fbpx

EG Orren returns to do an in-depth brainstorm session with Sean about how small businesses can more than double their revenue (and free up the time of their best performers) by planning out email automation sequences.

Click above to listen to the 60 min audio.

Read Full Transcript

Sean Corbett:
Good day everybody. It’s Sean Corbett from Websites.ca Marketing. Coming back at you with a very exciting returning guest. EG Orren is here to talk to us today about email sequences. So I want to get right into it and mostly give her the floor. Folks who are regular listeners to the podcast, should go back and listen to some of our stuff on email before, especially our episode with Ben Settle, because you’re going to get more of a ground level view. Today is a little bit of an intermediate type of thing. So we’re going to be talking a little bit higher level, this isn’t just starting an email list or encouraging you to start an email list. This isn’t just about sending messages themselves, but in both thinking and planning a bit strategically and doing it kind of in an order, in a preset order to have a certain psychological effect on your customers. So EG, thanks for being back here today.

EG Orren:
Thanks. It’s great to be back and hopefully the thunder and lightning doesn’t impact the audio quality too much.

Sean Corbett:
No, that’s right. We’ll do the best we can to edit around it. So why don’t we start really high level, tell us what is an email sequence exactly? And maybe give us some of the most common use cases.

EG Orren:
So an email sequence is literally just a string of emails that are tied together. Most commonly, you’re going to see that in terms of a welcome sequence. So somebody signs up to join a list, get an ebook, or take part in a workshop or a webinar, or just get access to something. They’re offered something in exchange, right? So you’re on the list and then it becomes a series of thank yous, welcomes. But it’s not just one email, it is a series of emails. So you’re essentially spreading out the content and the information over smaller emails instead of one big encyclopedia of, “This is who we are,” kind of thing to be able to digest it better. Sometimes you might see it, and it’s unfortunately very rare, but there’s also what are known as consumption sequences. So if you buy something, then you get the email saying, “Thank you, and here’s how you use this widget.”
And if you have a question or if you get stuck on, “It should do this, but it’s not.” So it’s basically helping to walk them through so that you’re reinforcing their purchase, so then they’re more comfortable and you’re minimizing the returns and you’re building the advocacy with the customer so that they will come back and want to repeat a purchase or to buy something else because it was a great user experience. Amazon is notorious with tapping you on their shoulder and going, “I saw you checking this out. Do you have any questions?” Or “Maybe you want something similar.” Or “You left this in your shopping cart.” Online, if it’s more of an eCommerce thing. Right?
And those aren’t necessarily sequences by way of multiple emails. I mean they could be, but it’s basically the whole point and purpose behind that is to be able to automate things so that you’re not standing by and staring at your computer screen waiting for something to happen and then having to react as it happens. You’re setting up a system on the back end, so then regardless of what time of day and what day of the week and where that customer is at in their journey, they’re able to get a response back that is short, succinct, and addresses where they’re at essentially.

Sean Corbett:
So kind of identifying these milestones with the customer journey and then automating around them. So the three that you just gave, obviously to kind of summarize it for the listeners was that, someone becomes a list member for the first time, someone is almost about to make a purchase, that was cart abandonment sequence that she mentioned and then finally, somebody becomes a customer for the first time. And like you said, this could be as short as one email to address the milestone, or it could be multiple messages to guide somebody kind of to the next stage through that milestone. Is that right?

EG Orren:
Right. And then it could also be, you have something that you want to sell, there’s a promotion, right? There’s a Black Friday sale, that can become an email sequence as well, because it can be a series of emails and you can schedule them, write them out, schedule them to go. You don’t actually have to be writing and hitting send as you go live. It’s just, those are the more, well unfortunately the consumption sequence is not that common, but the people that do use it are going to get the best results if you use it correctly.
Case in point, I ordered solar panels going with the solar generator, and I got an email going literally after UPS dropped it off about a half an hour later. “Great, you got your panels, here’s how to set it up, here’s how to use it.” I’m like, “Wow, okay.” So UPS somehow connected and they now know that the order has been delivered. It is now sitting on my front porch and I’m about to open the box. You’re going to walk me through. I was like, “Cool.” Right? But that’s kind of where it dropped off because when I went to open the email, all the email did was link me to the PDF on the website that was the same as the printed guide, the setup guide that was in the box.

Sean Corbett:
Oh okay.So they’re basically just giving you the same option in different medias, was kind of the idea.

EG Orren:
They started great, but then they fell flat. So instead of going, “Here’s a video and here’s where you plug it in.” And talking you through, and “Here’s different ways that you could use it and how to set it up.” Or how to maintain. So how do you keep your panels clean, so that you get the most energy usage from it?

Sean Corbett:
Right.

EG Orren:
Kind of thinking about helping you walk through. And it can-

Sean Corbett:
Which are things maybe you don’t want to tackle right the second that you opened the panel, right? But if they were to drip them out a couple days or a couple weeks, it’s keeping you engaged and thinking about the company this whole time.

EG Orren:
Exactly. Right? And depending on how detailed you want to get. So if I order these in the summer, I might be thinking, depending on what I’m ordering, “Maybe they’re a little bit more portable. Maybe I can take them with me campaign. So then I might have a dust issue I have to worry about. Maybe there’s something different for maintenance or storage that they would send me in the winter.” But because they’ve tagged me by way of email, and again, like you mentioned, they should go back to listen to the more kind of 101. This is little bit intermediate. The way that your customer is tagged in your system can help determine, all of that can be automated. You don’t need to set a reminder for yourself to go, “Oh, they bought this in June, so in October I’m going to set a reminder to send them an email.” All of that can be automated. So it’s all happening, you’re enhancing the user experience, the customer experience, you’re building the rapport and the relationship and you’re doing it once and then it’s all on autopilot.

Sean Corbett:
Yeah, that’s right.

EG Orren:
Yeah.

Sean Corbett:
Which every business owner wants that.

EG Orren:
Yes.

