Email 4 Startups: Marketing Hell Week at 500 Startups Susan Su
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With 4 billion accounts worldwide, email is STILL the highest ROI channel there is. This deck outlines psychological triggers and email "MUST DOs" for startups. Topics: email acquisition, marketing, lead gen, lead nurturing, email conversion, open rate optimization, for startups.
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Email 4 Startups: Marketing Hell Week at 500 Startups Susan Su
- 1. SUSAN SU
- 2. EMAIL = Email is the highest ROI channel there is ● no display algorithms to ‘game’ ● highly trackable -- even 1:1 emails ● 4 billlllllion accounts worldwide ● 25% of these are BUSINESS accounts
- 5. Email WHAT IS EMAIL MARKETING? BLAST! Good email marketing: ● extends beyond any single standalone blast ● campaigns that show u know WHO ur subscribers really are, and WHERE they are in their user lifecycle
- 6. Rome wasn’t built in a single email. EMAIL CAMPAIGNS CAMPAIGNS Welcome Onboarding / Activation Engagement Reactivation Transactional
- 7. Welcome — Confirm signup, set the email expectations Onboarding campaign — multi-installment series that gets subscribers to your activation threshold Engagement campaign — emails that get subs to your next activation threshold — from 1st time to repeat users Reactivation — incentivized wake-up for dormant users Retention — event-based triggers aimed at retain users about to drop off Conversion — “the hard sell” Referral — acquisition Transactional — password, receipt, account details (opportunity to convince & convert) EMAIL CAMPAIGNS
- 8. EMAIL IS A FUNNEL. Very few people buy at the top of the funnel.
- 10. THIS ONE WORKED
- 11. 1. ABC: Always Be Collecting ● Persistent across site ● As a call to action on any content marketing ● Popups work ● On EVERY staff’s profiles and email signatures ● Paid acquisition campaigns -- promote an offer ● Offline works too ● LinkedIn trick
- 12. 1. ABC: Always Be Collecting ● Persistent across ur site ● Popups works ● On EVERY staff’s profiles and signatures ● Paid acquisition campaigns ● Offline works too GOLDEN RULES OF CONTENT MARKETING
- 13. 2. Subject lines MATTER. But they don’t just impact open rates. They impact a subscriber’s perception of your ENTIRE email. Subject line testing isn’t just about boosting open rates, but boosting total conversions. IT’S A FUNNEL -- First 10-15 characters MOST important: use action words.
- 14. RECIPROCITY How to get 25K visitors/month -- new ebook, no charge
- 16. SOCIAL PROOF
- 17. LIKING Praise, association, familiarity, similarity
- 18. AUTHORITY Get YOUR MBA in Internet Marketing... Warren Buffet on Goals... ...Career Advice from Barack Obama
- 19. SCARCITY 24 hours left… Last chance...
- 20. FEARS & ASPIRATIONS 7 Biggest Time Wasters for Social Media Marketers -- Is This YOU? vs. 7 Ways to Save More Time and Be a Superstar Social Media Marketer
- 21. SNOOZE
- 22. 3. Target and segment Don’t be random. Some targeting you can do: ● demo ● based on previous behavior (open, click, buy) ● based on events outside of email (ie, where did they come from)
- 23. 4. Measure what matters ● OPENS. Standard open rate is below 30%. ● CLICKS ● CONVERSIONS ● SUBSCRIBES ● UNSUBSCRIBES ● REPLIES
- 24. 5. MUST. TEST. 1. Subject line: copy, length, emotion 2. CTA: language, size, color, commitment level 3. Content layout 4. Content length 5. Show prices vs. not 6. Simple vs complex 7. More vs fewer choices 8. Send time / day 9. Personalization 10. “From” name PS -- Intuition still matters.
- 25. 6. CONTENT MATTERS ● subject line ● preview text ● IMAGES ● body ● always have a CTA → one email, one CTA ● include link reminding people who you are & what you do
- 26. 7. Mobile FIRST Over 65% of email gets opened on mobile FIRST. ● ALWAYS TEST mobile ● Responsive layout ● Content brevity (short <p>) ● Subject, preview & sender are mobile- optimized ● High open rate but low click rate…?
Editor's Notes
- The Challenges in email marketing are BIG. It starts with deliverability, but this is a short talk, so I’ll assume you know about things like http://mail-tester.com and making “Reply to this email to say hi” and “Add us to your contacts” your first and most important calls to action. But after your email gets delivered, there are still more challenges. The reality is that the average person gets over 500 marketing emails per month -- that’s the AVERAGE person, not your recipient, who might get even more if they’re in tech or an especially valuable demographic. How do you get people to actually OPEN the emails you’ve painstakingly written and scheduled? Average open rates across many industries hover around 23 to 25 percent. You’ll get a higher open rate if your list is nicely targeted (a bigger subscriber acquisition question), and you’ll get a higher open rate if your brand is well regarded in its niche (ie, a recognized and liked FROM name). But what if you’re a startup just starting out, and you have none of this going for you? The number ONE problem in most startups’ email marketing is that they’re not doing it. But once they start, they face an even bigger problem -- one that’s much more insidious and a lot harder to solve than just setting up your first welcome email or onboarding campaign. As a founder, or the growth person in a startup, you’re 100% focused on your startup, its woes and its needs. The problem is, your email list doesn’t give a crap about your needs, your woes, or even what your company’s name is or what it does.
