062: Leveraging Email Marketing AFTER the Purchase [Email Marketing Series #5 of 6]

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Beyond the Broadcast- Doing More with Email Marketing

Welcome the 5th episode of our 6 part series on Email Marketing. This is the final interview with an expert from one of the email marketing companies in this series. We are talking with Ramon Darling from Keap. In this conversation with Ramon we discuss things that help to bring forward the power of email marketing and using email throughout the customer journey. Specifically, we’re talking about after the purchase.

Typically entrepreneurs don’t plan for after the purchase because once you take payment and somebody becomes a customer the customer experience often times will be less than perfect because you have exhausted all of your efforts just getting the customer. What happens once you take payment is the actual customer experience on their side. Everything up to that point was YOUR effort to make them a customer.

“When you think about customer experience don’t think about it as a seller… think about it from the perspective of the buyer.”-Ramon Darling Click To Tweet

Email marketing up until the purchase is self serving. It is for your business. We are talking about my sweet spot here. I love the customer journey and we are over delivering on our promises. This is when the customer sees their journey.

Ramon talks about the customer journey using a Foreigner song “I Want to Know What Love Is”. He says the lyrics of the chorus of that song really explains the customer experience when you break it down into the four groups of suspects, prospects, opportunities, and customers.

A suspect says: “I WANT TO KNOW WHAT LOVE IS.”
They go out and search for a solution.

They become a prospect when they say “I WANT YOU TO SHOW ME”.
This might be the CTA. When you deliver something to them they want to see themselves in the solution.

So you customize your approach and deliver on that expectation this is “I WANT TO FEEL WHAT LOVE IS”. This means they want to be brought into the experience and feel how it works for them.

They become a customer when they say, “I KNOW YOU CAN SHOW ME.” The whole experience has informed their purchasing decision. So this is where you need to make them feel the love and deliver on the central proposition.

“The customer experience is leveraging all of the unique things you did throughout the journey in the marketing portion of the acquisition and figuring out how to leverage those same tools to create an amazing customer… Click To Tweet

This leads to people saying great things about you and thus generating more sales. Some parts of that experience comes with whatever tool you are using to deliver your content. This is one aspect of it. What you have landing in their inbox after the purchase is a very big piece of the experience you are providing them.

Different Types of Emails to Send After the Purchase

Story lines- 5 fundamental elements of any story include:

  • Exposition
  • Rising Action
  • Climax
  • Falling Action
  • Resolution

The climax is the actual purchase. The rising action is all the promises you are making. So the falling action is the beginning of the customer journey. The first thing you want to do is recap everything you promised and insure people know exactly what they bought. This is a common failing of business. We tend to think that since we have communicated for a while that people know what they bought. But there is so much emotion that goes into purchasing so we need to clearly state now that you have bought here is what you have purchased and here is how you can expect to receive what you purchased and clearly let them know the next steps. People should always feel like they understand what the transformation is.

“If you can in the very beginning talk about their mini journey and what success looks like you’re making that experience real for the buyer.”-Ramon Darling Click To Tweet

Connecting on a Personal Level

Ramon says if they can connect with this on a personal level, they’ll not only be engaged in the process but they’ll also want to talk about it. This the most important thing. Be clear on what you sold and what the transformation looks like. Let your customers know the expectations so that it helps set them up for success through what they have purchased.

Not every buyer is the same. It’s important to know the different types of people you are working with. There may be some people out there who don’t want to see video content. This is when it comes in handy to have a transcript of that video content. If you can distill from your video content what exactly it is you are delivering you can drive people back to the content. You don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket because if you do that you’re leaving an opportunity on the table.

An interesting example of this is the TEDtalks podcast. I will listen to those and if I’m interested in what I hear, then I will go back and watch the actual video of that TEDtalk. When it comes to learning your customer and how they consume content make sure you’re open to providing your content in the way that they want. The only way you are going to learn this about them is to communicate with them.

You don’t want to create an “overwhelm” with your content. For example, if you have a course and each of your videos is an hour long…break those videos up into more courses. You need to create a sense of winning because if people feel like they are losing or not progressing they are going to give up on the course and say it’s not for them. You can use automation to kind of push people along in your course to insure that they get to the end of it. This speaks to the transformational process. Plan for people to not complete your course so that when they start to fall off you reach out to them and help them succeed. This helps you connect on a personal level.