Sean Corbett:
And I know you work with a lot of different small businesses across the country. So let’s talk about maybe a specific problem that you help the client overcome by using an email sequence?

EG Orren:
Well, interestingly enough, something that you wouldn’t expect this from would be in the music industry. Most people like, “Well, email’s dead.” Well, it’s not dead, you’re just not using it correctly. I’ve actually had a customer just last week message me and say, “I’m getting all of these unsolicited replies to my emails, thanking me for sending them more emails.” I feel like, “But I thought they would be mad at me for sending emails.” It’s like, well…

Sean Corbett:
If you sent crappy emails, they would be. Yeah.

EG Orren:
Exactly. It’s like if all you’re doing is emailing them when you want something from them, then yeah, people are going to get upset. You end up in spam, you get unsubscribed, and it’s a bad user experience. But if you offer value and whether you’re emailing once a week or daily, whether you’re offering just consumption, welcomes, where you can literally automate almost everything. There is someone, unfortunately, I can’t think of who it is at the moment, but they have a one year automated email sequence. So-

Sean Corbett:
Oh, so 365 different-

EG Orren:
365 days. Yeah. So once you, let’s say, join their email list, then everything is automated for a year.

Sean Corbett:
That’s interesting. I-

EG Orren:
I mean, that’s to the extreme, right?

Sean Corbett:
That is extreme. Yeah.

EG Orren:
That’s extreme.

Sean Corbett:
Yeah.

EG Orren:
But that’s not also something that they just sat down and set up, it’s something that developed over time. Which with small businesses, you want to start somewhere. So you want to capture the lead, and then here’s the welcome sequence. You’re kind of introducing… You’re giving them what they ask for to start with. Right? Or even if you’re walking into a brick and mortar and it’s like, “Give us your email.” But a lot of companies are doing that now, or “Fill in your email and you could be entered for a gift card or something.” That is a way of capturing the email. If you tell people, “Thank you for giving us your email, this is why you gave us the email, you’re getting what you’ve asked for.” And then transition them into the welcome series. And then from there, it’s just a matter of automating the message to build the relationship. Right?
You don’t have to be, you can, but you don’t have to be at your desk every morning typing up an email to send out to the list. You can start there and then think of, “Well, you’re going to have a Boxing Day sale.” So just think about writing those out and then scheduling them, and then you just start filling in the blocks in the calendar and then you string them together. So then it just becomes an automated process as opposed to literally having to, “Oh look, yeah, I got…” It’s like Facebook, you get a notification, “Somebody commented.” “Oh, I’m going to have to go reply.” Right? It’s not, “Oh, there’s a message in my inbox, I’m going to have to go reply.” The idea is to automate it so that you can spend more time building the business and the customers are still engaged and being serviced essentially.

Sean Corbett:
So back to sort a story of you working with a specific client. Could you tell us more about maybe one story that you did to help somebody build it up?

EG Orren:
Interestingly, so she did a livestream concert because they’re still stuck in COVID lockdowns. And they did a Q and A kind of engagement. And somebody asked, “Well, what do you name your guitar?” Everybody names their guitar. They named their cars, guitar. She goes, “Well, I’ve never done that.” Right? And so then it becomes, “Oh, well why don’t we name the guitar?” So she turned that into a contest.

Sean Corbett:
Okay.

EG Orren:
And so she’s like, “Okay, so the fans get to decide.” And then she started telling stories about the guitar and adventures about… And nowhere along this whole sequence was it, “Go buy my music.” Or “Buy some merch.” It was just, “Let’s all get together and start thinking of names and then let’s vote on it.” And then the people that voted and participated got a private concert. There were prizes for people that won and all of that kind of built in. So it was his own little campaign to name the guitar that had nothing to do with, “Buy my stuff.” But it organically grew. And now some of the stuff that she did, it becomes essentially evergreen so she could repurpose that.

Sean Corbett:
Right-

EG Orren:
And reuse it, and put it-

Sean Corbett:
And new people join the list. Yeah.

EG Orren:
I mean, obviously you can’t name the guitar again.

Sean Corbett:
Yeah.

EG Orren:
But some of that content now can get put into the automation, so then people that now come back in, they’re kind of getting caught up on the history and the story and they’re getting invited into the community, essentially.

Sean Corbett:
So some of the, “Name my guitar” emails, if they’re not ending with an offer to buy something, was there still an ask at the end of those emails, like, “Now go to this page and participate in the poll to name my guitar.” Or “Now, click reply and tell me what you should name my guitar.” Was there still a call to action at the end of each those emails?

EG Orren:
There’s always a call to action. You always want them to do something. So in some of the cases it was, “Go to the Facebook post and enter your name or like a name that’s already there.” And then once they narrowed it down, it was, “Okay, here’s the link to the survey, here’s the top three, pick which one you want kind of thing.” Right?

Sean Corbett:
Perfect. Yeah.

EG Orren:
So you always want, “What do they do next? What happens next?” You don’t just want to send the email with nothing. You don’t want to ever have a social media post with nothing. You always want some sort of a call to action. And the call to action doesn’t have to be “Go buy my…” “Go stream my…” It can be just, “Share your comments, tell me your thoughts.” You just want to get some sort of engagement and reaction.

Sean Corbett:
Yeah. I think people who’ve been listening to me long enough know I always say to sell in every message, but that’s what I mean. So if you don’t have any actual physical product for sale that week, you might sell someone on leaving a comment, you might sell somebody on clicking a link to read an article, you might sell them on the article itself, as in it’s going to take more than 10 seconds to read the article. So I have to convince you that it’s a good thing to. So we here on Websites.ca when we encourage people to sell with every message, that’s more what we mean, the way you just described it.

EG Orren:
Yeah. Basically, it’s the next step.

Sean Corbett:
Yeah.

EG Orren:
I mean, so doing the welcome sequence, you’re not necessarily saying, here’s something for you to buy on that first email, with the first series of emails, but you want them to either respond to you or click on something or at least prep them so they know that there’s another email coming and you want to put them in, like, you reference the psychology of it, you want them to know that that next email is coming, to expect it and to actually look forward to then wanting to open it. Right?

