Email Marketing for E-commerce How to Turn Website Visitors into Customers with ConvertKit

Video Transcript

Isa: Hello, everyone. We are live. My name is Isa. I am the webinar producer at ConvertKit and I’m here with Jenna from–

Jenna: Thanks.

Isa: –[inaudible]. Hi. And so let us know if we’re really live or if we’re just talking to ourselves by telling us in the chat where you are coming from today and maybe what you stopped doing to be here with us live. That is pretty cool that you stopped whatever you were doing to show up and so I’d love to know what that is. My name is Isa and I am in San Diego California. Jenna, what about you?

Jenna: Currently, I am in Grand Rapids Michigan, so it’s been snowing for the past like two or three weeks [laughter] so I’m where it’s cold.

Isa: Wow, well, Ryan is here from Calgary, so he can maybe relate. And then Brenda is from Kenya. So we’ve got all the world and all of the weathers here right now, so that is all. I love webinars, it literally never seems to amaze me that we’re here with people from Canada and– oh, someone else from San Diego, and then also–

Jenna: I see also Illinois.

Isa: And Sylvia from Italy. Oh, my gosh, hello. And Jim from Carlsbad. We’re very close there [inaudible] pot of coffee and [inaudible] together. Well, I’m so glad that you all are here. If you’re just arriving, tell us in the chat where you’re coming from, what you were doing today that you stopped doing to come and join us to talk about how to turn more of your website visitors into customers, into buyers of your amazing products and things that you are doing in the e-commerce world. That is what we’re here to talk about today and I am so excited that you took the time to be here with us live, almost 200 of you. That makes our life so much better. So thank you for being here. This is going to be a one-hour workshop where we’re going to talk about helping you grow your e-commerce business using lead capture and email and lot of cool stuff. So this is going to be one hour and there will be some free stuff at the end, so definitely stick around until the end.

Isa: And before I start sharing my slide, I want to pull a larger pull for you all so you’ll see this pop up. And let us know because this workshop we invited people who were from Connecticut, people who are using just you know, and I’m curious who is here live? Are you using either? Are you using neither? And just so we kind of know what you’re using and what you’re here for. So it looks like about half of you are using ConvertKit, yay, so [inaudible] will be new for you which is exciting because that’s what we’re here to talk about. So for those of you who didn’t totally realize it yet, ConvertKit and just integrate now, that’s why we’re doing this. So its kind of a party that you’re here for, so it looks really great about half of you are using ConvertKit. About it looks like 11% of you are on Justuno on Lisa ConvertKit will be new for you, yay. We’ll teach you about that. And two people are all ready using ConvertKit and Justuno. I wish I could turn you on [crosstalk] and you could tell us how that’s working for you. So please, whoever you are, identify yourself, tell us in the chat how it’s going or any ideas that you have as we’re talking about some of this. So thank you for that. That is so cool to see where you’re at. So this will be helpful for all of you. So I’m going to go ahead and share our slides, and as I do that, Jenna, anything you want to say about why you’re doing this and why you’re here or why you’re excited.

Jenna: Yeah, I mean, as you mentioned the integration is pretty much brand new and it’s actually really cool because it’s one of our more robust integrations. And we’re going to get into that to see exactly how they integrate and what cool things we can do together. But yeah, I’m excited this is also my first webinar to present, so I’m also excited about that [laughter].

Isa: Yeah, so give Jenna lots of love in the chat, maybe a favorite emoji and [inaudible] do an amazing job and I am so excited that she’s joining us here today. So this is what we’re talking about email marketing for e-commerce businesses. How to turn your website visitors into customers. So if you have an e-commerce business, if this is something you’re wanting to do more of or get better at, you are in the right place. This is what we’re going to be talking about. My name is Isa, and I am the webinar producer at ConvertKit. And this is ugly sweater Isa. This is me eight years ago before I knew anything about any of the things that we’re going to be talking about. Email marketing and all of that, and I started just like you’re starting right now, going on free trainings. It was teleseminars, eight years ago, is where I started, and it was learning the kind of things that we’re going to share with you on this free workshop that helped me a year later get my book published, which still sells today through my email marketing and have my own business for many, many years, and that’s what inspired me with this kind of work because you’re here because you’re already really good at something. You have a product, you have an e-commerce business that is already going that is either already going or something that you’re planning. You got that. You don’t need us for that. But there is this whole other world of getting people to see this great thing that you’ve created, and that’s what this is all about. And Jenna, I’ll let you introduce yourself.

Jenna: Sure. So hey, guys, I’m Jenna once again. I work at Justuno. I am the partner marketing manager and agency trainer, so I work with our tech partners like ConvertKit and also marketing agencies that are really great partners for us as well. I don’t have my own e-commerce business yet [laughter] like Isa does, but it’s something I’m super interested in. I’ve been working in e-commerce for about the past four years now, so prior to this, I worked at an e-commerce development firm. So I’m pretty familiar with a lot of the struggles that you guys see from a technical standpoint, and now, in my new role, I’m starting to see a lot of more of the marketing pain points. So hopefully, I’ll be able to address those today. [inaudible].

Isa: And I would love to know from all of you, and Erica already told us, what is it that you sell? What is your business? Erica is a video director who’s worked with Ellen and [Friends?], that’s pretty cool and looking in to move into online courses. So some of you might be getting into that realm as well, which of all the things we talked about can be very related to any kind of product. We’re going to be talking a lot of about e-commerce as well. So it looks like we’ve got people who are selling education, as well as people who are selling things like [inaudible] network. That sounds really [crosstalk].

Jenna: [crosstalk] equipment, sounds cool.

Isa: Christina– first of all, I love that name– electric skateboards. That sounds awesome. So definitely, a lot of really cool product. This is what excites me. This what we’re here to talk about. We’re going to be talking about lead capture and email marketing and funnels, and we’ll hear some of those words. But what it really is about is Joe selling more pet supplies. Hi, Joe. That’s what we’re [laughter] talking about. That’s what this is all about, helping you get this more of these amazing things that you just typed in the chat out into the world. That is the goal. That’s what we’re here for. And I would love to know kind of where are you on your email and your lead capture journey right now? How many email subscribers do you have? Zero is a great number, only that then all you have to go is [up?]. But even three is a good number. These are real people and it has to start somewhere. So let us know where you’re at, that will give us a good idea. It looks like we have some beautiful 0s, a great 3 [laughter], a 10, and then a couple of you who have 23,000. Oh, my gosh. So if that’s you, please tell us in the chat too what are you doing to grow your email list.

