How to Use Email + SMS Marketing to Add an Extra 6-7 Figures to Your DTC eCommerce Brand

joe@conversionengine.co
2022-06-16

Email + SMS marketing is the fastest way to add an extra 6-7 figures to your eCommerce store.

We know firsthand because we helped a brand add an extra $200k+ in revenue over the last year after launching their SMS marketing program.

Example results from a new SMS marketing program.

We also help all of the brands we work with make at least 30% of their revenue from email + SMS marketing.

The good news is that email + SMS marketing isn't rocket science. If you have the right playbook and the right strategies, you can get really awesome results.

Strong email marketing will help you to:

  • Grow sales without spending more on ads
  • Increase lifetime value (LTV) from customers and subscribers
  • Boost ROAS and increase profit from ad campaigns
  • Maximize store profit every month

So what do you need to do to get these types of amazing results?

In this post, I'm going to break down the exact strategies we use to help our clients consistently make 30%+ from email + SMS marketing while also increasing the performance of their ad campaigns.

Step 1: Start by Growing Your Email + SMS Lists

The first step is to start building your email + SMS lists.

This step is obvious because you need people on your lists in order to make money from your email and SMS marketing.

I've also got good news. Growing your email + SMS lists aren't that hard. All you need to do is...

First, make sure you sign up for Klaviyo for email marketing and Postscript for SMS marketing. There are other options but we've found these work the best to get the best results.

After you've signed up, log into Postscript to set up your site pop-up. You're going to use this to get more people to sign up for your lists. We've also found that the Postscript form convert's better than Klaviyo's, which is why we use Postscript.

Here is a Postscript opt-in example.

While you're getting your pop-up set up, make sure you go to apps in Postscript and use apps to connect Postscript to Klaviyo as seen below. The goal here is to make sure that Postscript is talking to Klaviyo so you can collect email and SMS subscribers with the same opt-in. Emails will go to Klaviyo; phone numbers will go to Postcript.

This is what it will look like when the Klaviyo app is connected in Postscript.

Once your pop-up is set up, it will look something like this on your site. Now, you're ready to start growing your lists.

In order to grow your email lists faster, here are a few tips.

  1. Consider providing an incentive to get people to sign up for your list. You can offer 10%-15% off, a dollar amount discount, a chance to win a free product, etc. The main point here is that you want to incentivize people to sign up since email + SMS marketing subscribers are so valuable.
  2. Run A/B tests to figure out how to get more people to sign up for your lists. You should be getting at least 3%-5% of people opting into your lists. Then, you can set your goal to get 7%-10% of people signing up. In order to do that, you'll need to run A/B tests (like the one shown below) to get more people to sign up.
Tim Aton increased the email opt in 20% for Range Leather by A/B testing a new image on a form that otherwise was the same.

In addition to the pop up, make sure that you offer a standard email opt in on your site in the footer or somewhere close to the footer so you give people more than one option to sign up if they are interested.

Make sure you add a way for people to sign up for your email list somewhere near the footer of your site.

Now that you have your opt-ins set up, you're ready to grow your lists and move on to step 2.

Step 2: Email + SMS Automation

Next up is email + SMS automation.

With email + SMS automation, you need to build out your automated flows that send automatically and make money while you sleep, sit on the beach, or watch Neflix.

It's like magic...that prints money.

It may seem complicated, but I'm going to break it down for you so that it's super simple.

First, let's build out your automated email flows in Klaviyo.

The main ones you need to set up are:

  • Welcome Series (3-5 emails)
  • Checkout Abandonment (2 emails)
  • Abandoned Cart Reminder (3 emails)
  • Customer Winback Flow (2-3 emails)
  • Post Purchase Flow (6-8 emails)

There are other flows you can set up once you get more sophisticated, but these are the main moneymakers for typical products like apparel brands that aren't selling skincare or nutritional products (if you're selling skincare or nutritional products, you'll need to do more quizzes, etc.).

Here's an example of what your numbers will look like once you get your flows set up. 💰💰💰

Sample Klaviyo automated flow results.

Now that you've got your email flows built out, you need to set up your automated SMS flows. This will include:

  • Welcome Series (3 messages)
  • Abandoned Checkout (1-2 messages)
  • Browse Abandonment (1-2 messages)
  • Abandoned Cart (1-2 messages)

As mentioned for email, there are other flows you can build out, but these will be your biggest moneymakers.