Sean Corbett:
Yeah.

EG Orren:
So it’s thinking through not what’s the ultimate end goal, but what’s that next little micro commitment? What’s that next little next step?

Sean Corbett:
Yep. And to come back to what you said before about, you don’t want to go to spam, you don’t want people to ignore your emails and stuff. Anybody who’s listening, what you could understand about the health of email platforms and email autoresponder software is that it’s a good signal to that software when people are clicking the links in your email. It’s a good signal when people are hitting reply and writing back to you. So all of these little micro engagements have to do with list health, because if you think about it, obviously, if you’re emailing back and forth with a friend and one friend’s never responding and one friend’s replying, if you just think of it in those terms of just having a correspondence with somebody, obviously the second one is a healthier thing. So with that topic in mind, actually, I was going to ask you, do you have a preferred email auto responder platform? Do you work with a bunch of different ones? And maybe we can talk about the tools and technology behind these sequences a little bit.

EG Orren:
A lot. I mean, there are ways, there’s different tips and tricks like, staying out of the promo tab, so to speak, right? Especially, if you’re dealing with or whatever it is that they might be calling it, if you’re not using Gmail. Having they’re asking for the response when they’re coming onto the list, giving people that hint, “Okay, expect this email,” and even go as far as giving them the subject line of the email. “Look for it in your promo tab or check your span.” Right? And then help them what’s known as white listing. Right?
So if you’re using Gmail, you want to grab that email and literally drag and drop it over into your primary tab. And then Gmail’s going to go, “Are you sure you want this in there?” It’s like, “Yep.” So then again, that is signaling, this is not spam, this is something that I ask for. I want it to be in my inbox, not in my promo box. But a lot of that is important, especially now with iOS 15. So for those Apple users out there, they now have the option to not be tracked, whether it’s Facebook, whether it’s email. So a lot of companies in AWAI, it used to all be all about the open rate. “Well, this is our open rate, this is our open rate one.” Well, now that’s hard to track because a lot of providers and a lot of platforms it’s not real data. Right?

Sean Corbett:
Never has been accurate, it never has been.

EG Orren:
It never has been. The trick to that really is not necessarily to compare yourself to everybody else, is to compare what’s happening internally, right?

Sean Corbett:
Yeah.

EG Orren:
So if you consistently have, let’s say a 25% open rate according to whatever your platform is reporting, and all of a sudden you have a 5% open rate, you have to go back and look, “What happened there.” It’s got be-

Sean Corbett:
It’s a trend indicator, it’s what it is. Yeah.

EG Orren:
Exactly.

Sean Corbett:
So-

EG Orren:
Tracking what’s happening internally is more important than trying to compare yourself to your neighbors.

Sean Corbett:
Yeah. For everything, actually.

EG Orren:
For everything, yes.

Sean Corbett:
That’s a good ethical guideline.

EG Orren:
Yeah.

Sean Corbett:
So coming back to the platforms, do you have a preferred platform that you like to use?

EG Orren:
Honestly, it all depends on the business and the size of the business and how comfortable they are. Because they all essentially do the same thing to some extent. Some of them have a little bit more connectivity if you want to use different platforms to tie things in. Some of them are really very bare bones and bakes. Some of them are more better suited for something that would be on the e-commerce side. Some of them are better suited for those that aren’t necessarily tech savvy. Right? So there really is no best suite, a lot of it is going to depend on what you’re using, and if it works for what you need for then there’s really no point in moving. You actually don’t necessarily want to be bouncing from platform to platform because that also hurts your deliverability, because you have to build up what is known as a reputation. Right?
It’s like moving into a new neighborhood. Nobody knows who you are, they’re all kind of looking at you sideways going, “What’s this guy going to do?” Right? “Is this a good neighbor or a bad neighbor?” So they’re kind of a little bit more leery, which means you have to build up the respect within the platform. So if you’re on something, whether it’s MailChimp or ConvertKit or ActiveCampaign or Keep or Klaviyo, I mean, MailerLite. There’s way too many to list. It doesn’t really matter which one, from a user perspective, what resonates best with you and what is it that you need it to do, right? Because a lot of it really comes down to the backend is the same, but it’s the user interface.

Sean Corbett:
So I know I’m kind of putting you on the spot here, and I totally agree with what you said, right? It doesn’t really matter what, there’s no one great, perfect auto responder technology. Let’s try to give the folks who are listening at home a little bit of a strategy, if they haven’t ever done this before. Right? Maybe let’s pick one of the more affordable or even free options and maybe a very simple one to get started with a short email sequence. What would you recommend in terms of a platform?

EG Orren:
From the free aspect, I think Mailchimp still has a free level. I think MailerLite also has a free level.

Sean Corbett:
Okay.

EG Orren:
And then there really, the important thing is to start with the welcome sequence in terms of an automation. But some of these platforms will also let you do landing pages. So if you’re offering a free book or a ebook or a guide or some sort of resource in exchange for their email, some of these platforms will allow you to build that in the ESP, which is the Email Service Provider. Some of them you have to be external and then it’ll allow you to connect in. So it honestly, does come down to what is it that you want to use it for and how comfortable are you using the technical stuff? Or do you have somebody else, one of your kids or something is like-

Sean Corbett:
Yeah.

