers. So we need to hear the stories from people who have used this and had great transformations, and you just want to make sure that you are varying your emails so that you’re addressing all those different angles that people come from when they’re making a purchase decision.
Kristen 14:54
What makes a good sales sequence is clearly explaining the problem and how your product is the solution, sharing lots of stories and testimonials from people who’ve used your product and loved it. In fact, one of my favorite is something that is typically called the unlikely hero, and that is where someone who maybe was worried about signing up for your course or worried that your product wouldn’t work for them. They had their hesitations, and they bought it anyway and used it and loved it. They’re that unlikely hero, someone who maybe wasn’t just the perfect case study, but they bought it and they used it and they loved it. That’s a great way to get across to people that your product is for everyone.
Kristen 15:43
Another thing you want to make sure that you’re doing is addressing any common concerns or objections that people have that can stop them from making a purchase. So think about all the things that could get in the way, as well as any questions that people are asking you. So if you’ve gotten a lot of the same question, that’s a good indicator that that is a common concern, and you need to address that in one of your emails.
Kristen 16:07
And then, last but not least, you have to have a reason to buy now. So if this is a live launch, then that cart close date is the reason to buy now, because it’s going away. But if it’s not, if you’re running something on evergreen, where it’s always available, then think about things like limited spots, special discounts, extra bonuses that go away after a certain time. There are lots of ways that you can create a reason to buy right now, as opposed to just waiting forever. And those emails make it super clear what they should do. Those buy links or buttons should be impossible to miss and really, really clear.
Kristen 16:45
Alright, so we have talked about some basic, easy automations to set up for people who are already on your list. We’ve talked about nurturing and selling to new people that are joining your list. Let’s talk about some that can help you to continue the relationship with people after they’ve purchased from you.
Kristen 17:07
So our next automation is a post purchase onboarding sequence. Now, depending on your product, this might be one email or it might be a series of five or six emails. Either way, those first few days after someone makes a purchase are really important. See, they need to figure out how to access the thing they bought, how to use it, and they need to start seeing results. This is great for helping people to get value quickly. That makes them happy customers, and happy customers don’t ask for refunds. So a good onboarding sequence really is great for your customer and for your bottom line as the business owner as well. They can also help to cut down on support questions that you get from people who email you the same things over and over.
Kristen 17:55
So like I said, you would structure this kind of based on how big or complex your product is. For a really simple one off, kind of a downloadable product, you might just need to send one email with information on how to access the thing they bought, some next steps, maybe a quick tip or two for getting started. If you have something more complex, maybe it’s a course or a membership, then think about sending them a series of emails that walks them through getting started, accessing everything, what to do first, how to start implementing step by step. As you are writing those emails, think about including some tips for success, examples of successes other buyers have had, and especially reminders about features that people might not notice right away. If you have anything that people say, Oh, I didn’t know that was in here, those are great things to highlight in these emails.
Kristen 18:50
The next type of sequence that you want to have automated is an upsell sequence, or maybe a cross sell sequence. Upsells refer to selling something a little more expensive. Cross sells would refer to selling something similar. Either way, once someone has purchased one thing from you, they have told you something really important. They have told you that they are interested in the solutions you offer, that they are willing to spend money to buy these solutions, and this makes them some of your best potential future customers as well.
Kristen 19:27
Now you want to be strategic about this. You don’t want to start sending out more and more sales emails immediately after they’ve made that first purchase. Wait until your customers had time to use and love that first purchase before you start pushing them onto more and more things. For smaller products, you might just wait a few weeks, but for bigger products or courses, you might wait a month or more before you start sending out next steps. When it comes to sending those emails, you want to make sure that you’re sending these as recommendations that feel helpful for people and not pushy and salesy.
Kristen 20:01
So you can kind of position that next thing you’re offering as a logical next step, as opposed to just random promotions. Connect what they already bought with the new thing, and how that’s going to help them get to the next step, or make it even better. You can use language like, For most people, the next step after this is that they usually do this, or, Since you grabbed my this product, you might also like that one. If you’ve got stories from people who’ve used both products together and they love the results, share those with people. And don’t always only upsell to something huge. Take advantage of cross selling similar price products as well, especially if they complement one another.
Kristen 20:46
Now this is something I would say that you want to space emails out over time, and you really do want to send targeted upsells or cross sells. So if someone has bought something from you that is a planner template, don’t go sending them a whole bunch of social media post graphics. Send them more things related to planning, because that’s what they’ve told you that they’re interested in.