- It’s your job to get inside their heads, speak THEIR language, speak to THEIR problems, and irresistibly hypnotize them with your customer clairvoyance. In today’s talk, we’re going to look at 8 email conversion techniques from a bunch of businesses that are never going to get written up in TechCrunch or Mattermark Daily. We’re going to look at real examples breaking down the social psychology behind a group of online marketers for the most part flying under the startup radar, but who are printing more money from words than most startups can get their Series A investors to commit. Let’s take a look at the first example.
- Email marketing is just blasting emails out to people, right? WRONG. Good email marketing isn’t about blasting anything. And Good email marketing extends way beyond any single standalone MESSAGE or BLAST. GREAT email marketing shows you know WHO your subscribers are, WHAT they fear and desire, WHERE they’re at in their user lifecycle, and WHERE they need to be next to HELP them achieve the reason they came to you in the first place.
- Conversion doesn’t happen from a single email. Just like marriage USUALLY doesn’t happen from the first date. LIKEWISE Email ROI doesn’t happen in a single email. Here’s a breakdown of a FEW of the types of campaigns you can send to subscribers. Each of these campaign types can have a lot of single messages strung together within them.
- Here’s a quick outline of the PURPOSE for each campaign type. Again, just like you wouldn’t (normally) get married from the first date, you shouldn’t expect a single standalone email to work to 100% achieve these purposes.
- Like everything in marketing -- and maybe in life? -- EMAIL IS A FUNNEL. Very few people buy at the top of any funnel. The purpose of ALL campaigns -- and, later, event- and behavior-based segmentation -- is to guide people along your conversion funnel.
- It takes multiple tries. most people only open every other email from you, even if they’re an engaged subscriber
- There’s nothing better or magical about this second email -- except REPETITION. A NOTE ABOUT EMAIL RETARGETING. you can retarget people who did or didn’t open your emails, did or didn’t click on a certain thing, or really any other trackable behavior under the sun. Just use custom audiences on FB or twitter. Probably FB
- of those of you who said you’re collecting emails, how many of you are collecting in one place? In multiple places? How many of you are using exit intent? The point is, i hear a lot of people complain -- but waah i don’t have an email list. That can change starting immediately (after this talk). if you have any traffic remotely whatsoever -- or are on other sites that have traffic -- you should have emails.
- This is an example from SumoMe. Great offer messaging on the popup -- learn how to double your traffic. you can easily test this tailor your popup to the landing page -- this increases subscription conversions a LOT. Be unique, be yourself, use natural language.
- Subject line sets up the mindset for consuming the rest of your email. Subject line sets up open rates for subsequent subject lines BEWARE -- spammyness Next we’ll look at a few top internet marketing subject lines that leverage psychological triggers
- This may seem like a simple “ebook freebie” but there’s a lot going on in this example of RECIPROCITY. First, this is the first ‘content’ email that Brian sends after you subscribe to his list. He doesn’t tell you beforehand that you’re going to get info on “how to get 25k visitors / month” for free. Second, the offer is compelling -- 25 thousand visitors a month is a number that seems low enough to be realistic (and not a bombastic exaggeration), but still high enough to get most people’s attention. Brian makes this offer clear and overt right in the subject line, and he softens the “freebie” feel by saying “no charge” instead of “FREE” in all caps. Again, notice that the subject line itself is content-forward, not “FREE” forward. By the way, “FREE” is the key driver behind reciprocity in all situations, whether that’s content in email marketing or just your neighbor lending you a free hand. It’s more than a “hot word,” it’s actually a hot-button concept that piques our receptors whenever and wherever we pick up on it. It’s one of the most effective and high-converting hot button concepts to use in email marketing. But that said, it doesn’t have to be exactly this word “free.” The world of SEO info can be distastefully full of overhype. Brian’s use of “no charge” still hits the FREE hot button, without triggering our “scammy marketing” filters. There’s a lot of strong copy happening in this one single message, especially where he summarizes the specific value of the offer, but I’ll stop here and say as a final word on this example -- the ebook itself is REALLY, TRULY excellently good. It was so good that after I somewhat skeptically downloaded it and skimmed through, I felt immediately compelled to write back to Brian personally and just thank him for making it. Ever since, I’ve felt indebted to spread the good word about his other content, just as I’m doing right now. This is reciprocity in action. By the way, Brian also resends this exact email which is another effective tactic that most startups are afraid to use.