EG Orren:
…it’s like just get them to do it. They’ll just push a few buttons and then it just magically happens. Right? A lot of it really does depend on that. If you’re going to be more eCommerce based versus brick and mortar or versus info products. Right? So you don’t actually have a physical product, it all really is going to depend on what your starting point is in terms of what you’re offering. But the email sequence, the welcome is everybody should have more than just, “Great, here’s your thing that you ordered.” Some people don’t actually even have that. And some people have a welcome email that doesn’t really explain anything.
So you want to reassure people that they’re in the right place, this is what they could expect from you, right? This is what you’re going to get. I mean, this is kind of, “This is what you’ve signed up for.” Kind of thing. Quite literally and figuratively. Right? You want to give them that heads up, you want to build that nurturing experience. And where a lot of people sometimes get, “Well, what if they don’t want to hear from me?” And I get emails saying, well you should do this and you should do that. There’s actually a couple of guys that I follow that are kind of mentors of mine in this space and they always remind me, it’s like your email newsletter is somebody walking into your house. Right? If somebody comes into your house Sean, and says, “I don’t know about that wallpaper, you should change it.” Right?
“When’s the last time…” You’re going to be like, “Well it’s my wallpaper. I live here, you can leave.” And I know that seems harsh, but ultimately, people that don’t really care about your wallpaper but care about you and so to speak, are going to stick around. And you’re not going to please everybody, but you have to structure the emails, the newsletters, the sequence, whether it’s one offs, whether you’re automating, that has to be representative of you and your business and what you’re offering. And you’re not going to take your business and constantly cater and shift and adjust because one person doesn’t seem to agree with you. Just you wouldn’t do that on a personal level. Right? So it’s how-

Sean Corbett:
It’s not useful feedback. It’s not useful feedback that one person doesn’t like your email. It’s got to be water off a duck’s back. It can’t be, “I’m going to change my whole email list set up and sequence, because one person doesn’t like it.” Right?

EG Orren:
Exactly. Now, if they come to you and go with the example that I gave before, my clients’ fans literally just said, “Thank you for emailing us more. Thank you for including us. Thank you for sharing your experience and your journey. Thank you for kind of giving us this sneak peek into your world,” kind of thing. But they’re thanking her, not because she’s trying to sell them more often, it’s because it’s the experience that they’re getting. Now, in this case, she’s a country artist, so if all of a sudden she started playing EDM music or jazz or something, they might be going, “Oh wait a minute, what’s going on?” Right?

Sean Corbett:
Yeah.

EG Orren:
And in that case then, if these people went from country enthusiast to EDM enthusiast, then they might stick around. Right? But again, it’s her house, it’s her list, it’s her business. And if she wants to redecorate or renovate or put an addition or tear down and start over, that’s up to her. Right?

Sean Corbett:
To a certain degree also, I find, and you probably find the same thing, that a large chunk of the audience is desiring to be a part of that story, to hear about it. I mean, people like to follow the narrative of what we’re doing. But yeah, so the big takeaway there of course, is like you said, you could pick one of many free options. You mentioned MailChimp, so people could get started with MailChimp.

EG Orren:
Right.

Sean Corbett:
They do have one free automation, which means you can set up many automations for these different milestones, but on the free plan they allow you to just send one email. So what EG was saying that you guys could take away from this is, at least go set up a welcome email. In that welcome email. You tell them exactly what you said EG, you tell them what to expect from the future emails. I mean that seems like very basic common sense stuff, but lots of people just when they say, “I started an email list,” what they mean is they took a bunch of email addresses they had from their CRM and they dumped them into an autoresponder platform. But no one knows they did it. They didn’t even announce they did it. Right?

EG Orren:
Right.

Sean Corbett:
Or when you join their email list, like you said, you’re at the brick and mortar location, fill in my, we have a little piece of paper by the door. “You want to be on our email list? Here, I put your name there.” So then they get the name, they harvest the names, they’ve done everything right up until that point. And then same deal, they just dump them on a list. That person doesn’t even… When that person gets home from the store, they don’t even have a welcome email saying, “Hey, thanks for signing up at…” Telling them. Because that might be a different sequence than signing up online. If you sign up at the store, you get the email that says, “Thanks for signing up in the store.” As opposed to “Thanks for getting our lead magnet.”

EG Orren:
Yeah, exactly. “Thanks for coming in.” Right?

Sean Corbett:
Yeah.

EG Orren:
And anyway, again, it’s going to depend on how comfortable you might be with the technology or if you have somebody that might be comfortable, how you have things integrated. Some CRMs have everything built in, you might be able to go, “Thanks for coming into the store today and purchasing X, Y, Z.” And from there, and again, it’s in all and how the data is captured, it could be, “Come back in for 10% off.”
Or if they’re buying something that literally needs instructions and it’s not clothing or something that’s consumable in some way, it could be, “Keep an eye out in your inbox for instructions or tips and tricks.” And I mean, how do you check your tires? How do you know when you need to get new tires? Or how do you keep your wiper blades? How do you maintain the so you’re not having to get those nasty streaks or? It’s so automotive. When’s the last time anybody ever got an email, a follow-up email from somebody that did an oil change other than you might get the thank you, you might get, “Oh by the way, it’s time for a new oil change.” Right?

Sean Corbett:
Yeah.

EG Orren:
“Come and book your appointment.” But what about the in between stuff? Right? How do I maintain my car so that I’m not just coming and giving you hundreds of dollars and spending half a day there waiting for the honor to give you hundreds of dollars? Right?

Sean Corbett:
Which is why people in our industry will use that term nurturing, right?

EG Orren:
Right.

Sean Corbett:
Between sales events, it’s not a good idea for someone to not hear from you. And it’s also very interesting what you just said. So I know for you and I, this is our profession, so we’re looking for things to do and to write, but for a lot of clients, all they’re hearing is work, work, work, work. “Oh, I have to write how the wipers work.” “Oh, I have to answer this question.” Well, the fact is, everything you just said, they’re already being asked on a daily basis in the shop. They’re already probably training their frontline staff to answer those questions. There may even be an FAQ document that already exists, if not internally on their website. That’s all, believe it or not everybody, that’s all content for emails. No, you can’t just be boring about it, but you could take your FAQ, you could take your training manual and you could break them up, you could give them to somebody like EG and say “Here, write a five email sequence from this FAQ document.” Right?

EG Orren:
Exactly. And the thing there is, you’re thinking, “Yeah, okay, I got to do all this.” Or, “I got to write all these emails.” But keep in mind that this is essentially evergreen content, you’re writing it once and it’s helping you minimize the calls that you have to take, it’s helping you minimize the complaints, it’s helping you minimize the return. So you’re putting in that time now, so then you can sit back and let it help you along, pretty much until you decide to discontinue the product or shut down the business, or…

Sean Corbett:
Close the shop. Yeah.