If you think about people when they make New Year’s resolutions. Providing accountability for your customer is never really a bad thing. We use accountability in the form of calendars and reminders.

“If you can gamify the experience for the consumer and deliver accountability the way that they expect you’re once again creating this feeling of tremendous satisfaction for your consumer.”- Ramon Darling Click To Tweet

Ramon gave an example of a partner that he works with. He explained that they have a system for delivering their content that is not just about leveraging the technology and the consumer experience, but also about creating a repeatable, predictable experience internally.

So when they deliver the first module/course, they set into motion a series of tasks that based on the course content and based on the expectations in the course. Then, based on that, the internal representative who is attached to that customer also is pinged with a task. Three days in a row they are supposed to send out a unique message that is clearly not automated. Automation is great, but there also needs to be a human experience attached to your content delivery. You don’t want to use technology in its entirety because you want to create a concierge experience for your customer. Make sure people feel connected to you on a human level.

When Do You Know…

You have to have a strategy that forms a plan. A plan allows you to allocate resources. Resources allow you to execute. And then you measure the experience as a user. And then you measure the consumer experience. You tie those two things together and it informs that strategy all the way back up the line to the beginning of the process.

Whenever you build something with these elements, you need to have an expectation of the outcome. But more importantly you need to have an expectation of when the transformation occurs. You need to be able to say once you deliver a customer will be able to recognize value in X amount of time.

As an entrepreneur, you have to reach out to consumers and say, “Now that you have completed your course and you’ve achieved X and we need to measure your satisfaction.” Ramon is not a fan of the customer surveys you get at the end of a phone call. They don’t collect enough info from the consumer to identify where there is room for improved.

By the time you get to the end of a course, you should have a system in place to send to your consumer that talks about the most important elements of the course and if people consumed, understood the outcome, and were able to achieve it. You need to be able to understand that and deliver that. You have to collect information from your consumers because people want to tell you things. These things they tell you can even generate a new revenue stream for you.

I actually set up callwithjaime.com to be available for people to talk to me about what they want out of the podcast and what they are struggling with in regard to technology. This is preconsumer, but it helps me to identify what my audience wants to learn about.

Talking Simple Tactics

If you are a service based business that is consultative then offer people an additional consult at the end of the course. You can then turn what was just a course content into a 1:1 retainer that is perpetual and recurring. There is a real opportunity there. Sometimes people want to spend more money to have direct access. You have to give them the opportunity to do that. Never make assumptions about financial opportunity.

Do the things that people expect. Deliver discount offers to purchase more products. People are conditioned to purchase things at certain times. Follow the conditioning.

Sending Messages After the Purchase

Ramon says everything we have talked about can be delivered through emails. Because email marketing is so omnipresent, there are so many cool plugins that will allow you to do really unique things leveraging the email marketing. There is this cool thing called picsnippets. It’s a really cool thing that makes people smile. This is leveraging your tools.

If you are automating the follow up to deliver the emails, but you have a tool that tells you how much of the video someone watched you can use that for all the downstream communication. This information could allow you to downsell to other products instead of having someone quit you altogether. Campaigns should feel like little mini experiences that you can tie together.

People live through emails. You need to think about the cadence of your messaging. You need to be able track not only the open rates but also the click rates. Then modify your communication based on that data. This is still relevant in the customer experience. Customers need to be looked at as lifetime value not the one time purchase. Tailoring additional sales based on the information they provide you is paramount.

It’s so vital to have an actual strategy when you are using email to communicate with all the prospects and customers that you have. It’s something you are going to be working in for the length of your business.

You need to collect testimonials from your customers. People want to give them to you. You just have to ask for them. Think about it as Amazon. Do you check the testimonials when you go to buy something on Amazon? OF COURSE YOU DO! There is something more genuine about someone else telling the story of what you do. Just ask people if you can take a testimonial of their experience and then leverage it.

“Just make sure that you are leveraging email marketing to create a personalized experience that makes people feel really warm and fuzzy inside.”- Ramon Darling Click To Tweet

Connect with Jaime:

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