Jenna: 47,000. Yeah.

Isa: 47,000 [crosstalk].

Jenna: Those are some big numbers.

Isa: Those are some huge numbers. So don’t worry. Those of you who have seven and you’re like, “Oh, my gosh,” don’t worry [laughter]. That is truly crazy and amazing. And those of you who have those numbers, please, let us know in the chat what you’re doing. We would love to hear that you can help people out. And also I totally forgot the Q&A box, so I want to let you know that if you have questions or at this workshop, and if you can see the chat is going to be going, and I want the chat to keep going and I want the chat to keep going, if you have a question though, put it in the Q&A box. Venezia is here from Connecticut, Grant is here from Justuno and they will be here answering your questions. There is Venezia guess who’s answering your question. So put them in the Q&A so we don’t miss them because we don’t want them to get lost in the chat, but keep the chat going, I’m watching it the whole time, and Venezia and Grant and Jenna are too. So these are some slides that I added because I read this on the Justuno blog Jenna, you don’t even have this here, this is something I added–

Jenna: This is a surprise slide, yeah [laughter].

Isa: Yeah, I was reading more this morning about this, this morning while I was drinking my tea and I just flipped out over this one blog. And I was like, “I have to put some of this here because it just made so much sense to me.” And it was talking about [inaudible] and this idea that once a visitor leaves your website and it’s going to apply to whatever kind of website you have or whatever kind of business you have, the idea that the sale is gone if someone leaves and that is just not how it works. Sometimes people just aren’t ready to buy and this what Justuno said [inaudible] like, “Yay, I love this, here is how you tackle this problem, get an email.” So that is one of the things we’re talking about today. And–

Jenna: Step one.

Isa: –this is one of the steps that they listed. 8% of website visitors don’t convert in their first visit, the first step in that sale is getting your shoppers’ email address and Jenna is going to be showing you some amazing ways that you can do that and do it really, really well. So if everyone who visits isn’t buying, don’t worry it’s not you, sometimes it takes time, but you want to make sure you get that email so you could stay in touch and not rely on them to find you again because most people don’t. And email is one of those highest converting channels when it comes to e-commerce according to Justuno so yay, and it’s one of the reasons we’re doing this integration. And we did a survey last year and we found out that business owners who are using email marketing earn 447% more revenue than those who don’t. So that’s one of the reasons why we’re here. That is a big number, Julia, and we want to make sure that you are making the most out of your products and that you’re getting to reach the most amount of people possible and email is definitely a great way to do that. Gena, anything to add about any of that when it comes to why people should think about email when they have an e-commerce business?

Jenna: Yeah, that all sounds great and thanks for pulling that stuff from our blog. I think the most important thing to take away from this is just to start. So you pulled one of the quotes earlier that all you have to do is get that email and that is the crucial part of what we’re going to talk about today, so as long as you just take that acton item, that’s all you have to come away with today for those of you that chimed in, in the chat your number is zero, that’s totally fine, your first email acquisition is going to be a huge win for you and it’s going to then kick start this marketing campaign and strategy that we’re going to talk about today. So nothing that odd, just really good stuff that you pulled, so yeah decided to get into it.

Isa: Yay, so this is a funnel, an email marketing, or really any kind of sales funnel that we’re talking about, but this one is specific to email, a way that you can think about setting up all the things that we’re talking about. And I like to start with this funnel because this is how ConvertKit and Justuno kind of work together. So that top of that funnel, that email opt-in form, especially when that’s really good for e-commerce, that is what Justuno helps you do, and more than just kind of your standard pop up form. They are really built to help you if you have an e-commerce business and building cool campaigns and promotions and all of this incredible stuff. So that’s where they come. And then once someone has subscribed your email list through that offer, through that pop-up, through that thing, what happens next then they get emails. And those emails can deliver offer and discounts. They can also build a relationship that then maybe leads people to purchase, as they continue getting those emails.

Isa: So Brenda, if funnels confuse you a lot, guess what? They’re not going to confuse you by the end of this hour, because everything we show you is actually going to walk you through a funnel. And a funnel is really just another way of really helping people buy your things, in a way that really puts them first and really serves them first, instead of just shouting at them right away, “Hey, buy my thing, buy my thing.” That doesn’t work. It makes us feel uncomfortable. Funnels are a way to really get to know people first, give them value first before they buy, build that relationship, build that trust, and then create advocates along the way. So I’d love to know, as you saw that funnel, with everyone here live right now, what part do you most need help with right now? Are you still thinking about– do you need to get better at lead capture, at getting more people to subscribe? Is it that once they subscribe, you’re not really sure what to send them that will lead them back to make purchases? Melissa says in all CAPs, “All of it.” Well, yay, Melissa [laughter], you’re in the right place. So let us know that, and that can be your queue, as well, to make sure you take good notes on that section. So we can definitely help you out with that part.

Isa: As I mentioned, I’m the webinar producer at ConvertKit, and we are email marketing software. So that’s where we come in in this funnel, is helping you get really great automated emails to your customers, to build a relationship, in a way that helps you earn a living. So this is a plaque our founder, Nathan Barry, made for us, and that is why we exist. Our platform is for creators. And it’s also why we do these workshops. So all of the strategies that Jenna and I teach you today, we’re going to tell you about our software, we’re going to show you some actual demos at the end, but all of the strategies we talk about are going to be relevant no matter what tools you use. So that is why we’re really here today. So we’re going to be going through how to use lead capture and email marketing best practices together, to sell more of your things, all of the things. Like pet supplies. That’s just the one that stayed with me. I don’t know why, maybe because I have Stanley. Hopefully you don’t hear him today, but it’s possible.

Jenna: [laughter] I’m wondering if someone is selling sheep, because I saw that in the chat, and I don’t know if they’re just on a farm or if that’s actually their business.

