In episode #587, Eric and Neil tell you what to put in the very first email you send to customers. Tune in to hear why on-boarding is so vital to your success.
TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES:
- [00:27] Today’s Topic: Here’s the Very First Email that You Should Send to Customers
- [00:35] Send an email that helps them throughout their journey and experience.
- [00:47] Setting them up properly will give customers a positive experience and makes them more likely to remain satisfied customers.
- [01:24] Getting people on-boarded the right way is key.
- [02:10] On-boarding is one of the most important levers you can pull and can translate to long-term growth.
- [02:30] Intercom’s initial email explains how everything works and how you can get started.
- [02:49] Pat Flynn will send an email introducing himself and uses the tags in Convert Kit.
- [03:20] Neil’s Co-Founder did a test with About.me and he was able to get their revenue to increase 40 or 50%, just by creating a nice “getting started flow”.
- [03:52] Make sure to include a checklist or steps, so that people have a path to follow.
- [04:15] Intercom has a chat or email on-boarding feature that allows you to choose a path that works for you.
- [04:43] That’s all for today!
- [04:48] Go to Singlegrain.com/Giveway for a special marketing tool giveaway!
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The post Here’s the Very First Email that You Should Send to Customers | Ep. #587 appeared first on Marketing School Podcast.
Full Transcript of The Episode
Voice: Get ready for your daily dose of marketing strategies and tactics from entrepreneurs with the guile and experience to help you find success in any marketing capacity. You're listening to Marketing School with your instructors Neil Patel and Eric Siu.
Eric Siu: Welcome to another episode of Marketing School. I'm Eric Siu.
Neil Patel: And I'm Neil Patel.
Eric Siu: And today, we are going to talk about the very first email that you should be sending customers. Neil, I'm keen to get your thoughts.
Neil Patel: The very first email you should be sending customers is something that helps them throughout their journey and experience. This relates to onboarding. What most people don't realize is the way you keep a customer happy is through their first experience.
When someone signs up for your company, whether it's a service or a product and you can set them up the right way in which they have the right expectations, they know what to expect from you over the next few months or over the next year, they know what's going to happen when they do certain things like use your parker service. They know how long it's going to take before they get results.
They're much more likely to be happy and continually pay you and refer other people as well. So your first email that you should be sending out to customers is something related towards onboarding. And getting people onboarded the right way is going to affect everything from cancellations to LTVs up upsells, to word-of-mouth marketing. So make sure you're onboarding everyone through a very strict regiment/process.
So that way, when you're doing this, whether you're sending people to a landing page or getting them to complete x, y and z task, you can start A/B testing this. But the first email that you should be sending people is related to onboarding. And what you put in there, I don't know. You're going to have to continually test them. Eric and I can give you quite a bit of ideas, but it's all about testing those ideas to figure out how you can maximize all the metrics you're aiming to improve.
Eric Siu: Yeah, and so maybe this should be for another episode too, but onboarding is one of the most important levers you can pull. You can pull pricing. You can try to pull all these other levers, but onboarding at the end of the day does translate to overall long-term growth.
So what Neil's mentioning is correct. So onboarding's really been on my mind the last couple of weeks or so, and if you want to look into that a little more, if you look at a lot of good software companies, if you look at their first email, so if you look at Intercom, for example, their initial onboarding email, it lays things out really simply, and it shows where you can go, where you can get started.
That's one way you can do it. A lot of software companies do it really well. And by the way, Intercom has really good onboarding/nurturing content out there, so I recommend you check that out. And then, there's other people. In the past, I've looked at guys like Pat Flynn, for example. So when you first opt in to their email list, they will introduce who they are exactly, and then, they'll try to segment you out. So I believe he uses ConvertKit, and you use ConvertKit too, right?
Neil Patel: Yeah.
Eric Siu: Okay. So he uses the tags in ConvertKit saying, okay, just to see who you are like maybe your business does more than this amount a year, less than this amount, or you don't have a business. Just by have those kinds of links to segment people out will then push them over to another list, and then, he can market to those people based on what they selected.
Neil Patel: Yeah, my co-founder Hiten Shah did a test with about.me, and he was able to get their revenue to increase by over ... It was at least 40% or 50% all through a get-started flow. So when you're onboarding people in your email, one thing to test out, is hey, to get started, make sure you do these four or five things and have those tick boxes or checkmarks. So that way, people know that they need to do them.
And by doing that, they're putting in the time and effort. If they put in the time and effort, they're much more likely to continue, pay, go through the upsells, downsells, whatever you have to offer. But just test out one of your first emails is, hey, this is who we are. We're here to help. Before we get started, we need you to do the following things and then keep continually following up and making sure that they do those things is really important because if someone gets onboarded wrong, they're much more likely to cancel or to be upset.
Eric Siu: Yeah, the final thing I'll add from my side is I just talked about Intercom a little earlier. Intercom has the chat, also has the ... In terms of onboarding features, you can chat in app with the customer. Also, you can send emails to them too. You can basically create an onboarding flow that is rule-based.
