Happy Sunday!

If you’re reading this, I hope you’re feeling good heading into this week. We are right in the middle of Q4 madness, Q1 PO planning, locking in last-minute deals, and more. It’s chaotic, so I hope you’re feeling relaxed and confident going into the new week.

This past week, I spoke on a panel at the Shopify NY space, and there were many questions about what optimizations can be made to make email a stronger channel. Generally, email builds from the momentum of the brand and its acquisition channels, but there are always ways to make it 1% better. Today’s email will dive deep into tactics that you can implement tomorrow and make an extra $250,000.

Vendor of the Week

Triple Whale — Everyone’s favorite data platform is hosting a last-minute 2024 Holiday prep workshop!

Just like you would never get on the race track without double-checking your engine, wheels, pedals, and steering wheel, you shouldn’t enter the biggest sales season of the year without optimizing and double checking the most important components of your marketing strategy and campaigns. 

That’s why my friends at Triple Whale are hosting the ultimate all-day workshop on November 13th (11am-4pm EST) to help you make sure you’re caught up with all the last minute tips for BFCM. 

My Director of Partnerships, Bailee Cooper will be speaking about how to maximize your customer journey, funnels and website. There will be more insightful talks from brands including Social Snowball, Postscript, Stay, and more. 

During the workshop, you’ll learn about: 

  • Integrating Affiliate & Referral Marketing Into Your BFCM Strategy
  • 7 Tips for Maximizing SMS Revenue For BFCM
  • Four Fast Holiday Funnel Hacks (This is the convo with Bailee!) 
  • The 3 Principles of Marketing That Made 3,000 Brands Soar
  • and more!

I already RSVP’d but I recommend that you do too, on this special link. See you there!

Limited Supply

This coming week, Limited Supply returns to the airwaves! If you haven’t fully caught up on the last season, check it out on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. 

Get fully caught up on all things Black Friday, whitelisting, Meta, incrementality and more!

CRM 301

After doing so many email audits, I combined the most insightful recommendations and fixes below. If you want us to audit your email program (sign-up unit, flows, campaigns, etc.), fill out this form on the Sharma Brands website!

Sign Up Unit

  • Most brands have an opt-in rate of 1-3%. According to Klaviyo, the average opt-in is 3%. You’re better than average; you should be at 6-9% for email and 3-6% for SMS.
  • To keep the SMS opt-in rate high, offer a slightly better discount for SMS capture than for email submission. For example, offer 10% off for email submission but 15% off for SMS. Or offer free shipping for email and 10% off for SMS.
  • If you want to maximize the opt-in rate for your pop-up, combine Black Crow’s predictive engine for email with Amped, a SaaS tool designed to maximize email pop-ups. The result is an opt-in rate of 12-15%. 
  • Some of the best pop-ups ask someone to first opt-in to the discount, by clicking the CTA, and then getting the opportunity to collect the email address. You can do that within most ESPs too.

Flows

  • UGC content (before and afters, wearing the clothes, unboxing the products, etc.)
  • Reviews/customer testimonials
  • Press quotes or quotes from PR placements
  • Us vs Them comparisons
  • Founding story of the brand
  • Third-party testing and results
  • Highlights of any materials, ingredients, scents, etc.
  • I am a fan of incorporating a design that combines the discount code, social proof, and CTA, with an image that makes it easy to know what the product does.
  • The same applies to the welcome flow on SMS—A/B test consistently, and remember that SMS is easier to A/B test since there’s no hard creative, just text.
  • Subject line — easily A/B test for open rate
  • Preview text — this is what shows up in the push notification and email client
  • Emoji vs no emoji
  • Different-styled hero’s and CTAs
  • Discount offer (with and without expiration urgency)
  • Plain text vs fully designed
  • Copy within the email
  • Reviews / press highlights — keep A/B testing these to optimize CTR
  • If you collect any zero-party data on the opt-in form, you can use that data to build conditional branches, depending on what users select.
  • Any time there is a discounted offer or product linked, your URL should include the coupon code as an automatically applied offer. Meaning, when you click the link, it shouldn’t require someone to go to the checkout and then add in the discount code; it should already be applied. See how to do that on the Shopify blog, here.
  • A generic code isn’t believable to expire soon
  • A generic code can easily get leaked and can cause misattribution or unintentional discounting
  • A generic code doesn’t make anyone feel special with their code
  • Make sure your order confirmation emails are sent from Klaviyo rather than Shopify for greater customization of the copy, design, and overall representation of the brand—this is what people see after you take their money.
  • Signing up for the loyalty program
  • Signing up for SMS (if they aren’t already)
  • Joining a Facebook group
  • Sign up for marketing emails (if they aren’t)
  • Upgrade your order to a subscription
  • The post-purchase flow should help the customer understand what to expect from your product and detail how they can maximize it. 
  • A/B test using the subscribers’s first name in places like the beginning of an email, within a text message or within a subject line. 
  • You can even do this with cash back, since you, the brand, save a lot more with cash back versus with discounts off the gross revenue.
  • Your review collection email, should not only focus on collecting a review, but also any sort of UGC content that can accompany it or demonstrate the product in use.

Campaigns

  • With campaign imagery, don’t get too fancy and lose sight of clear CTAs.
  • Design for mobile and both light & dark mode. Test across multiple devices before sending with something like Litmus (https://www.litmus.com/email-testing).
  • Always ensure there is a headline and CTA above the fold — most people only view an email for a few seconds.
  • Pay attention to opt-out rates. A sudden increase may indicate you are sending too frequently.
  • Make sure to optimize the images inside your emails and compress them to load quicker.
  • While most of your campaigns might be promotion or offer related, it’s always beneficial to weave in some brand-building, nurturing, and storytelling.
  • When you run promotions, you can give early access to your SMS list, and make it clear in your email campaigns that SMS subscribers see the sales first.
  • Tier 1 — engaged last 30 days. Receives every email
  • Tier 2 — engaged between 30-60 days. Receives every email
  • Tier 3 — engaged between 60-90 days. Receives every other email
  • Tier 4 — engaged between 90-180 days. Receives weekly email
  • Tier 5 — engaged 180+ days. Receives 2 emails/month
  • Sunset everyone with no engagement over 18 months 

What else would you add to the list? Reply to this email, and I’ll compile all this into a document and share the link in the coming week!

Now, onto some fun stuff...

That's all for this week

I hope today’s email makes you at least $250,000 in additional revenue this quarter — sometimes, one singular A/B test I recommended will generate an extra 6-figures in revenue. 

Given it’s Sunday night, I hope you plan to get 9 hours of sleep tonight and start the new week off on the right foot! As we get closer to BFCM, make sure you are taking care of yourself and you’re doing the same for those around you too.

Have a fantastic upcoming week. Stay hydrated. Get good sleep. Eat well. I’ll see you next Sunday for another deep, deep dive!