Isa: That’s a good– I saw the sheep emojis and I was wondering about that. So hey, if you’re here and you do something with sheep, or you did the sheep emojis, let us know. We want to know. We’re going to also tell you how to set up the ideal eCommerce opt-in, to turn more of your site visitors into subscribers, and maybe buyers of sheep, maybe. And how to connect your opt-in form, your offer to an automated email sequence that actually works to increase sales and build fans every single day. So it works automatically no matter what you are doing. And as a reminder, stick around to the end. We’ve got lots of free stuff that we will be sharing with you, including one free thing that is just for those of you who are here live, over 300 people. So definitely stick around to the end, if you can. This will be an hour. So step one, we’re going to talk about, how do you use lead capture and email marketing, together, to increase your sales? And so as I mentioned, we are integrated with Justuno. Yay. I should have had confetti or something [laughter]. And so this first part of this funnel is something that Justuno can really help with. So I’m going to let Jenna take it from here and tell us about that.

Jenna: Sure. So yeah, as you mentioned, in the graphic that you showed of the funnel, Justuno really plays a key part in that very top piece, but we also play a part further down in the nurturing sequence. But what we want to talk about first is really building that list. So what we always recommend and try to hammer home to our users, is to capture five percent of new visitors. And the reason that’s important is because you you may not realize how much traffic you’re missing out on capturing if you already have a solution set up. Looking at our user platform, we think a healthy range is between three and five percent. So what that does is that really firms up that first step of the funnel and allows you to start your marketing strategy off on a more solid foot because as you come down the funnel, those contacts will start weeding out. They’ll start getting less and less interested, or they’re not ready to buy, whatever it is. So the more people you can capture and put into this top part, then the better off you’re going to be when it’s time to start working on retention and then ultimately conversion.

Isa: Love that. And can you tell us, Jenna, this really good example from one of your customers?

Jenna: Yeah. So SkinnyMe Tea is a Justuno user. They’re a cool brand. They’re a Teatox company. I’m not sure if any of you are familiar with Teatox. Has anybody doing that? You could shout it out in the chat. And it’s basically kind of a diet concept or weight loss. I guess you could look at it as health and wellness probably. But anyways, they are based out of Australia, and they sell these Teatox products that have kind of a cult following I would say. They’re super popular. So they did a couple of things with this pop-up. So the pop-up you’re seeing here is a 5% off your order offered just for signing up. So that’s one thing. The second thing they had going on is an additional pop-up that offers content delivery on the backend just for signing up. So I believe that was a meal plan or a food-eating plan, something like that. So they offer that in exchange for someone to sign up, and it increased their offers. I believe I have the stat by 758%. I believe it increased their sign-ups. So obviously, that offer really hit home with their audience, and it was super successful.

Isa: Thank you, Jenna. And I’m so glad you’re here. If you caught that, my EarPods died, so [laughter].

Jenna: I was wondering what was going on.

Isa: Yeah, [I’m pissed off?]. Thankfully, I had [inaudible] Jenna chatting. So I don’t have to catch anyone. So discounts and free shipping are really great ways to get people to subscribe to your email list. They are fantastic. They’re also just the beginning. There are a lot of things that you can do when you’re thinking about opt-ins and you’re thinking about e-commerce. And this is something that came from the SkinnyMe Tea case study that I read on Justuno’s website. And I won’t read this all to you, but you all can read it. But what I really love is Justuno talked about how they also added value with content that if you’re an e-commerce business and you’re like, “Why would I write an emails aside from offers?” believe it or not, there’s a lot more. And that actually works. And we’re going to show you some examples of what people are doing that actually works and why content actually works. And Jenna, any advice when it comes to content for e-commerce or anything about what you’ve seen when it comes to its effectiveness?

Jenna: Yeah. I mean it’s something that I think I’m probably going to touch on in aside below. But if I guess I could go ahead and talk about it now. But for those of you who are thinking like, “Okay. A lot of retailers automatically think I can’t afford to do an offer– I can’t afford to offer 5%, can’t afford to offer free shipping.” Well, if you look at SkinnyMe Tea, aside from the offer I just showed you, an offer around content is still super effective because the thing with what the offer that they built is that it really hit home on their target market’s pain points, right? So for that reason, it was very effective and I think across the board and any type of content even with ourselves. That’s what we try to offer as something just very valuable. So even if it’s just a guide, then that will be successful in terms of offering content.

Isa: And Katie said the five-minute journal sends me short emails telling me how to use the journal, wonderful help, and makes me very loyal to their brand, and may buy more as gifts. I love that Katie mentioned that because in anything that you’re thinking about when it comes to what you should implement, in addition to what you learn in this workshop, well, Katie just did as the best thing you could do. What brands do you really connect with through email? What emails are you opening? Use those as models, and that loyalty is really, really vital. And Katie said they were short and practical which I love that too. You don’t need to be a writer to write a ton of stuff. You just want to think about being useful and helping people. And that is what helps you convert more traffic over time like Katie said buying people gifts, in addition to eventually buying it for yourself if you didn’t buy that first time. So now, we’re going to talk about kind of what would be that ideal opt-in for you and kind of how does set that up to make sure you’re capturing those leads like Jenna was talking about. So Jenna, tell us about this one.

Jenna: Yeah. So we get into the ideal opt-ins, I wanted to talk a little bit of data that we analyzed after Cyber 5, or more commonly known as Black Friday Cyber Monday Period. So if you can just switch the next slide Isa, and we’ll look at the graphs.

Isa: Yes.

Jenna: The first one we want to look at here is cart abandonment rate during Cyber 5. So as you can see, the blue area is just regular cart abandonment rate. It was around 75% and then, people that were exposed to a just offer, it drove it down to around 71%, 72%. So it’s kind of like the quote you pulled earlier, Isa, saying that a cart abandonment is not necessarily a lost sale. So you can see just this small reduction in cart abandonment, whether it’s 2 to 3 percent. It can actually be huge additional sales that were otherwise just completely lost traffic, right? So that’s one of my favorite things about cart abandonment is that it’s an otherwise lost sale. So what is it going to hurt you to spend, literally, five minutes to set up an offer to then, potentially make $30 off of that visit? It’s really easy to set up and very effective.