EG Orren:
Whatever it might be. Right? It’s in the background, it’s always running, it’s always working for you after just doing that initial effort. It’s paying you back forever.

Sean Corbett:
I would say it’s an asset of the business that you could put a value on if you wanted to sell the business. Right? Somebody with no email list, and no marketing and no campaigns versus the exact same business with all those things, the second business is worth more, it’s got a lead generation machine built into it.

EG Orren:
Yes. And it has a customer service, right?

Sean Corbett:
Yeah.

EG Orren:
It has somebody there answering questions proactively. Right? It has somebody there and somebody being whatever, email provider you have and whatever automation sequence you have built in. Right? So it’s acting in the background, it’s those nice little behind… It’s literally the Wizard of Oz. right? You just see the big all powerful Oz, but really there’s a dude behind the curtain pulling all the strings. Right? So the email is essentially the dude behind the curtain pulling all the strings and all of a sudden somebody…
If you know your audience well enough, if you know your customer well enough, and you start hearing, like you said, people are calling and asking questions, there’s an FAQ, your customer service reps, or if you have a retail location, the sales associates in the store, you can ask them, pool their information. “What’s the most common thing? Let’s try to be proactive and address this.” If we can put it in an email sequence and automate it, that’s going to reduce that, even if it’s a three minute call. But you’re having that three minute call two or three times a day, you’ve saved yourself now an hour a week. What does that cost you if you look at it over the course of a year? Right?

Sean Corbett:
100%. Yeah.

EG Orren:
And that’s just for one thing. Right? So yeah, there’s the initial investment up front, but think about the time and the effort and the resources that it’s going to save you long term. Which is why, kind of going back to those guys that have a year long sequence, that’s great. Just set it, and it’s just going to run off on its own for a year. But again, if you think about it strategically, something happens, it’s kind of like with social media, where there’s stuff that’s happening in terms of politics and in terms of weather and in terms of what have you. You can always just go in and go pause.

Sean Corbett:
Current events. Yeah.

EG Orren:
Right? Just pause.

Sean Corbett:
Yeah.

EG Orren:
But then you can go start, that’s it. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. You can pause it if something looks off, you can pull it little bits out. “Okay. So maybe this Black Friday thing isn’t working,” Because I think Costco has Christmas stuff now.

Sean Corbett:
Yeah.

EG Orren:
Right. I mean, I think about, “Oh Christmas in July.” Well, at the time of this recording, it’s July and the Ski Hills opened in Banff in July. Right?

Sean Corbett:
And that wasn’t probably part of their auto responding sequence. They probably had to do a unique email from that. Yeah.

EG Orren:
Exactly. But there, if they’ve got something that’s automated, you can just put pause, insert something special that’s happened and then continue.

Sean Corbett:
Yeah.

EG Orren:
You don’t literally have to stop and… You kind of turn off the assembly line, right?

Sean Corbett:
Yeah.

EG Orren:
And then do the repairs, put an insert, whatever needs to get in and then start it up again and then off it goes. So that’s not to say that it’s a year long of, “We’re not touching anything for a year.” But they can if they want to. And if something comes up where you want to insert something, you can, you don’t have to… It’s just extra stuff that you can build on, it’s just more information, more content, more enhancing the user experience, building the relationship, offering value, and then creating essentially lifelong customers.

Sean Corbett:
And it’s a great point. And it’s not an either or thing that we’re discussing. An email sequence is another tool in your arsenal to bring to just a regular sort of, whatever you want to call it, sending a one off email, doing a email broadcast, whatever terminology people want to use. We’re not saying pick one or the other. You can definitely do both. I know at Websites.ca, one of our most successful automations, and to your point about saving time for everybody, time and energy for everybody, is anytime someone becomes a new customer and gets their website launched, obviously there’s a lot of manual hands on, face to face, well, over the phone, one to one work during that period of time. So the client and Websites.ca are constantly talking to each other. As soon as you launch their website, 10 years ago we would get psychologically lazy and go, “Okay, cool, our work done, we launched our website.”
And then you finally realize, well that customer may forget about you over time or not respect you as much over time or whatever. And so our owner, John, set up an automation for referrals, right? Something like, X amount of months after the website launches, they get an email from their rep. Now the rep is not sending that, right? Ryan doesn’t have to go in every morning and check that. So, that’s saving him tons of times. He doesn’t have to think about it. The email goes out and says, “Are you happy? Yes or no?” If they choose, yes, there’s a couple more automated messages leading to, “Hey, why don’t you leave us a review?” And which people are very happy to do, because they said they were satisfied. So more reviews, all automated, saves Ryan that time. But then the people who choose, no, of course, then it flags it to Ryan so he can manually follow up with them. I mean, we would’ve practically had to have a second Ryan to do all that manually. The auto responding sequence does for you.

EG Orren:
Yeah, and honestly, I would say from my standpoint, I would say don’t wait a couple of months. For referrals. A lot of people are while you’re still in the think of it, while you still have, you’re engaged and whether you’re enjoying the experience or not, it’s all fresh in your mind and you’ve got the momentum and it’s all happening now. “All right, so what’s working, what isn’t?” And if it’s working, great and tell your friends. And if it’s not working, tell us and let’s see if we can fix it. And even from Ryan’s standpoint, I’m sure that he’s tracking that, he’s collecting that information and if he sees a trend, then it’s not just a one off addressing it with that customer, but there’s a trend there that now whether it’s good or bad, it can get incorporated into the business as a whole. Right? So now you’ve automated that sequence and the business process because you automated the email, right?