So I think, basically, it's adding on on top of what we're talking about right now. But I highly recommend using that if you're kind of stuck with options right now, or you're not sure where to get started. And you can just go with your typical email flow if you have that as well just to keep things basic. Neil?
Neil Patel: That's pretty much it from my end, so we look forward to seeing you tomorrow, and make sure you check out our daily giveaway at singlegrain.com/giveaway.
Voice: This session of Marketing School has come to a close. Be sure to subscribe for more daily marketing strategies and tactics to help you find the success you've always dreamed of. And don't forget to rate and review so we can continue to bring you the best daily content possible. We'll see you in class tomorrow right here on Marketing School.
Eric Siu: Welcome to another episode of Marketing School. I'm Eric Siu.
Neil Patel: And I'm Neil Patel.
Eric Siu: And today, we are going to talk about the very first email that you should be sending customers. Neil, I'm keen to get your thoughts.
Neil Patel: The very first email you should be sending customers is something that helps them throughout their journey and experience. This relates to onboarding. What most people don't realize is the way you keep a customer happy is through their first experience.
When someone signs up for your company, whether it's a service or a product and you can set them up the right way in which they have the right expectations, they know what to expect from you over the next few months or over the next year, they know what's going to happen when they do certain things like use your parker service. They know how long it's going to take before they get results.
They're much more likely to be happy and continually pay you and refer other people as well. So your first email that you should be sending out to customers is something related towards onboarding. And getting people onboarded the right way is going to affect everything from cancellations to LTVs up upsells, to word-of-mouth marketing. So make sure you're onboarding everyone through a very strict regiment/process.
So that way, when you're doing this, whether you're sending people to a landing page or getting them to complete x, y and z task, you can start A/B testing this. But the first email that you should be sending people is related to onboarding. And what you put in there, I don't know. You're going to have to continually test them. Eric and I can give you quite a bit of ideas, but it's all about testing those ideas to figure out how you can maximize all the metrics you're aiming to improve.
Eric Siu: Yeah, and so maybe this should be for another episode too, but onboarding is one of the most important levers you can pull. You can pull pricing. You can try to pull all these other levers, but onboarding at the end of the day does translate to overall long-term growth.
So what Neil's mentioning is correct. So onboarding's really been on my mind the last couple of weeks or so, and if you want to look into that a little more, if you look at a lot of good software companies, if you look at their first email, so if you look at Intercom, for example, their initial onboarding email, it lays things out really simply, and it shows where you can go, where you can get started.
That's one way you can do it. A lot of software companies do it really well. And by the way, Intercom has really good onboarding/nurturing content out there, so I recommend you check that out. And then, there's other people. In the past, I've looked at guys like Pat Flynn, for example. So when you first opt in to their email list, they will introduce who they are exactly, and then, they'll try to segment you out. So I believe he uses ConvertKit, and you use ConvertKit too, right?
Neil Patel: Yeah.
Eric Siu: Okay. So he uses the tags in ConvertKit saying, okay, just to see who you are like maybe your business does more than this amount a year, less than this amount, or you don't have a business. Just by have those kinds of links to segment people out will then push them over to another list, and then, he can market to those people based on what they selected.
Neil Patel: Yeah, my co-founder Hiten Shah did a test with about.me, and he was able to get their revenue to increase by over ... It was at least 40% or 50% all through a get-started flow. So when you're onboarding people in your email, one thing to test out, is hey, to get started, make sure you do these four or five things and have those tick boxes or checkmarks. So that way, people know that they need to do them.
And by doing that, they're putting in the time and effort. If they put in the time and effort, they're much more likely to continue, pay, go through the upsells, downsells, whatever you have to offer. But just test out one of your first emails is, hey, this is who we are. We're here to help. Before we get started, we need you to do the following things and then keep continually following up and making sure that they do those things is really important because if someone gets onboarded wrong, they're much more likely to cancel or to be upset.
Eric Siu: Yeah, the final thing I'll add from my side is I just talked about Intercom a little earlier. Intercom has the chat, also has the ... In terms of onboarding features, you can chat in app with the customer. Also, you can send emails to them too. You can basically create an onboarding flow that is rule-based.
So I think, basically, it's adding on on top of what we're talking about right now. But I highly recommend using that if you're kind of stuck with options right now, or you're not sure where to get started. And you can just go with your typical email flow if you have that as well just to keep things basic. Neil?
Neil Patel: That's pretty much it from my end, so we look forward to seeing you tomorrow, and make sure you check out our daily giveaway at singlegrain.com/giveaway.
Voice: This session of Marketing School has come to a close. Be sure to subscribe for more daily marketing strategies and tactics to help you find the success you've always dreamed of. And don't forget to rate and review so we can continue to bring you the best daily content possible. We'll see you in class tomorrow right here on Marketing School.