Jenna: The next piece I wanted to look at were, I believe, the conversion rates by channel that we saw, yeah, during Cyber 5. So here you can see one strong thing about this data is that in our analysis– is that email was the highest converting channel outside of just direct traffic. So that just kind of reinforces why we’re even having this workshop. But the blue and the green comparison that you’re seeing is the blue is just people that clicked through to a website from email and didn’t see any offer. And the green is going to be people who clicked through from an email and were exposed to some type of offer and they engaged with it. So the percentage increase there, I believe, was around 11%. Sorry, the difference between those, I believe, the non-engaged CVR was around 3% and the engaged was somewhere around 11 or 12. So the cool thing I love about that is that it just reinforces why it’s very important to leverage your already existing traffic. So you already have people coming from email. You obviously have people coming from organic. But what is happening in their onsite experience is super important in their conversion journey and we’re going to get into that in here in just a little bit. But I just wanted to kind of preface you guys with this data so that you can understand really how important that engagement, setting up an engagement, whether it’s from new traffic or people you already have on your list– how important that is for your bottom line.

Isa: And Erica said, “God, I love learning new things like this, smiley face,” when your graph came up. So excellent.

Jenna: Sweet.

Isa: So now we’re going to talk about some e-commerce lead capture best practices. So if you’re wondering, “Okay. I want my graphs to look like that. How do I do that? How do I [include?] more of my sales?”

Jenna: Yeah, absolutely.

Isa: So we’re going to talk about some of those things that work really well. One of them is contests. Jenna, any thoughts on what makes a good contest versus a bad contest?

Jenna: So contests– I mean, really, it just kind of boils down to the main rule that I say and I already touched on for all offers is that, “Make it irresistible. Make it very difficult for that user to say no to.” And additionally, it’s like I said earlier with [inaudible] is that they were truly solving a pain point. So if your contest– maybe it’s not necessarily solving a pain point, but you can really tap into those personality traits of your ideal customer, those people that have the highest average order value. Analyze those people. Learn what they like. Learn where they like to go. If you are an outdoors company, which I think we had an example– I’m not sure if that’s on a [next slide, Ysa?] but like a [surf and stuff?] company. We had [an?] [inaudible] example.

Isa: Yeah, there it is.

Jenna: Okay. Cool deal. And yeah, I mean they run packages. They run destinations. It’s really difficult for somebody to say no to that kind of stuff. And all they have to do is enter the email. It’s not asking for a ton of information. So it’s super low barrier to entry, and it’s very interesting for that person. So I mean those are my best tips is just really make it difficult to say no to. I don’t know if you have any experience or thoughts on that. You said feel free to [inaudible] if you do.

Isa: I agree 100%, and I think what I heard you say as well that is my biggest thing is it being really targeted and really specific to what your business is. And that’s what this example shows. It’s an inflatable travel package. So that’s pretty specific. It’s not too general. They sell these [powder?] boards. And I don’t even know inflatable travel package. I don’t even totally know what that means. I’m not the ideal customer [laughter], but I love that. So that’s a good thing. If everyone doesn’t immediately get what you’re giving away, but your people get it, you’re using they’re language, I think that is a really, really great [contest?]. Because also, you want to make sure you get the right subscribers. You don’t need everybody. You just need the people who are truly interested in your business and your products. So you don’t want your [contest?] to be too broad. I think it should be really targeted to your people. And just like Jenna said, asking them, getting to know more about them is the best way [too?].

Jenna: Yeah. And Isa, I’d actually like to pause for a second. I’m going to answer this question Brenda asked that she’s confused, honestly, at what is just– so I apologize. I don’t guess I did a very good job of explaining exactly what we are in the intro. But just so you know, what we do is we are a lead acquisition tool or a conversion reoptimization tool. So we help you capture leads. And then, we also help you nurture those leads through your marketing funnel. So if you want to call us a pop-up company, fine, but we do a lot more– we do a lot more than just that. So like the example you’re seeing on screen right now, this pop-up solution that comes from our software, we integrate with lots of [ESPs?]. We integrate with lots of data tools. So we basically help you convert your traffic, and then, show targeted offers to that traffic. Does that help, Brenda?

Isa: That helped me. So I don’t know. It’s really good. And Jenna, [inaudible] showing you all some stuff in screen share at the end. It will really make it clearer. That’s when I got really excited when she showed me all of that. I was like, “Oh, my god. This is so cool.” So she will show you. You all will see inside of it. So if you’re still wondering, we’re going to actually show you how they connect, and you’ll get a really good idea of how it works. It is hard sometimes to visualize it until you see it. So don’t worry. We’re going to show you that. And that’s one of the things that [inaudible] does, right, is helping with mirroring marketing messaging [which?] [crosstalk] really cool thing. So can you tell us about that, Jenna?

Jenna: Yeah. So this is one thing I love to talk about because lots of people kind of pigeonhole our tool as just a pop-up tool which it is, and that’s how we started. But we’ve gotten so much more robust, and targeted, and really built some cool features to make you guys what I like to call smarter marketers. So a cool thing that we’ve recently started talking more about is how we can personalize the offers that you see on screen based on the acquisition source. So here in the graphic, if you see this bar that’s running across the top of the page that says 10% off ugly Christmas suits, and then, it has a coupon code, that’s a Justuno offer. We call those Uno bars. So the cool thing that we can do with our tool is pull in any type of [UTM?] information that you are using. So how that relates to convert kit, for example, if you build an email campaign, and you have a marketing team, or you’re marketing [inaudible] you’ll probably be using UTM codes. [inaudible]–

Isa: [crosstalk] what does that mean if someone has no idea or they’re just doing it themselves? What is a UTM?

Jenna: Yes. I actually would need to look up the abbreviation for that.

Isa: That’s okay if you don’t know what it means.

Jenna: I think it’s universal tracking something. So somebody can help me out and google it for us and answer in the chat. But what it means is when you are doing a targeted marketing campaign it helps you track your ROI. So, for example, if you’re dumping a ton of money into Facebook you can build all of those links that link back to your site with specific UTM codes so you can say here’s the source. Here’s the campaign term. So what was the campaign about? And then that way when you look in Google Analytics is really where I’ve been more familiar with checking it is that you can check the performance of those campaigns. So once people came through that specific URL how long did they stay on site. Did they buy something? Did they exit? Did they browse three more pages? There’s tons of data that you can grasp off of those codes and it’s super easy to build if your current ESP doesn’t or if whatever marketing system you’re using doesn’t offer that you can just use the Google URL builder I think it’s called which is a free tool. Anybody can use it and you can build them to use on whatever campaign.

