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Email Marketing
Email Marketing

Improve your email open rate by 29% with automation

August 27, 2018


At its most basic level, marketing is about promoting products and services. But from million-dollar Super Bowl commercials to paying a high school kid to spin a cardboard ad down on main street, choosing which strategy to go with is no simple task.
And while there are countless ways to go about marketing your products and services, there's one thing every strategy must include: deeply personalized content.
Before the advent of digital marketing, the only cost-effective way to segment an ad’s audience was by publishing it in niche magazines and print media, which came with huge sacrifices in viewership. Even then the content was far from being truly personalized.
Then came email. Suddenly, you could market yourself for pennies on the dollar to anyone willing to provide you with his or her email address. Best of all, it was much easier to segment lists of addresses and tailor content based on unifying factors. But this was still a far cry from the personalization that today’s marketing platforms are capable of.

Personalize your marketing efforts with email automation

Rather than dumping a list of 10,000 addresses into the To: field and firing off a generic sales pitch, email automation software allows you to create personalized messages.
One of email automation's most basic features is the ability to add placeholders that will be replaced with client-specific information, such as inserting [client_name] into the subject line to make it look as though you wrote the email just for John Doe.
But perhaps the most valuable aspect of this technology is its ability to automatically draft and send emails whenever preprogrammed conditions are met. An email with only one condition would be something like an anniversary offer:
“Hi [name],
As of today, you’ve been with us for exactly [years_with_company] -- can you believe it? To show our appreciation, we’re inviting you to celebrate with 20% off anything in our online store!”

Getting the most out of automation with drip marketing

An anniversary email would be simple enough to manage and draft manually, but if you’ve got a few hundred customers, such a task would eat up an obscene amount of employee time and resources.
The ROI on email automation becomes much more apparent when you program workflows that are triggered by multiple conditions (e.g., a user signs up for your newsletter and later downloads a whitepaper on a specific product) that send multiple emails over several months. This is often referred to as drip marketing because of the way your ads trickle out over time.
The takeaway is this: Any piece of client information stored in your database can be used as a variable either to trigger templated emails, or personalize the content within those emails -- and there’s currently no better way to make prospects and customers feel cherished.

Email automation campaign ideas

The sky’s the limit when it comes to what you do with email automation. Because of its low cost, it levels the playing field between small and large organizations. Even with limited resources and less client data, drip marketing is mostly driven by imaginative content creation. Campaigns can range from simple one-offs to several-step paths to purchase:
  • Blog article announcements - When clients sign up for your newsletter, it’s a clear indicator they want more content. With email automation, you can automatically generate messages that round up all the blog articles, eBooks, and videos that have been published since you last emailed a specific address.
  • Reminder emails - From company events to online promotions, sometimes customers aren’t uninterested -- they’re just forgetful. One option is to automatically send out reminders about upcoming events and promotions based on customer habits so they’re sure to remember.
  • Customer education - If your sales or onboarding process is overly complicated, automated emails are a great way to set a better pace for customers. You can separate your onboarding process into four steps and write an article about each one, then schedule those articles to go out one-by-one over time whenever someone requests a quote.
  • Targeted sales - Enticing customers based on their previous purchases is a no brainer. For example, a lawn care company might automatically send out a discount on lawn mowers six months after a customer buys fertilizer.

Stats to back it up

Of course, great technology doesn’t always get great results -- just look at Google Glass. But for those who are understandably skeptical, the numbers speak for themselves. Accenture, one of the largest consulting firms in the world, polled 1,500 consumers and found that 75% were more likely to buy from a company that either 1) recognized them by name, 2) recommended options based on past purchases, or 3) knew their purchase history.
And in 2015, Statista published a report on the positive influence of subject line personalization. It claimed that the average improvement was 29.3% across all industries,with Consumer Products and Services seeing an improvement of 41.8%!
Those are great numbers, but a lot of business owners are still wary about alienating prospects by using their data in ways not explicitly authorized. Marketing analytics firm Magnetic surveyed users and found that 60% are comfortable having their shopping interests and behaviors tracked by retailers so they can receive relevant offers throughout the year.

Compete with the big boys

The marketing industry has come a long way from print advertisements and TV commercials. Most email automation tools cost less than ten bucks per month, which means even a small operation with just a handful of employees can create campaigns on par with big-name enterprises and set them in motion with minimal management.
Read more »
Dropshipping
Dropshipping

THE 12 BEST SHOPIFY APPS FOR DROPSHIPPING ECOMMERCE STORES

August 26, 2018


If you wanna make a lot of money from Shopify dropshipping, you need a lot more than just the Shopifystore.
Getting your store set up is the easy part.
Converting visitors into buyers is where you need to spend your time.
The #1 secret to making money in ecommerce is the Shopify apps that your store uses.
The right apps are the difference between -100% ROI and being able to leave your job.
This guide is a follow-up to my first Shopify post. If you haven’t read my intro to ecommerce w/ Shopify + Facebook then check it out here.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
TO CLAIM YOUR SHOPIFY FREE TRIAL CLICK HERE