Sean Corbett:
Yeah. And such, that’s very good to point out too, is that one of the best times to ask for a referral is as soon as the sales made. And to come back to your earlier point, I was thinking that with the clothes shop, right? you said, Oh, there’s somebody, he goes and buys a pair of clothes and then they sign up manually to the list there. The “Welcome to our list” email you sent them could be something like, nowadays anyway, when everyone uses social media, “Why don’t you tweet a picture? Or why don’t you post a picture of the clothes you bought and tag one friend you think would be interested.” Now that’s getting someone engagement online, but folks have to remember really that’s just a clever way of getting a referral. So we’re not talking in a goofy woo woo new metrics that don’t make you any money. Actually, all this stuff is advancing your business goals forward.

EG Orren:
I’m going to take that one step further, if I can picky back off of your idea.

Sean Corbett:
Sure.

EG Orren:
So you ask them to tag a friend and they’re obviously tagging you as well, right?

Sean Corbett:
Yeah.

EG Orren:
And then you get whoever’s monitoring your social media to send that person an instant message and say, “Thanks for tagging us. I’d like to send you a coupon or a discount.” And then, “What email can I send it to? What’s your best email, so I can send you that coupon, that code, that special, ‘Thank you for supporting us,’ kind of thing.” So now that’s another way to get people onto the list because they may not be on the list and they may have seen some promotion on social media, they may have seen an ad, they may have seen a organic post, they may have seen a flyer in the store. Right?
It’s just another way to capture that information. And again, you’ve captured… When you get that email, you want to capture that they shared and they tagged. So then you know that these people are engaged and they’re supporting you. Right? So then that’s all information that you pool, you collect, and then you potentially can send something special to them as a whole. Again, automate it later on. Right?

Sean Corbett:
Yeah.

EG Orren:
And I keep using Black Friday, so “You’ve been such a great supporter on, whether it’s Facebook, Instagram,” it depends on how granularly you want to get. “Because you’ve been active in the community, because you’ve been helping share our stuff, here’s an extra special just for you something.” It could be a discount if you are a brick and mortar. If you’re a service, it’s “Let’s hop on a 30 minute call and I’ll help consult.” Or something, right? If it’s not a physical product that they can get. Or they can even get a discount on the service. Capturing that information and using social media to get them onto the list, right? Using the website, using something happening in the store to still get them on the list and then automating that. So then that just becomes its own little machine and customer service and complaint department and right? Referral department and everything else.

Sean Corbett:
And you’re encouraging people to be the opposite of lazy. So when you’re setting auto responders, right? And you could set it and forget it and so on, but then you’re blending in this manual response thing too. But it’s making all the work, all the things you said there that might have been manual, are all that much more effective because they’re targeted to certain persons. You’re not blanket spraying it out at everybody else, the folks are putting up their hands through the automations. And now you can have staff manually responding. And like you said, to come back to that words you used before, the audience might not be super familiar with, tagging. You can essentially tag people with anything. So if you say, “Yeah, responded online, whatever on the social media platform, Facebook, Black Friday, blah, blah, blah.” And now you have that little signpost for yourself in the future to set up other automations. Or I know now that, “Hey, I tagged this person as someone who refers.” Right? And then you can sort your list from people who’ve never referred to people who refer all the time.

EG Orren:
Right.

Sean Corbett:
And I think what you could tell me if I’m wrong, but in my experience it’s like that old saying about, “To those who have much, much will be given and to those of little, it’ll all be taken away.” It may be not worth the marketer’s time focusing on the people who’ve never referred. There’s something about people who have referred, they’re going to refer again. And the people who haven’t referred, maybe you could set up a sequence then, but you agree it’s more fruitful to reapproach the people who have referred in the past?

EG Orren:
Yeah. And you’re targeting the people again, like you said, that they’re putting their hand up, but because it may seem like a smaller group, but on that aspect, if you take people that they’re referring and they’re sharing, if you have an affiliate or a partner program, if you have a referral program in place, then those are the people that you send that message to. You don’t send that message to, “Here’s how you can join our referral program.” If they literally just walked into your story yesterday and just you’re like, “Oh, I don’t know who you are, I’m new here and now you’re telling me to refer.” I’m like, “Well, I don’t know who you are, why would I do that?” But these people that you’ve now identified that are engaged, they’re active, they’re getting people involved, then that’s what you want. And from an email perspective, if you put a nice little blurb at the bottom that says, subtly hinting, “If you happen to get this, somebody forwarded you this email and you want to be on the list, then click here.”
So you’re kind of telling people it’s okay to share to forward, to encourage people to come on the list. But then your email service provider may also be able to track this email got forwarded and then now, that’s another way of sharing. So they may not be tagging you on social media, but they’re forwarding all your email. So this person now is trying to get your message out there and they’re trying to help you get… Right? So that’s another way to identify them as these people are active, they’re engaged, they’ve gone from… The traditional is the “No I can trust,” right? But John Jantsch, the guy that did Duct Tape Marketing has this, he calls it an hourglass approach. It’s hourglass marketing. So you have the starting off, the funnel, the traditional funnel, it’s the, No, I trust and as you work through, but then the hour, if the funnel inverts into an hourglass and then that narrow part, you have the try and the buy.

Sean Corbett:
Okay.

EG Orren:
And then it’s repeat and refer.

Sean Corbett:
So that’s what spreads back out again. Yeah.

EG Orren:
Right. So it’s what spreads back out, right?

Sean Corbett:
Yeah.

EG Orren:
Or if you’re a child of the eighties like, I am, it’s the old head and shoulders commercial. They like that too much. Well they told two friends and they told two friends and so on and so on. And you have all these little heads that keep popping up on the screen. Right? So it’s carrying them through. The people that are repeat buyers and referring onto other people are going to be at a different level than the new person that is never experienced, right?

Sean Corbett:
Totally.