Jenna: So the cool piece about just we can play off of those terms so, for example, if somebody searching here in Google ugly Christmas suit and you have a Google Adwords campaign targeting that keyword phrase then that’s going to be specified in a UTM code for you. We can then take that UTM code [inaudible] into the design with just a little piece of shortcode says UTM equals whatever you want it to be and then when the user clicks through from that ad you’re going to see the exact term or whatever text you want to specify here that mirrors that messaging. So what that means is that their shopping experience is getting a lot more streamlined and we see that those people are a lot more likely to convert versus they google ugly Christmas suit click on your ad and then they land on a shorts page and they’re like what the heck? So really leveraging this functionality is super key for you to make better use of your other marketing dollars. So here I have ad examples but it absolutely works with email even better I think and most ESPs and [inaudible] I’m not sure if you know this off the top of your head but most ESPs automatically generate a UTM code when somebody clicks through and I’ll talk more about that later once we look at the integration between [inaudible] and just– but yeah. That’s really how we like to serve personalized offers based on that data.

Isa: I love that. Anna said, “Oh, my gosh. That’s amazing,” and said that’s enterprise level stuff. It really is. So if any of you are like, “UTM codes,” someone was like, “Oh, that makes my head hurt,” I just want you all to know this is something that might require a little more research and more training but I want to encourage you that what you’re getting is advanced upcoming next level stuff. This is where things are going. This kind of personalization. This is a big deal so don’t worry if you didn’t get it all in five minutes. So we’ll take a little bit more but at least now you know the main goal is knowing that this is a thing that is working really well and kind of where things are going personalization.

Jenna: Yeah. And just to be clear you said in the UTM piece is that there’s a part of just that will recognize that automatically for you so if you don’t even know what that is don’t even worry about it. I’m just saying if you want to get more granular you can. If you’re just like hey, I just want to set it up and go only use the UTM that’s generated. Perfect, we can do that too.

Isa: Oh, that’s cool.

Jenna: So don’t stress.

Isa: That’s awesome. So it’ll generate automatically?

Jenna: Yeah, and I’ll show that later when we do the screen share.

Isa: Cool. Love it. Another thing that you can do is maybe give away a product guide or something that is helping people learn more about shopping for the kinds of products you sell, or making the right decisions, or even caring for it in some way. Free stuff, samples, that might not be realistic for everybody, but if there is something that makes sense that you could give away for free or even maybe a sample of what you do, that can be really effective when we’re talking lead capture. And then once you get their emails, what happens next? You’re going to want to send them emails that really work to build that relationship and get them to buy your stuff. And how you get them from email to purchase is by using something called automations, which really just means setting up emails that are going to automatically go out to the right people at the right time. And that’s something that we’re going to be showing you as well.

Isa: And this is an example that I wanted to showcase from one of our customers who’s doing email marketing really, really well. She recently quit her job and made this her full-time living. And we actually sat down and talked about this and she told me she had competitors joining her email list, trying to figure out what in the world is she doing? Because it’s working so well. So now you’re going to know. And it’s surprisingly simple. So you can see here– now her product is digital, so she’s able to give it away for free, so that works for her, but you can imagine this as whatever opt-in works best for you. This is her lead capture, it’s in the front of her website, and a [inaudible] one, like you can see, they look pretty cool. So I would recommend checking those out. But this is just a basic one.

Isa: And then here is the emails that she sends. And this will look really familiar when I show you in screen share how you would set it up in ConvertKit. But basically she is giving away free patterns, and then she delivers those free patterns in an email. And this is what she told me -some of the really standout quotes for what is happening to her – is that she feels like her email campaigns have actually turned her customers into superfans. And that sounds very much like what someone was saying earlier about those journals. You really actually feel connected to this company, and that is what has been happening for Melissa as well. Also, her open rates and her click rates are up, and she actually switched from another provider that was more image-based. And you can certainly add images and add templates to your ConvertKit emails, but it defaults to be very, very simple, to feel like a real person is emailing you. And for Melissa, she was nervous about that. She was like, “I don’t know, I’m more of a product business and we’ve got to have our pretty, flashy emails. And I don’t know about this.” She really wasn’t sure. And she was blown away that her revenue increased, her engagement was through the roof, because all of a sudden they felt like they were actually getting an email from a person. And that was something that people were really, really connecting with. And she was getting replies. And that might not be right for every business – you definitely have to have the bandwidth to handle that – but this has been a really good revenue generating thing for Melissa, is having people reply to her emails. And she’s learning from her customers, adjusting along the way, and building these long-term relationships.

Isa: And she said that one of her best emails of this whole email sequence that I’m showing you was just her second email of, “Hey, what did you think of that thing that I just gave you for free?” And people replied to that and are blown away that a business, a person, is asking what did they think? And that was something that really, really has changed the way her business is run, and changed her relationship with customers. So even if you’re selling products people still want to have that kind of connection with a brand and this is a really great way to do it by sending these emails and talking like a real person. And her emails, therefore, feel less sales-y which have actually led to more sales, which in some ways I think even surprised her.

Isa: And so here are some of the emails that she sends. You can see she gets the free patterns then asks– wants to check in, how did you like it? And then she kind of gives some education. And it’s giving people value whether or not they buy from her. And that’s an attitude that actually leads to a lot of people buying things from people. So really going into that and thinking about how can your emails add value? And that’s where we were talking about Skinny Me Tea as well, and one of the things they’re doing really well is they’re educating in addition to selling. And this is a really great way to build trust and build sales. You can see Melissa, she is obviously attracting seamstresses and asks like, “Who helped you during your last sewing crisis?” So again, it’s that targeted thing, right? That other contest talking about inflatable things. I didn’t really know totally what that meant. Last sewing crisis? I don’t sew, so that doesn’t relate to me. That’s a good thing. People who sew, they have crises. And so this subject line speaks to them. And she’s giving them value. She actually has a Facebook group where she’s saying, “Hey, come on over. This is a group that whether or not buy stuff from us will help you through your sewing crises.” So again, you’re adding value, not just selling through your emails. And this, according to Melissa, actually leads to even more sales.

