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1. Thank-you with offer (one day to three days after order).
2. Survey: How was your experience? (seven days later).
3. Cross-sale email based on what the shopper purchased (14 days later).
4. Recommend to a friend: coupon for the shopper and a friend (21 days later).
5. Product rate and review (28 days later).
Continue to include several different links back to the site in each email in the series. Make these links sexy; don't just dump shoppers back on your homepage. Entice them with a list of customer favorites, clearance items, hot new products, etc.
You can create series for the other triggers mentioned as well. Ask shoppers who abandoned carts if they had some difficulty checking out, for example. Or remind them of the great items already in their carts — and just a few clicks away from being in their house! You can also warn that you're on the verge of clearing out these old carts, so shoppers should complete checkout in the next three days to get the items they've already selected.
Series ROI
As you extend the series, your sales per email delivered will drop. You won't produce $2.45 for each effort. However, the series mentioned previously can produce, in total, about $7 per email delivered. That means for every order you get on your site, you can get $7 more revenue by simply employing a series like that one.
What's amazing is how few sites take advantage of this opportunity to present their most recent buyers with the chance to purchase again. Maybe most sites already get so many orders they just don't have the time or energy to get a few more.
If you sell via several channels, supercharge your triggered email programs by sending your series to shoppers who behaved similarly in another channel. If you collect email addresses from in-store buyers, send them the same "buyer" series outlined previously.
Finally, it can be a lot of work to set up five or six different triggers each with several efforts in a series. But you don't have to do them all at once. Get the basics started, then add a trigger or an additional effort every couple of weeks.
Once your program's in place, optimize it by continually testing new creative and offers. Also, at least once per quarter, review all of your triggered emails. Fix broken links if need be, or slant content to take advantage of a new season (fall, summer, etc.). And as my last warning, start exercising regularly! You'll need your strength to carry all the extra money to the bank that your triggered email program generates!
Larry Kavanagh is founder and CEO of e-commerce software-as-a-service developer D.M.insite (lkavanagh@dminsite.com).
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Social Media ROI
Email Marketing that Works (2nd Edition)
