7 Email Flows to Put Growth on Autopilot

What are the most effective customer segments to target for ecommerce, and how should we reach them?

Prospects that have already shown interest in your products are always more likely to buy than cold traffic, which is why ecommerce brands that capture (and recapture) customers with follow-up messages have a competitive advantage.

The right email and SMS automations can empower any store to target (and retarget) these leads with preset messages and dynamic content that personalizes each output.

Evocative Media, led by founder and Head of Growth Jess Vassallo, used these seven email flows to 7x a client’s revenue from email campaigns year-over-year, and other brands can do the same to effectively put growth on autopilot.

1. Welcome Flow

An email welcome flow should include at least three emails that introduce your brand, your values, and some perks for becoming a subscriber. Jess and her team found that welcome email automations earn a 4x click rate and 23x conversion rates compared to regular marketing emails.

A high-performing welcome series will leverage data and dynamic content to create personalized emails with targeted messaging, as well as interactive content to gather more information that will make future emails more effective.

2. Abandoned Cart Flow

The next automated flow that sellers need is an abandoned cart series. Evocative Media starts with an SMS reminder before launching a three-email series, and they also include the welcome offer for recipients who haven’t placed an order before.

For maximum effectiveness, send the first reminder within one hour of the cart’s abandonment, and emphasize a product’s limited availability to encourage quick action. As the series continues, try enticing prospects back with incentives like free shipping or a limited-time discount.

3. Post-Purchase Flow

When a customer makes a purchase – either organically or because of the amazing automations you’ve set up – that’s just the beginning of your relationship. The story continues with a four-email post-purchase series that includes an order confirmation and follow-ups about the product and brand.

To keep customers engaged, send content about how to use what they purchased and additional information about complementary products. You can also ask for reviews and offer loyalty points or rewards for repeat purchases or subscription sign-ups.

4. Browse Abandonment Flow

This might shock you, but not all shoppers make a purchase when they reach your store or landing page.

In fact, some don’t even hit “Add to Cart.” But that’s not where their story ends. With first-party data, you can reach these prospects with a browse abandonment email series that uses dynamic show/hide modules to feature the products that they viewed.

Like the cart abandonment series, you can use personalization, scarcity, and even limited-time discounts to incentivize this audience to return to your site and complete their buyer’s journey.

5. Customer Winback Flow

Customer winbacks create opportunities to turn one-time buyers and inactive shoppers into repeat customers, which is great for advanced metrics like lifetime value in addition to good old-fashioned revenue.

For this flow to succeed, you’ll need to give customers reasons to return, such as free shipping or strategic discounts. Timely outreach is also important, so you’ll need to identify the right intervals for reengaging customers when they’re ready to buy.

6. Back-in-Stock Flow

This flow is a simple one – in fact, Jess and her team only send out one back-in-stock email when the conditions are right. But it works, because urgency and a clear call to action is baked into every element of the message.

Additional tweaks to improve the performance of a back-in-stock flow can include sharing early access with VIPs, personalizing the message by referencing the customer’s prior interest, and including reviews of the product to reinforce its popularity.

7. Price Drop Flow

This seventh and final flow also creates urgency, and Jess recommends leading with an SMS message to announce your product’s price drop before following up with two emails.

Like the back-in-stock message, price drop emails rely on urgency and scarcity to drive quick action. To make this flow a high performer, incorporate targeted alerts and craft visually appealing emails that highlight the price drop.