Isa: And then this is the part where she sells her thing more directly. And it’s come after a couple emails that are just educating and helping. And for her, her opt-in is giving away something free, so her offer comes later. You could do it differently. There’s no one right way to do this. This is just one example that I hope inspires you. But you can read this email and you can see it’s not a flashy billboard. It’s really written like Melissa, which has really been incredibly effective for her. She even signs it XOXO. And that’s her and that’s her brand. So don’t sign it that way if that’s not something you would actually do or say. But people can read that. And so if you’re the one writing those emails or your brand has a very particular voice, really using that in emails is really, really effective in building your sales. And you can see she also has this exclusive, limited one-time-only coupon. So urgency, those things work really, really well. Anything that’s a limited-time offer, something that expires. Those things work really, really well at the end of email sequences too. So you definitely want to educate but of course don’t be afraid to make it really clear what you’re selling, what you’re giving, when it ends, and make sure that is really, really clear for people. And remember, if they’re opening that email and it’s your second or third email in the sequence, they’re into this and so you can really let them know how they can work with you more and how they can buy more of your things that they’re interested in.

Isa: And then after that email, Melissa keeps sending them helpful emails. So keep on helping. Just like we talked about website visitors, just because someone doesn’t buy in the first email that you’re telling them to go back and buy your products doesn’t mean they’re not going to buy later. So continue adding value. Someone asked earlier in the chat, “How do you know how many emails to send without being annoying?” And I want to encourage you that what people find more annoying is when people only email them when they have something to sell. So you don’t have to worry too much about that. The thing you should only be worried about is adding value to people and not just going in their inbox when you want something from them, but really thinking about what can you give away for free? What can you teach? How can you help? How can you add value? Once a week will not annoy people if you’re really providing value. And then, of course, you can tell them when you’re having great sales and exciting things going on too.

Isa: And then she just continues to add– in those helpful emails, by the way, in her PPS she’s like, “By the way, the offer.” So she’s still reminding them, but it’s not the core focus of every single email, which I just love. So I’m going to show you how you could set up a sequence like this and then Jenna is going to show you how ConvertKit and Justuno work together. It’s quite magical and you can see exactly what Justuno does to help you kind of implement some of this stuff that we’re talking about. Jenna, anything you want to add while I’m sharing my demo?

Jenna: Yeah, just that so yes, we’re going to show you exactly how it works. I know there’s been a couple questions here on the chat and in the Q&A how we work together. So we’ll get to that. And it really helps to see a visual so we’ll take a look. The other important I wanted to call out, Yuset, is the email text you just showed was awesome because that lady was offering a specific code, a 40% off in a welcome code, and the important thing I wanted to touch on with the mirror, the email messaging, is to reflect that type of messaging onsite. In that way, the transition is just seamless. Maybe it’s in the PPS in the email. But if she clicks through when she visits the site, it will be there floating around while she travels through the site. So just kind of a subtle reminder, but yeah. Ultimately, it should end in the conversion. So I’ll let you go ahead and show us how to build that, and then I’ll show you guys how to build the offer.

Isa: Yay. And then we’ll share with you the free stuff. So this is ConvertKit. This is my demo account dashboard, and I’m going to click on New Automation. This is our visual automations editor. It’s the really easy way to set up your email funnels. So I’m going to start by creating a new automation, and I’m going to start with a form. I’m going to create a new form here. And since we’re talking of Justuno integration, I’m just going to make any old simple form. I don’t really have to do anything. I just need to make the form and name it. So I’m just going to name it JUTEST, and I’m going to go ahead and save that, and that’s it. That’s all I have to do for that. Jenna will take over in just a second, and you’ll see how that will all connect. So Justuno and ConvertKit will talk to each other. And when people sign up for your Justuno form, then they’ll get whatever emails you designate below the form.

Isa: So I’m going to add them to an email sequence, and I have created an e-commerce welcome sequence for you. So I’m going to add that right here. And if you click on that, you can see– if you were making it new, it would just pop-up right here, and all you would do is just add– click add email. Just like that, and add whatever emails you would like to send. And you can see you can change the delay, you can change what days, whatever works for you. But here’s kind of a very simple idea of a welcome sequence you could do for an e-commerce business. And again, this is just an example. There’s no one right way to do this. But if you’re like, “I have no idea where to start,” this will hopefully give you an idea based on what we have seen working really well with people who are earning a living online, and are earning a living with their e-commerce business, and in this really unique way of really building relationships through content which really can make you stand out. So it’s not something everyone’s doing.

Isa: So one email can be kind of quick question, or why we, or why I. So maybe you’re beginning to tell your story. That’s another thing. If you’re connected with your business or you can tell your founder’s story, people love to know. What was the pain point that now made this company exist, and why was it created? This can be really, really helpful to people, connecting with that potential customer, maybe explaining your mission. And here you can ask them for some feedback. So if you have the capacity to handle replies, I highly recommend doing this. Just ask a good question. And you can see this little template is Paragraph 1, Paragraph 2? In the email land, a paragraph could be one sentence. These do not need to be long. It probably shouldn’t be too long. So you can keep it really, really simple. This can also be that email depending on what you’re giving away. That could be, “Hey, what did you think?” The next email might be talking about that pain point. What is it that are bringing people to you? What is the pain point? And for some products, that might be really dramatic. For some, it might just be, “I need a better paddleboard.” What is the pain point? Really think about it, what’s bothering people, and where does your products– whose problems do they solve, and what do they solve. And you can really speak about that, and talk about that, and educate your customer about that pain point regardless of whether they buy from you. And then of course, tell them where they can buy from you, and maybe you have a special offer. But even if you can’t do that, that’s okay. You still want to be educating and telling them where they can go get this product that will help solve that problem.

Isa: And then another idea of an email is maybe you tell a customer’s story. Maybe someone who has used your paddleboards and what they loved about it. Just a quick testimonial, and then again another pain point, maybe a little bit more education, whatever works for you. You can also link to maybe some of your best blog posts. If you’re already an e-commerce program that’s blogging and doing that, this can be a place where you’re just directing people to some of the helpful content that already exists. And then you want to continue to educate and by the way, this email is kind of meant to be that really strong call to action. You’re giving testimonials, you’re sharing results, you’re saying, “Look what your life could be like if you had one of my amazing products.” And then you want to continue educating, helping, just like Melissa did. You don’t want to just go silent after you’ve tried to sell them and they didn’t buy. You want to let them know, “I’m still here for you, whether you buy or not.” So that when they are ready, they will remember you.