A Quick Overview of E-Commerce Using Shopify/Facebookshopify ecommerce 2

Everyone has heard of ecommerce, but how does it work?
I wrote a post on it last week, but here’s the 80/20.
  1. You sign up with Shopify
  2. Build a store (no coding needed. //Hey, it’s easy to not code when you can’t code)
  3. Drive traffic to it through Facebook ads
The idea is that you are collecting orders through Shopify, then each day the orders get sent to a drop shipper somewhere in China who ships the products out for you.
It’s not that hard to set up a Shopify store and run some Facebook ads.
If you can do CPA marketing with tracking, servers, postbacks, software etc. then ecommerce will be a breeze.
The HARD part is getting people to convert when they land on your store.
The secret is to use the right combination of apps.
I’ll do some content in the future on what products to sell, how to do the Facebook side etc. But right now I wanna show you some of the best Shopify apps to use in your store.
If you want a more detailed guide check out my intro to Shopify ecommerce post.

The Best Shopify Apps for Ecommerce Campaignsapps main

Over the past year I’ve run a lot of split tests on my Shopify stores.
There are a ton of things to test – products, brands, themes, copy etc.
Once you find a product that works well, the biggest driver of your profitability is your apps.
You can do everything with Shopify apps:
  • Track and automate all of your shipping
  • Upsell and cross-sell products
  • Automate your transactional process (confirmations, receipts, customer service)
  • Use urgency, scarcity, and other sales/psychology principles
I want to share my list of Shopify apps I use in most of my stores to help boost your ROI.

The Shopify Platform

shopify ecommerce 1
Cost: Free trial, then plans from $29 per month
Link: Shopify
Discount: Shopify does offer discounts, but they don’t do them in public. If you wanna grab 10% off for your first year + extend the free trial, here’s the link for the discount.
Description: Shopify is the platform we use to build our store on – kinda like you’d use WordPress if you want to start blogging. Shopify is purpose-built for selling physical products, so it’s easy to make up new listings, use templates for design etc.
You don’t need to know any coding to build your store, unless you want something super custom. There are hundreds of Shopify programmers on Fiverr if you need ‘em.

Wanna Sign up for Shopify? Get a Discount Here

shopify discount code promotion
One of the Shopify reps got in touch with me at AWA and said he wants to offer you guys an insider deal.

App #1: MailChimp

mail chimp shopify
Cost: $0.00 up to 2,000 contact list size
Description: Affiliates should be building email lists. This hooks up your Shopify store to your MailChimp account so you can collect everybody’s emails. It’s free up to email lists of 2,000, and then prices vary.
This gets super powerful when you look at the backend and see what you can do. You can segment your list based on their country, what they bought, when they last purchased etc.
Below is a screenshot of what the email dashboard looks like.
shopify app mailchimp

App #2:  Better Shipping

better shipping
Cost: $14.99
Description: This app sets shipping based on zip/postal code & per product… But I use it for  maxing out profits by charging different rates for shipping different products as well.
Shipping can kill you if you don’t charge the right rates. The margins are slimmer in ecommerce, so you have to watch out for things can caw screw your business.
Another thing I use this app for is offering free shipping if people order over $xx spend. I know the free shipping pushes a lot more people to purchase.
You can see in the screenshots how easy this app is to set rates for specific products/areas.
better shipping shopify app 2better shipping shopify app 1

App #3:  Abandonment Protector

Cost: $8.00 (free trial available)
Description: Sometimes a person will be on your site adding items to their cart, and they exit. There are hundreds of reasons why, but this app retrieves people who abandon the cart and reminds them via email.
You can send multiple emails encouraging them to continue with the purchase.
This is kinda like retargeting, but just on select customers who were super close to buying.
These are super hot leads.
Abandonment Protector also lets you send these emails at time intervals you set, so you can use the stats about email click-throughs to see which intervals/times work best.
abandonment protector shopify app

App #4:  Retarget App

Cost: Custom (10% of campaign spend)
Description: Whenever someone clicks on your Facebook ad, but doesn’t buy, this app will retarget them. The backend of this app is super technical – it does all of the retargeting automatically.
It dynamically creates the Facebook ad, inserts the product that they were viewing. You just have to write the ad text. You can set a budget that you’re comfortable and let it go.
I was skeptical about this app at first.
10% of campaign spend is a lot of money to pay to an app owner, but I’ve made a lot of money from this app. Just test it out and see if it works for your campaign.
retarget app shopify review