- What does making a commitment mean? Does this really work? People flake out all the time (especially here in California, right?). Some marketers think it means getting a user to agree to a checkbox on the site, but actually it can be a lot more subtle than this. Commitment and consistency has to do with identity as much as it has to do with explicit individual actions. We implicitly commit to an identity with all the things we’ve done in the past. In taking an action, we’re implicitly making a commitment to the identity that that action is associated with. A great example is Jeb Bush’s diet and weight loss commitment. By taking publicly visible actions, he makes an implicit commitment to being a “health conscious” or a “Paleo” eater. He’s obviously under considerable public pressure to keep up his image and stay consistent to his diet even under extremely difficult circumstances like facing a tall stack of pancakes or big piece of blueberry pie on the campaign trail, but the gaze of the public eye isn’t the only thing keeping him in check. There’s also a natural inner drive -- which we all have -- to stay consistent to our implied commitments. Commitment and consistency can be overt, as in explicitly asking subscribers to make a commitment -- to step up their health, to support original artists, or to work harder on their business -- or it can be subtle as in this example from Ramit Sethi. Ramit’s subject line immediately evokes an identity commitment, especially for people who are already part of his audience, but it works for new subscribers as well. You’re committing to being the KIND OF PERSON who isn’t afraid to be excellent, and who isn’t going to shrink away because of what your lesser friends and detractors might say when they find out you’re trying to develop yourself. Oh, and by the way, Ramit is happy to be the person to offer that self development in some products he will tell you about in a few short emails… The point is that Ramit effectively sets up an identity commitment, and then counts on our need to remain consistent to our identity commitments to help drive conversions later on.
- SOCIAL PROOF Most of us know about social proof, or at least we think we do. We humans have evolved as social creatures, surviving best in groups. To this day, no matter how independent we pride ourselves on being, we still look to people around us for cues on how to act or what to think. The asterisk here is WHICH people. The best use of social proof in email marketing leverages dynamics like in-group / out-group, the cool kids and famous people are doing it, and validation by critical mass. Let’s take a look through these 4 subject lines. A critical aspect of social proof is creating an in-group versus an out-group, or “Us” versus “them”. The subject line, “People get mad when you don’t fit in their “box” is draws a subtle but strong line in the sand between the us -- a group that includes the sender and the recipient -- and “them.” Using quotation marks around “box” and “side effects” in the preview text further derides the outgroup and reinforces social belonging. “The cool kids and famous people are doing it” is an approach that we can see in Tout’s email namedropping the Warriors and in Ramit’s preview text namedropping Fortune Magazine. Both instances tell you that this brand is approved by a VIP -- so much so that they want to use the Tout product or follow Ramit around for “several months.” Here, the key is that the VIP has relevant VIP sway with the recipient audience. Finally, one of my favorite newsletters is First Class Flyer, a newsletter and subscription information business about how to game or maximize travel upgrade and reward systems. It’s sold as a membership subscription, so Matthew’s subject line “to all members” is extra effective because although he addresses a specific group, all the rest of us non-members are eavesdropping. From this subject line and preview text, we learn that there were 400 people who got upgraded to Business Class due to a glitch, and although he doesn’t actually say all 400 are FCF members. But he cleverly says “to all the members” in his subject line, and this is a psychological anchor. We *think* or assume that he’s talking about a whole bunch of his own customers who just got a great upgrade, and this is exactly how social proof works best in today’s world where our marketing filters are highly sensitive. Not explicitly as in so and so said Buy this now!, but by proxy.
- LIKING We are more likely to do things for people we like. We’re more likely to believe them, and be persuaded by them. This is the premise behind classic books like How to Win Friends and Influence People, as well as newer works like The Charisma Myth. These books seek to answer the question, How can we get more people to like us MORE (so we can get them to do what we want)? The use of the Like factor is obvious in ads featuring attractive people or in pretty much the entire sales function. But how does it translate to email marketing? In addition to simply adopting a friend-oriented tone, the most effective usages of the Like factor leverage praise, association, familiarity and similarity. Noah’s subject line in this email is one of my favorites of all time. It houses a call-to-action right in the subject, and even though it uses strong language, it’s earnest, straightforward and friendly. He’s calling on association, subtle praise (if you open this email, and work with me, then you’re bold) and of course familiarity. David Deangelo is a marketing pseudonym for Eben Pagan, one of the top internet info marketers of all time. Double Your Dating is an online info business teaching men dating skills and confidence via the “cocky / funny” approach, not to be confused with “Game” or the world of pickup. It’s a $20M annual business, not too bad for a information-only product that is primarily marketed through owned channels like email. In this subject line, Eben leverages association, familiarity and similarity. A “regular-looking guy” is presumably what the subscriber feels himself to be, and also the kind of guy that David DeAngelo is suggesting he himself is. We’re alike, you and I.