Isa: So that is an example of that. And some of you are like, “Oh, can I see more of this?” I might have a bonus for you where you can get that kind of template to use for yourself. So hang on and that will be coming soon. So, this is as simple as it is to set up your email sequence. And now I’m going to turn it over to Jenna, who’s going to show you how you make this form connect with a Justuno form so that then they get this sequence or whatever sequence you make for those people. So, I’m excited for this. This is where you see the magic, how two softwares work together. Which I am a nerd so I just still think it’s so cool.

Jenna: No. Yeah, me too. And I think the visual element will really help people here. So Isa I will keep it– I’d like to kind of try and run with the example that you had there in the email text. So, it’s not exactly what I planned on but I’ll try. Let’s see how it works. So, yeah, the campaign that you showed us Isa, in this email campaign this woman was offering a 40% off for being a new visitor. So obviously she already took the step of acquiring that customer, right? And they funneled into her new visitor flow and site of convert kit. In that flow, she was offering them a 40% discount on a purchase. So what we can do now is set up an offer to show that coupon code when they arrive on site. So let’s just call this– Sorry, let me back up a step here. Once you’re inside, you’ve set up your Justuno account. Mine looks kind of crazy like Isa’s because it’s a demo account, so it’s a little bit cluttered. But I’m not going to give you a complete tutorial but you’ll head to the promotions tab and then just new promotion. We’ve just released a new creation wizard so that’s going to be the process I go through here. Otherwise, you can choose a prebuilt promotion or import a promotion if you already have something that you like.  So let’s just call this one welcome 40 and click get started. Are you guys seeing my screen okay?

Isa: Yes, it looks beautiful.

Jenna: Great. So you can choose your device type. At Justuno, we separate, we make it mandatory that you have to have separate offers for desktop and mobile because those are completely different experiences. Google also evaluates your website completely different on how users behave on those sites and what offers they see, so we make it mandatory that you build these separately. It doesn’t mean you have to recreate. We have a feature where you can just duplicate your offer and then tweak it for mobile, but just so you’re aware.

Jenna: Okay, since we are doing a reminder of the welcome 40, what I would like to do is a banner for that person when they arrive on site. So here I’m going to select banner. Oops, I selected bottom of page by accident. I want to do top of page. So you have a choice here. I’ll select top of page. And then please select a goal for this promotion. So do we want lead capture? Well, we’ve already established that the woman from Isa’ campaign has already captured that lead. She’s already in the welcome campaign, so now what we want to focus on is nurturing and making sure she is receiving that mirrored messaging, as we like to call it so here I’m going to click website messaging and then you can select a theme. I’m going to go ahead and start with this one, and anything you select you can tweak it and customize it to [inaudible] your branding and everything. The next piece is going to be user audience. You have several options here. You can choose one of these. You can build a basic audience or build advanced audience later. What I’m going to do is click on build basic audience because we want to– this is where I was talking about the UTM piece. I’m going to select on a specific page. And here’s the key part, choose who. We’re going to click all visitors and choose traffic source. Now I’m going to select email. Now what Justuno does automatically, for those of you who have no clue what UTM codes are, Justuno will automatically pull UTM equals email here. So anybody clicking through from convert kit will fall into that category. If you have a marketing team or you’re marketing savvy, whatever, and you want to narrow down by campaign, here is where you can add the other details of your tracking URL.

Isa: And Jenna, Anna said I’ve spent literally hours putting stuff like this together. It’s amazing to see it simplified like this.

Jenna: Awesome. I’ll tell my development team [laughter]. That’s good news. Yeah. We try to make it easy for people because your time is better spent optimizing your offers and tweaking things like that, not worrying so much about this kind of stuff. Okay, cool. So that ensures that we’re only going to show it to people coming from email. I’m going to click review and save. And now this heads into the design portion. Here you can see we have very basic editing capabilities. And again, I won’t go into a lot of this stuff for you guys because we don’t have time to do that. But if you go back out here and you can edit the text that you want to do. Obviously we’re not going to put thanks but since she was already an email visitor but we can say, “Hey. Don’t forget your code.” Click save. I’ll have to edit that. It’s aligned into the right but I can show you guys how to do that. And then for coupons, here’s where we want to enter the code that you’re getting from your email. So she was saying [use code welcome 40?]. So we just enter that here. And what that does on a Justuno side is anytime the user clicks it, it’s automatically copied to the clipboard.

Isa: Not just the pop-up. That’s so cool.

Jenna: Yeah [laughter]. Well then you can save. Obviously, you can edit all of that stuff. I don’t have time to do that now. You can click save. If you’d like to, you can also go into our design canvas. I’ll just show you guys what that looks like. This is where I prefer to work. If you like to have more control over your design, this is very similar to kind of like a Photoshop interface. It’s not as intimidating as Photoshop though so don’t freak out about that [laughter]. But this is where you can edit all the features of your offer and make sure that it’s looking exactly like you want it to. We work with layers as well kind of similar to Photoshop. And let’s see, okay. Yeah. And then if you ever wanted to add a layer or anything, you’ll get this additional alignment, color options, all of this good stuff to make your offer really great over here on the right. Once you have this looking like you wanted, sorry my zoom bar is getting in the way, then you can just click save and go to the next step. The next step is the rule. We’ve already built the rule on the first part but if you want to go in here and edit again, you just click action edit and this will take you back to that. Then we’re just going to go ahead and click done. The next step– you guys don’t have to worry about this because we already– oh, actually, I’m sorry. I’m missing the key part of the integration.

Isa: No this was so cool. This was like–

Jenna: All right, guys.

Isa: –impromptu. I love this, Jennifer.

Jenna: Yeah. I’m so sorry. Well, and this one, actually, because it’s a coupon code, we don’t need to show the integration here because it’s just messaging. So that was my fault. Let’s go–

Isa: No, I’m glad you did that because that is so cool. It shows what else you all do and–

Jenna: It does.

Isa: –I think that’s incredibly valuable. So I’m glad we started there. And then we can end by showing them exactly, like you said, how it integrates, so that if you’re using just– for your lead capture– using one of those beautiful forms. That was, if you remember, that automation I made. Jen is going to show you now how you could use just you know for your form, and then it would connect to that automation, and then anyone who signed up for that would get that welcome sequence that I made. So Jen’s going to show you that now.