EG Orren:
And is just new to your world and your business. Right? So it’s, again, like you said, it’s segmenting and you may have a list, let’s say, of a thousand people and now you’re only talking to a hundred. But those people are getting the message that’s important to them. Right? You’re not going to send a coupon for diapers to a senior citizen’s home. I mean, unless they sell adult diapers. So there has to be the connection there. And if somebody that is an advocate and is referring your business and you’ve got the email sequence that is kind of fostering that, you’re going to get a better open rate, you’re going to get a better engagement rate. That’s going to play to your deliverability, that’s going to play to your list health, that’s going to play to just the overall experience that your customers are getting from your business. So the message resonates and they see your name or your company’s name in their inbox. They’re going to be more interested in clicking and opening and to see what you’re telling them today.

Sean Corbett:
Yeah, no, a 100%. So, that can add to our list that we were making at the start of the call. So we have welcome sequences. People can start thinking about that. They can start thinking about how they’re going to respond, even if it’s just one automated message, but maybe it’s more, when someone becomes a buyer and then also looking for those referral opportunities, which a sequence is clearly what we’re talking about is great for.

EG Orren:
Right.

Sean Corbett:
So I guess, to wrap it up then I would say, let’s say you have to sit down and you have to write the “Perfect nurturing sequencing.” What kind of info, what are you gathering from the client in order to sit down and construct this sequence? What kind of questions do you need answer? Are you looking for, like I said before, FAQ documents, testimonials? What’s sort of the inputs that go into creating this marketing asset?

EG Orren:
So for the nurturing sequence or for the welcome sequence?

Sean Corbett:
You can pick either or.

EG Orren:
Okay. Because I think you said nurturing.

Sean Corbett:
Yeah.

EG Orren:
So if you’re nurturing, so what’s the last thing you bought?

Sean Corbett:
The last thing I bought, a wine.

EG Orren:
Wine. Okay. So you went to the wine store, right? Or maybe you ordered it online because Costco lets you do that now through Instacart.

Sean Corbett:
Yeah.

EG Orren:
Right? So you bought wine. So did you get any information from the liquor store to say, “Thanks for coming in?” Did they ask you for an email? “Thanks for coming in.” You’re a wine connoisseur, right? “I can tell you about different wines. I can tell you about wine promotions. I can tell you about wine tastings. I can give you information about…” I mean, again, it depends on how detailed you want to get, how far into the weeds you want to go. Your liquor store might have information about that specific winery, right?

Sean Corbett:
Right.

EG Orren:
Get familiar with the winery, so to speak, or get familiar with that brand. There are high end liquor stores, right? And they don’t do a welcome sequence. And even if it’s a, “We’ll let you know when stuff is on sale.” If you bought a high end bottle of wine, if you spent $10 versus $50 on wine, there’s a difference.

Sean Corbett:
It’s a different, Yeah, that’s right.

EG Orren:
It’s a different audience. Right? So you’re not going to try to sell the Lamborghini to the guy that just bought the used Chevy. So it’s a different message. So you have to know who you’re trying to communicate with and where they’re at. Right? So they’re obviously, new to your business, but they may not be new in the product that you sell. Right?

Sean Corbett:
Yeah. So let’s pick apart some of the things you said because you mentioned the lazy person’s thing when they’re writing emails is always to jump to sales. And you mentioned that, right? Oh well, they could get back to that person when there’s a discount. Okay, so let’s put that aside, because for our listeners you have to realize that’s what everyone’s doing. So if you want to stand apart, maybe you can still send emails about sales, but put that aside for a sec. So you mentioned to much more interesting things to write emails about. One was educational, right?

EG Orren:
Yeah.

Sean Corbett:
So if I bought wine from let’s say, Spain or Italy, at what region? Okay. Now, the wine store can send me educational info.

EG Orren:
Right.

Sean Corbett:
You also said events, right?

EG Orren:
Yep.

Sean Corbett:
There might be an in-store tasting, a rep from a winery might be there, whatever. So you could send emails on that. So if someone were hiring you, it would behoove them to sit down and think about how can I arm my marketer? What can I give EG so she can write the best autoresponder sequence for me. They might give you, “Here’s a list of our next six months to a year of events.” Right? You’re not going to write all of the emails about events right away, but what it would be good to get them from the business. Right. And then next one would be like, what’s your educational material? Do you guys have existing video? Do you have a YouTube channel? Do you have videos? Just sticking with the wine example, if everyone could forgive me, what producers do you rep, what regions are they from? You could go into history, you don’t even have to go into current event type stuff. And then of course, there’s the current event type stuff like you said, right?

EG Orren:
Well, you can even do, from the educational standpoint, if you want to learn to become a connoisseur or if you’re buying the lower end or maybe a mid range, what does it mean for wine to breathe, right?

Sean Corbett:
Right.

EG Orren:
What level should it be chilled or not chilled at? For it to be… Right? Do you swirl? Do you swish? I don’t [inaudible]

Sean Corbett:
How to use it. Like your example with the solar panels, yeah.

EG Orren:
Yeah. Focus on the consumption and it may not be that specific. Again, we probably shouldn’t be picking on online, but not necessarily that specific thing, but it’s, “Here’s how to consume it, here’s to get the most out of what you just bought.”

Sean Corbett:
Yeah.

EG Orren:
Right?

Sean Corbett:
Yeah, a 100%.

EG Orren:
And the more that you then go down that educational vein as opposed to, “Oh here’s just the quick sale,” but they’re now interested in seeing what you have to say. And if you then have something else to offer them, they’re going to be more willing to come in or to buy something else.

Sean Corbett:
Yeah.

EG Orren:
And also, if they’re doing something like a wine tasting or something, and I don’t see this enough honestly, from vineyards. So if there’s any vineyards out there, if you do the wine tasting, it’s building up to the event. So what can they expect from it? How can they get the most out of it? And then get some sort of a check in. So then you know, did the people register and show up? They’re going to get the, “Thank you for coming.” Right?

Sean Corbett:
Yeah.

EG Orren:
“I hope you…” Like you said, “What did you like, what did you not like?” So then we can make the experience better. And if they didn’t come, then find out why they didn’t come. Maybe they forgot. “Oh, if they forgot.” Then that falls on you that you should have done a better job of reminding them and putting them in a frame of mind that this is a don’t miss event kind of a thing, right?