- AUTHORITY Authority is communicated in a lot of ways we’re not fully conscious of. Recognized celebrities (like the president, or a news anchor), personal authority figures (parents or teachers), societal authority figures (police, security, clergy -- as demonstrated by uniforms), and wealth or high-status authority. To identify authority, we rely on three pretty simple things: TITLES, CLOTHES, and TRAPPINGS. In a 1968 study, researchers discovered that 50% of drivers stuck behind a luxury car that failed to respond to a green traffic light refrained from honking. Instead they waited respectfully. However, when this happened behind an economy car, nearly all the drivers honked and two even rammed the rear bumper. Celebrities are obvious authority figures today -- and this extends to “celebrity” brands as shown in the General Assembly subject line here -- but here are a few examples of authority words that might be relevant to your field: doctor, researcher, scientist, CEO, CTO and maybe even investor.
- SCARCITY Scarcity is the most well-known and probably the most widely used psychological trigger by your average email marketer. We’ve all received emails around holidays -- just two days left to shop for delivery by Christmas. The Deadline Technique is so widely used, and misused, that I personally believe we’re becoming numb to it -- not because it doesn’t work, but because we no longer believe the deadlines to be 100% true. The most effective usages of the Deadline Technique follow through on the promise to expire an offer or an opportunity by the deadline specified. The Limited Number technique is often used together with the Deadline Technique, as you can see in the Harvard Program on Negotiation promo email here. The subject line points to a Deadline while the preview text suggest a limited number of opportunities remaining. By the way, Kickstarter is extra effective at combining Limited Number and Deadline at the same time because they show the actual increase in scarcity as availability and time count down.
- FEAR AND ASPIRATIONS Fears and aspirations aren’t technically part of Cialdini’s classical influence factors, perhaps because they’re less social in nature and outside of the focus of that particular Cialdini work. But, they are powerful behavior triggers used almost constantly by internet marketers turning emails into conversions. Your average email marketers, and even startup email marketer is likely to know they should be using painting a picture of what their customer could become with the help of their product (I hope) -- this is aspiration, plain and simple. But what many startup email marketing fails to do, even when it does call on aspiration, is understand that an aspiration makes the most sense in the context of its opposite -- a fear. In the examples on these slides, fear and aspiration go hand in hand. Eben articulates fear very overtly -- even using the word “FEAR” in the subject lines themselves -- but in each example there is also a “rainbow at the edge of the storm,” the promise of an aspiration if only this fear were overcome. How could startups use the 1-2 punch of Fear and Aspiration? If you’re selling SaaS, a customer fear that you could explicitly spell out might be wasting time, wasting money, leaving money on the table, or looking bad in front of their boss. The aspiration that goes along with this might be doing more visible, impactful work with less busywork, making more sales or generating more leads, or becoming a superstar on the team. But note that your opens and clickthroughs are going to be a lot higher if you lead with FEAR. 7 Biggest Time Wasters for Social Media Marketers -- Are you trapped in one of these? will get more opens than 7 Ways to Save More Time and Be a Superstar Social Media Marketer
- Snooze emails I think what happens a lot of times with startup email marketing -- by which I mean you haven’t yet built your email marketing machine -- is that we look at the promotional stuff we get in our own inboxes and copy. I’ve seen a lot of early companies echo the style, tone, calls-to-action and other elements of mainstream brand emailers that may or may not be in their category. I’m thinking, for example, how much startup email marketing I’ve seen sounds exactly like the Banana Republic newsletter, or the Birchbox newsletter or the Yelp newsletter. Startups are often missing is the complementary spend that bigger brands have -- to add people to their list, to run big budget display or even print campaigns -- all of which afford them an inbox buffer and lets them be slightly more blast-y, slightly less direct response. When you’re a startup, you don’t have a brand yet. No one knows who the heck you are, no one knows your name. Instead of running email marketing like a household brand would -- with its piles of cross channel marketing history to build off of -- run your email marketing a little more like the lean info marketing machines, and spin your words into PURE GOLD.
- some emails get open rates of over 100%. standard is just below 30%. No one’s going to open every email. Some research has shown even most engaged subscribers tend to open every other email. Design / plan / schedule accordingly.
- Optimal call-to-action commitment levels vary depending on where someone is in their customer lifecycle. Test CTA commitment level. HIGH <—> LOW: Buy now <-> Learn more Shop now <-> See more Start a trial <-> Read more
- 65% of emails are opened on mobile 1st. If u see a high open rate on an email but a low CTR, keep in mind ppl are less likely to take action from their phone — segment & send a targeted followup.