Kristen 21:11
Alright, last but definitely not least, is a cold subscriber re engagement campaign. The goal of this is twofold. You are trying to get people who haven’t been opening your emails to start re engaging with you, to start opening and clicking and paying attention again, or if they’re not going to, you’re trying to get them off of your list. There’s a lot of reasons that you want to do this. The first is, most email platforms charge you by how many subscribers you have, so cleaning out your list helps to keep your costs down.
Kristen 21:44
However, even if you’re on a platform that gives you unlimited subscribers, your open and click rates, the amount of people who are responding to your emails, those are all signals that get sent to Gmail and all of the other email deliverability places to send some signals about the health of your list and about whether or not you’re a scammy spammer face. Think I got that from a friend. You want to make sure that your open rates, your click rates, your response rates are good and healthy. And one way to do that is to get rid of those people who are never opening or engaging with your emails.
Kristen 22:26
Now the first thing you’ll need to do is decide what cold means for your list. Typically it’s people who haven’t opened or clicked anything in three months or so. And what you’ll do is create an email sequence purely intended to get their attention back and remind them why they liked you in the first place. I usually do this in about three emails, is probably enough. Use subject lines that make people curious enough to open even if they’ve been ignoring you. Think about things like offering them a freebie or a special discount, something to make them open and click those emails.
Kristen 23:03
If people don’t open any of the emails in that re engagement sequence, then it’s a good sign that it is time to let them go. So your last email in this sequence would be that one last we’re breaking up now email letting them know that they’re going to be removed from your list unless they click to stay. Now you don’t have to do that in a way that sounds threatening. You can just say, I want to make sure I’m not filling up your inbox with emails that you don’t want. So if you don’t click on this link in the next seven days, however long you want to give them, I’ll just go ahead and remove you from my list, or if you’d like to unsubscribe now, you can click the unsubscribe link in the footer. You just want to really be friendly and give them that option. We all know what it’s like to sign up for an email list and then ignore the emails forever and just never bother to unsubscribe. I know I have plenty of those in my inbox from all the places that I shop for clothes for my kids.
Kristen 23:58
Keep in mind, cleaning out those inactive email subscribers really does make your overall performance better, and that helps increase your deliverability and keeps your costs down. So it really is important to do that. It is better to have 500 people on my list who open my emails than 5000 who ignore me. So keep that in mind, and don’t be afraid to unsubscribe people if they don’t open anything in that re engagement sequence. I actually walked my savvy seller collective members through creating this exact automation recently. We created a fully automated re engagement sequence that they could use right away, that triggers and runs itself every 90 days like clockwork, with swipe copy that they could customize for their own business and get everything up and running fast. It was really pretty cool to see everybody implement it and see how they’re able to start cleaning up their lists and let it run on autopilot for them.
Kristen 24:53
So we have talked about eight really useful email automations: educational nurture sequences, product launch runway, sale sequences, abandoned cart, post purchase onboarding, upsells and cross sells, testimonial requests and a cold subscriber re engagement campaign. I recommend you start with the easy wins. The testimonial requests and the abandoned cart recovery require the fewest emails, and they are super quick to set up. They can start working for you right away, and they can just keep going over time. Once those are running, look at your post purchase onboarding and your educational nurture sequences next.
Kristen 25:34
What I love about automated sequences like these is that once you set them up, they work all the time for you. You don’t have to think about it. You don’t have to go in and trigger things to get started. It’s like having a nice little email automation assistant, a little bot working around the clock for you, and it takes one more thing off of your to do list.
Kristen 25:55
Here’s what I want you to look at this week. Look at what automated sequences you already have running in your business, and then pick one of the easy ones we talked about today that you don’t have, and set it up this week, even if it’s just a simple testimonial request email to send out to your past buyers. Get something going that will work for you automatically.
Kristen 26:15
By the way, like I said, creating these types of email automations is one of the things that we do together in The Savvy Seller Collective all the time. Inside the membership, I give my members templates, swipe copies, step by step guidance to help you implement systems like this in your business. If that sounds like something that you would find helpful, you can check out all the details at kristendoyle.co/collective. I would love to know which automation you’re setting up this week, or if you have any questions about how to make it happen on your email platform, send me a DM on Instagram @kristendoyle.co and let me know. I’ll talk to you soon.