Once you get these set up, your numbers will look like this.

And now that we have flows set up, we're ready to make even more money with Step 3.

Step 3: Ongoing Email + SMS Campaigns

The next step is your ongoing email + SMS campaigns.

Here's a general rule of thumb to keep in mind...

If you're doing $1M+ per year in sales, then you're leaving money on the table if you're not sending AT LEAST 1 email and/or SMS campaign per week.

You may think that's a lot of emails, but you're going to make money from every campaign you send, so your goal should be to send at least one per week, then to grow to 2 per week, then 3 per week, etc.

And don't worry, we'll walk you through how to come up with that many campaign ideas in a second.

But before we talk about that, we need to discuss a very important step...

Don't Forget to Plan Your Monthly Email + SMS Calendar

Before every month starts, you need to spend time planning your email calendar for the next month. You need to plan for:

  • Sales Events: Are you going to run any sales this month? If so, you need to plan your sales based on what holidays are coming up (Memorial Day, July 4th, etc.), what Flash Sales you want to run, etc.
  • Holidays / Special Events: This includes things like Father's Day and Mother's Day. You may not want to run a sale for these days (or maybe you do), but they definitely are great events to email your lists about in order to let them know things like, "Today is your last chance to order before Father's Day," etc.
  • Product Launches: New product launches are a great thing to send to your lists, so you'll need to plan ahead for your product launches.

In addition to these main categories, you can also schedule campaigns for:

  • NEW Products, Collections, Colors, Designs
  • Low Stock Announcements
  • Restock Announcements
  • Gifting Opportunities
  • Messaging the Moment (Super Bowl, etc.)
  • Last Chance / Last Call (these are big moneymakers)
  • Seasonally Relevent Products
  • Product Features
  • Customer Review Features
  • Influencer Feature
  • Etc.

The list is longer than you probably originally thought, and the good news is that you can use a simple Google spreadsheet to keep track of the email + SMS campaigns you're going to send each month, as seen below.

Here's an example of the type of spreadsheet you can use for your Monthly Email + SMS Marketing Calendar.

The main things to keep in mind for your email + SMS marketing campaigns is:

  1. Don't be Afraid to Send More: Yes, some people will unsubscribe, that's part of it, but your sales will go up. You need to be sending at least once per week to maximize your revenue from email + SMS marketing.
  2. Make Sure You Optimize Your Site to Build Your List: In order for email marketing to work well, you need to be collecting 3%-5% of your visitors as subscribers every day.
  3. Plan Your Email + SMS Marketing Calendar Ahead of Time: If you don't plan your Email + SMS Markeing Calendar ahead of time, you'll be stressed out trying to figure out what to send each week, which ultimately means you won't send and will miss out on making more money.
  4. Make Sure You Have the Right Resources in Place: If sending 1-2 new campaigns per week is something you don't have time for, you should consider investing in resources that will help you make 30%+ of your revenue from email + SMS marketing. This will grow sales, increase profit, and lower stress.

So, What's It Like Working with Conversion Engine's Email + SMS Marketing Team?

I'm glad you asked.

Working with Conversion Engine is like putting your email + SMS marketing on autopilot and watching sales come in while you're freed up to work on other parts of your business, spend more time with your family, and take more trips to the beach.

Here's an example...

One of our clients recently dropped a new product.

Without even being asked to do it, our expert Email + SMS Marketing Team put an email + SMS campaign together to feature the new hat. Sales started rolling in.

The owner didn't have to ask us for it or hound us to get the work done. We knew a brand new hat would be a moneymaker, so we set it up and got it done.

Then, the next day, we planned the Email + SMS Marketing Calendar for the following month and sent it for approval via Slack. Once approved, we got to work sending the campaigns while the owner took his family to the beach for the week.

It may sound too good to be true, but the right Email + SMS Marketing agency will help you make 20%-30% of your revenue from email + SMS while taking work off your plate and making your life better.

If you follow the steps above, you can do it yourself and start earning 30%+ of your revenue each month from email + SMS marketing.

If you don't have time to do all of that yourself and would like an expert, battle-tested Email + SMS Marketing Team to grow your sales for you, then you can learn more about our 7-Figure Email + SMS Growth Marketing Program here.

I also hope you learned something useful from this post. If so, we appreciate you sharing the post to pay it forward so more people can learn and grow.

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