Five Minute Friday: From Inbox to Checkout - How to Drive Sales with Email & SMS

Hey y', all, I'm Bri, co founder of Bloomly Digital, a digital marketing agency built for small businesses just like yours.

And I'm rp. I'm Bloomly's email and SMS Marketing Manager.

Question for you. If social went quiet tomorrow, would you be able to keep selling if you're not using email and sms? Well, you probably won't, but we'll fix that. Today we're going to hit on three things to give you a strong email and SMS marketing strategy and that's one what makes a good email and how to plan it 2 the core flows you need and why and 3 a simple, powerful segmentation plan.

Before we dive into that though, we're going to give you a quick credential check just so you know who's talking. We're a team with over 70 years of combined experience and we're built for boutiques with in depth experience. With Shopify, Commentsold, Klaviyo and sellsadvy, we take the digital workload off your plate so you can focus on your passions. Put another way, we work in your business so you can work on your business.

All right, now let's talk about what makes a good email. A good email and an email worth sending should pass the three R's of relevancy. That's right reader, right reason and right now if an email doesn't clearly hit all three, it's not ready to send. And if you do send it, you're probably not going to maximize the results.

And design wise, you always want to make sure to think mobile first. One column, large text tappable buttons. Make sure to use a strong hero image up top, either lifestyle or a short gif and make every image clickable with short and descriptive alt text. Make sure to also keep to two to three clear calls to action and avoid the full image canva wall. Make sure to mix in some real text, usually about 250 to 500 characters with those images so you land in the inbox and don't get filtered out for spam. Also make sure to add an accessible footer to your emails with unsubscribed links and contact information.

And planning always beats improvising. Aim for a steady cadence of two to three campaigns per week, but rotate who gets what so it never feels spammy. Each send needs a clear goal, whether it's to promote your new arrivals, a sale, an event, include social proof or even to get user generated content. Never send an email just because and always match the message to the segment. Save hot new arrivals for your most engaged readers and treat your broader segments like VIPs with exclusives or special access to pique their interest and get them off the bench and re engaged with your business.

And there's one more pro tip for your email's relevancy. Make sure to warm up gently if you're rebuilding momentum or you're starting from scratch with your email sends. Always make sure to start with your most engaged groups first to protect your deliverability.

Great. So that's everything we covered in part one. Now we're going to talk about the flows that you need and why you need them. So I think we all love passive income. It's super great to make money without having to put too much effort into it. And that's where flows come in. Flows don't just keep your customers warm between purchases, but they're how you're going to drive that passive revenue and how you're going to make money while you sleep or attend your kids ball game or work on your business or finally just have some you time.

So in terms of those flows, there are a few non negotiable ones that will lead to your success. The first is our welcome flow turning new email and SMS signups into that first purchase. Secondly, we have browse abandoned. Those are emails for people who looked at an item and you want to help them pick out that item and actually complete the purchase. Next are our cart and checkout abandoned flows. Those are to recover the almost buyers, the folks who got so close to purchasing that item but maybe just need a little push after the fact. Number four, we have our post purchase flow. That's a flow where you want to thank them, maybe offer some care, fit or styling tips and then try to engage in a thoughtful cross sell. Next up we have our win back flow which is much like it sounds, just a way to bring lapsed shoppers back into the fold of your business. And then finally our sunset flow. It's a way to gracefully say see you later to the folks who have disengaged and no longer frequent your brand.

And what makes all of these flows great speedy timing. For example, you want to send a cart reminder email within one to two hours of abandonment. Short and punchy messaging. Keep it to two to three emails per flow, maybe five total messages. If you add in sms include smart personalization which is things like dynamic products where you can put the products they were just looking at into the email or just something as simple as including their first name and strategic sms. Use it. Use text messaging but respect quiet hours and holidays. And then with all of your flows, review and a b test them every three to six months to keep them relevant so seasonal and make sure that those results are optimized.

Now on the topic of flows, here's some bonus housekeeping that ends up saving real dollars. If you're on Klaviyo, make sure to suppress the profiles who finish your sunset flow without re engaging. If you do that before your billing date, you'll see that Klaviyo charges by active profiles, so cleaning that list monthly can help drop costs fast.

Awesome. So that's two parts down, one more to go. And this may arguably be one of the most, if not the most important thing about email sending, and that is segmentation. So we're going to talk about your audience. You could have the absolute best email ever, but if you're not sending it to the right people, it won't get read and worse, it might get marked as spam. Segmentation is how you send to people who care. And sending to people who care will boost your open rate, your click rate, your conversions, your deliverability. Ultimately it will drive more revenue into your business. Just keep in mind, the wider you go with your audience, the more careful you have to be with your messaging.

Yeah, so we recommend starting off with our core segments. First off, you have your narrow reach. That's going to be people who have engaged with you within the last 60 days. These are going to be your quote unquote daily drivers and your most engaged customers. Next, make sure you have a 60 day segment or a moderate reach. Those are your active customers, but they're a little cooler than the folks who every 30 days interact with you. And then finally, make sure you have a 90 day or broad reach segment. This segment is lightly engaged and you want to treat them with care. Make sure to send only your most exciting things to get them interested and re engaged with your shop.

And once you have those core segments built out, you can layer in behavior and interest segments on top of those. So for example, you can segment people who typically click your new arrivals emails or maybe they click your collections or your sales emails. Depending on your email platform and integration, you can even target people who have purchased or browsed a particular size, brand or style of clothing. So for example, you could target someone who has clicked a collection drop email in the last 60 days and is in your 30 day narrow reach for maximum relevance.

You also make sure you want to protect your sender reputation with segments as well. So you can create some with smart exclusions to make sure you're only reaching real people who will engage with you. So that would be trying to exclude bots, those opens that have no human behavior behind them. You could exclude folks who have been inactive in the last 90 days or longer, you want to rarely send to those and then also exclude anyone currently in your sunset flow to make sure that they percolate fully through that process. Finally, you want to focus on human data, clicks, purchases on site activity and make sure that you filter out what are called Apple MPP opens and that helps cut down on the bot noise when you're reading your results and interpreting what to do next. That helps keep you honest on your attribution so you don't over count and make bad decisions.

Awesome. Thanks rp. So we have covered a lot in a really short amount of time so I want to give you a quick recap. Number one build emails that pass the three Rs right reader right reason right now keep the design mobile first with clear CTAs or call to actions and turn on those core flows so that you can start selling in your sleep segment smarter, not wider so you stay relevant and out of spam.

And if you want us to do a quick audit of your email platform and the best part of that is it's free, just email us@hellodigital.com we're here to help you grow your business.

We're Bloomly Digital. We work in your business so you can work on your business. You've got this and with these tips, yes even with social mo Quiet tomorrow you will keep selling.

That's it for five minute Friday.

You guys.

I hope you found some quick actionable steps you can put into play in your business right away. As always, if you're not yet a member of the Boutique Hub, I would love to personally invite you to join us. It's where all of the daily conversations happen. The up to date what is working now in the industry conversations, the latest trainings, trend reports, discounts, resources and of course access to thousands of wholesale brands that you also know and love. So please take a minute, follow the link in the show notes and we would love to invite you to join us inside of the Boutique Hub.