Sean Corbett:
It’s blood from a stone, what you’re saying. I actually live around most of the big vineyard area in Canada and I’ve worked with and know lots of people in the industry. And yeah, the Canadian vineyards run some of the worst email marketing game in the history of mankind.

EG Orren:
And that’s also why you pick one, right? You’re kind of subliminally sending a message out to those vineyards that are in your area going, “Yuu wuu.”

Sean Corbett:
It’s funny. So it is the last time I bought it. It’s interesting what you said. One of my side businesses was running a wine startup online at, and it wasn’t to do with vineyards, it was like existing international producers and stuff. But to your point, I can corroborate everything that you said exactly to our listeners, is that if we would’ve just done what everybody else did, now keep in mind we were new and we had to differentiate ourselves too. But if everybody else is just sending emails that say “X bottle is on sale.” Or they’re saying, “Hey, this one producer is now in stock.” That’s essentially in a nutshell, that’s 99% of all emails that come from the wine trade.
If we would’ve just done that, our sales would’ve been brutal and no one would’ve cared about us and people would’ve just deleted. Because, we didn’t have a big storefront, we didn’t have a big name. Instead, it was telling stories. We had a figurehead who was well known in the industry and she would travel around and she would meet with winemaker. So half of the emails were just her stories about that. When we eventually had promotions and stuff to sell, we got a lot more uptake because the trust was there, the comfort was there. Like you said, if we missed the day of emailing, people are bugging us, “Hey, what’s the story for the week? What’s going on? Blah blah.” That’s how you’re doing it, right?

EG Orren:
Yeah.

Sean Corbett:
If we would’ve just sent, “Last chance, last chance, 50% off.” Everyone does that.

EG Orren:
Yeah. Exactly. And then even to kind of, let’s take it further, I mean, I’m not a wine connoisseur, so that I nailed, it just goes to show that it isn’t necessarily specific to the niche or the industry, there are fundamentals that involved that do apply to, regardless of what your business is and whether it’s online or in person or traveling roadshow, right? The fundamentals are the fundamentals, it’s just really an understanding how to apply it to your business based on who you’re trying to communicate with and how much knowledge they have about either you as a business or the product or service that you’re trying to offer. Right? But going down the wine vein, the last time I was in a liquor store, they had things like toppers, the wine bottle toppers, and they had accessories, they had gidgets and gadgets that go along with more than just the alcohol. So that is another avenue that that’s something else, if somebody’s buying wine, you can kind of subtly encourage them not to drink it all at the same time.

Sean Corbett:
Boo boo.

EG Orren:
By going, “Get this.” Or “Get this glassware.” Or “Get those little ring ringlet things to identify if we’re having a party, who’s glass belongs to who kind of thing.” Right? There’s all these extra adjacent things in addition to the wine that there is kind of a cross sell in terms of marketing terminology, but now you’re educating them, “Oh, I don’t have to drink at all.” Or “Oh, it will go bad if the air goes in.” Or “I don’t want the wine to throw into vinegar.” Or-

Sean Corbett:
That’s exactly it. Yeah. And like you said, you’re entertaining and educating them about air rating and breathing wine and how to serve it. And if the final sentence of the email happens to say, “Oh, and by the way, if you want a tool that helps with that, here’s a link to it.” And so the sale part of it that everyone’s so scared of doing doesn’t have to be obnoxious and boring and off putting. Right? You can be very entertaining and tell the story exactly like you described it and still sell at the end of it.

EG Orren:
Right. And there are red wine glasses, there are white wine glasses.

Sean Corbett:
Yeah.

EG Orren:
You’re not necessarily selling them wine glasses, but why is there… I don’t honestly don’t know. Why is there a red glass and why is that different from the white glass? And what’s the optimal amount to put? So what is the serving of wine and why can I not just fill it to the rim? And what do you mean I can’t put ice cubes in my wine? Right?

Sean Corbett:
Yeah.

EG Orren:
There’s all these little things that you can spin it to make it entertaining as opposed to just going, “Well, the acidity level and…” I don’t know, I’m honestly making stuff up. I should be more of a wine connoisseur considering my dad used to make homemade wine when he was alive, but I have no idea. So I’m just making all this-

Sean Corbett:
You’re saying all the right things. You’re saying all the right things. So your instincts as a marketer of what, not only what questions to ask, but how to zero in, how to borrow down on topics is pretty cool to see on the fly, especially if you don’t know much about it. Because yeah, all those are questions people ask and that’s stuff that people talk about in the niche.
So I think that’s a good point to end on, is let’s be very frank and honest, a lot of people when we’re talking with auto responders, it may be a bridge too far for them to feel like they can tackle it themselves. And that’s why one of the reasons why I wanted to bring you on today, not just to explain it and get people used to the concept, but if someone has sort of muddled in the email marketing world to take it to the next step, because some of their best competitors are certainly doing it, it would be a good idea for them to maybe consider hiring somebody like yourself to help set up some of these sequences. So how would somebody go about doing that?

EG Orren:
Well, before I tell you that, I would say if you go, “Well, nobody’s doing that in my industry.” Then that’s the best time to do it, because now you’re standing out, you’re differentiating yourself from the competition, and you’re doing more than just throwing your hand up in the air going, “Buy my stuff. Here’s a sale flyer in the mailbox or something, or in your inbox.” Right? You’re separating yourself from the crowd. So the fact that somebody might not be doing it, whether it’s your neighborhood geographically, whether it’s your industry, whatever it is, then that is the bat signal for you to go start doing a list. Right? I think you’re going to put contact information in the show notes, so they can just hop on and get the link in the show notes. And I’m actually happy to, no obligation, no pitch. I’ll get on a call, I’ll help brainstorm and think through questions like I just did with Sean on an industry that I know nothing about, right? To just get you started and point you in the right direction.

Sean Corbett:
Beautiful. Thanks again for coming back and all the time you spend with us to explain everything. I really appreciate it.

EG Orren:
No problem.

[et_bloom_inline optin_id=”optin_4″]