Jenna: So I’m sorry about that. Let’s go ahead and–

Isa: No, that was so cool. Going [inaudible]. That was cool. [inaudible] that’s amazing.

Jenna: That’s how that one works. Okay. So let’s do one– I’m going through the same process. So this one we’re going to call welcome. I’m just going to select a full-screen offer. Now if you remember this step, we had the choice between lead capture website messaging– because we were using– we were looking to reflect the coupon code from the email, we chose website messaging. Now we’re going to kind of reverse and say, “Okay, this is for new leads. This is for people who are new to my site. I need to capture them.” So the next question you’re going to see is, “Hey, do you want to just do a standard–” and what a standard is is just email and submission. You may get a thank-you screen– or do you want to do what we call a two-step offer, which is an intro screen, the email screen, and then a thank-you. A tip is that these convert much better. So I would suggest adding a intro screen.

Jenna: We have themes for you guys to choose from. Again, you can just start with one and then tweak it to your design desires. So let’s go ahead and do this one since this one has an intro screen I like. And again you can choose your targeting role. I’m going to select new visitors. Okay. So now we’re back to the kind of quick edits that we wanted to do. So we can just use that portion to edit the design and all of that– I won’t get into that again because we already went through it quickly. So there are two ways you can integrate. First is you can click this integrations buttons and it’s going to bring up the option for you to connect. Or if you’re in the design canvas, you can also integrate that way. Let me show you how to do that one because that’s a little bit different. So you can just do that. Click that quick button. Or if you’re in the design canvas, all you need to do is find the form. So you’ll see here, we’re on the intro screen. Click the pre-engagement screen, which is going to be the second piece. Click your form and then go to Change Form. There you’ll be able to connect to your [ESP?] and in this case we have ConvertKit. And [inaudible]’s asking me to log in. Let me stop screen share really quick, so I don’t give away my credentials.

Isa: [inaudible]. So what Jen is doing is– the platform’s going to ask for her login or your API. And so, in ConvertKit, under settings, you’ll see your API code, and that is how software talks each other all around the internet, is through this thing called API. So all you need to know– you don’t need to know what it means. You just have to copy and paste it, and if you saw Jen’s then you could like take over her account. So we don’t want to do that.

Jenna: Yeah. [inaudible].

Isa: Also, Stanley is very excited about API. I love Amazon delivery a lot. Stanley, not so much much, so sorry about that.

Jenna: I got Amazon today too. Okay, can you guys see my screen again? Okay, great. So once you connect via your API, it’s just going to recognize your account. What that does, it’s going to pull up all of your lists. So the list that you saw Isa working with was a new visitor list. It was a campaign for those people to fall into. So I’m just going to go down to one that we created. Again, this is a development account, so there’s a lot of stuff. I’m just going to select the one that she created, which was JU Test. Select that. So that means that any opt-ins that give their email information will be pushed to that list. The second screen we have here are tags. So you can actually apply tags as well to that contact after they opt in. Or you can create a tag from the [inaudible] interface as well that will populate then back to ConvertKit. So it will apply to your contact and then will also push back to ConvertKit for you to use again if you’d like. So you might be wondering, okay, what kind of tag could I use? So I’m just going to use the test one that we built here, but if it’s a person, for example, that is receiving a discount and they’ve opted into a discount, you might want to tag them, “discount.” Why would you do that? It helps you segment your users on the back end. And Isa, you could probably talk a little bit more to that, but for example, if you wanted to send out a campaign to all the people that have opted into your discounts, you could probably do that based on tags. Can you do that, Isa? Is that correct?

Isa: Absolutely you can. That is one of our favorite things about ConvertKit and what people love the most, is tags, so that you’re tagging people based on maybe where they’ve come from, what kind of offer, what kind of products they’re most interested, depending on what kind of breadth you have in your e-commerce site, you could have a tag for people who just really like rings. And anytime you have a special on rings, you send them something. Or people who really prefer bracelets. You can go as nitty gritty as you want. The possibilities are endless, which is why we don’t have a ton of examples, because it just depends on your business. But it’s like what we’ve been talking about this whole time, who people really are, and really personalizing everything to who they are and what they’re interested.

Jenna: Exactly. And maybe for some of you that’s a more advanced step, after you’ve taken your first step with getting an initial offer set up, but it just goes to show that these tools actually enable you to be smarter, which helps you get more return on the dollars you’re already spending. So if you’re spending a ton on ads, it’s actually going to help you not feel so bad about dumping all that money into ads and not seeing any sales. Okay, so back on the integration standpoint. Once you select your tags, you’re going to then see a screen that just kind of gives you a preview of what your form fields are. So we have the email address, the field name, we have that it’s required. And then we also have the option to load additional fields. So this is another cool thing about [inaudible], is that we allow you to gather data on your opt-ins that you can then use to segment even further and also market smarter, as I keep saying.

Jenna: But a good example is IP address. So you can grab these people’s IP address. We’ll make this hidden. We want to auto-populate it with the IP address. You can also see the other fields that we can populate. So current URL, first URL, [the visitor land on referring?], promotion name, coupon code. All of this informs your marketing after that person comes in. So if you say, “Okay, they came in on the WELCOME40 coupon code,” great. Now I know where they need to go in their next piece of the journey. So these are all options. I’m just using IP address as an example. That helps for people who like to do geotargeting. So if you want to show an offer to a certain region of the US, or you want to exclude showing free shipping from certain things, we can do that this way. We can also do that via targeting roles. Great, so this is all done, and then you’re just going to click, “Create Form.” And then you’ll just have to rearrange these guys since you reset them, and you can just do that by clicking and dragging, and go through the same process here as– okay, I’m ready, save, next, you’ll choose your targeting roles, and then publish.

Isa: And so the way you set that up, Jenna, that form, anyone who subscribes on that will then get the welcome sequence that we made earlier, right?

Jenna: That’s correct. They will fall right into that sequence and like you said, Isa, inside ConvertKit, they don’t need to do anything to the form. Just set it up and aim it, because the aesthetic part, like the design part and all of that, will happen on Justuno. So if it looks straight up ugly, it’s just one field and an ugly button, great. We can make it pretty in Justuno. So don’t even worry about it over there.