App #5:  Pixel Perfect

Cost: $9.99
Description: If you’re not a tech guy, this app is a life saver. It installs the Facebook pixel for every single event without any coding. For example, if someone clicks through to your site and views a certain category, the Facebook pixel will collect all of that data.
It records these events: PageView, ViewContent, ViewCategory, ViewNiche, AddToCart, InitiateCheckout and Purchase Events.
You can see how powerful this is when you gather this much data about your customers into the pixel.
If you’ve used the Facebook pixel before, you know how much of a time saver this app is.
Here’s a screenshot of the events that it logs, and when it fires the pixel on purchase.
pixel perfect shopify app review

App #6:  Recommendify

Cost: $24.99
Description: This plugin can make you a lot of extra cash. It cross sells products to drive more revenue per customer.
Here’s an example: If you’re selling men’s sunglasses, someone visiting your site might also be interested in hats, wallets, watches, sunglass cases etc. This app lets you promote any other items you choose.
Here’s a screenshot that shows how it works:
recommendify shopify app review 2
Amazon gets 35% of their sales from cross-sells. Take inspiration from them and use this app in your store.

App #7:  Conversio

Cost: $0.00
Description: This app lets you upsell and cross-sell extra products when you email your receipt to customer. The customer is still in a buying frame, so you can see how powerful it is to suggest other products on the receipt.
This app used to be called Receiptful (when it just offered the receipt upsell feature), but now they have a ton of extra features like:
  • Feedback system for customers – this is a gold mine for you to help improve your store
  • Product review functionality
  • Can use it to send newsletters to customers
  • Send coupons to customers (this is super powerful for getting repeat customers)
Here’s a screenshot of an example coupon you can send out.
conversio shopify app review

App #8:  Hot Jar

Cost: $29.99
Description: I use this app to create heat maps and recordings of visitors to know where sticking points are. I only use this occasionally, so if you’re just starting out it’s not really necessary. It’s good if you’re getting a ton of traffic and you want to optimize at the margins.
hotjar shopify app

App #9:  Fomo

Cost: $14.99
Description: Fomo is a very powerful app. It creates social proof and urgency by showing how many products other customers are buying. It displays orders in real time with a small popup.
Here’s a screenshot to give you a better idea of how it looks:
notify fomo shopify app review
Imagine if you’re shopping in this store. You see someone in your country buying a similar product to the one you’re looking at.
  1. It reassures you that the store is legit and other shoppers are buying things (social proof)
  2. You feel a sense of urgency because you can see how many items are left in stock

App #10:  Persistent Cart

Cost: $3.99
Description: On a Shopify store, some people add items to their cart, but then leave. You have the Abandonment Protector app to send them follow-up emails, but then any items in the cart disappear.
This is a problem because the customer might not be able to find the product, or they might forget what it was.
Persistent Cart keeps the same items in their shopping cart no matter what device they log in from. It’s cheap, and it pays for itself fast.

App #11:  AfterShip

Cost: $0.00 – variable
Description: This app takes care of all shipping/tracking. Shipping is one of the factors that keep a lot of Shopify stores from becoming a big hit.
Here’s what this app does:
  • Keeps all tracking of your goods in one place
  • Allows your customers to view a page that tells them the status of shipping (this reduces customer service email)
  • Sends delivery updates to customers (this also reduces a lot of customer service problems)
This app solves a lot of the problems that come up in stores selling physical products.
You can see how easy it is to set up automated emails, view the stats on your shipping, and keep customers happy with the custom pages.
after ship shopify app review 1after ship shopify app review 2after ship shopify app review 3

App #12:  In Cart Upsell

Cost: $49
Description: This app kinda works the same was as an Amazon cart. When the visitor goes to the checkout, this app offers them a related product.
But the real benefit of this app is that it’s not a hard sell. When someone is trying to buy on your store, you don’t wanna annoy them too much. This is one of the best Shopify apps for upselling that actually helps the end user.
It’s a gentle upsell, and it works really well when you do it on products that someone would really want to buy.
The screenshot below is a great example: a belt as an upsell when they are buying pants.
in cart upsell shopify app review

Honorable Mentions

There are a few extra apps that I’ve found to be helpful, but they aren’t super necessary. Think of them as “extra for experts”.

Google Shopping

google shopping
Cost: Variable
Description
Some of you guys might be coming from a search/PPC background and you don’t want to have to learn a whole new traffic source. There are plenty of guys out there doing ecom on search, so this plugin can help you there.

Free Shipping Bar

Cost: Variable
Description
It’s good to test different shipping methods. Free shipping, flat rate shipping, $1.00 shipping, shipping based on GEO, whatever. But free shipping is always gonna help people make a fast decision. You don’t need to use this specific app, you can do it manually in your store. This app just helps “gamify” the process.

Recart

recart review
Cost: Variable (28-day free trial)
Description
Recart are newer to the scene and are a competitor for Abandonment Cart Protector, but they offer some unique angles. They’ve just pushed over the 15,000 stores mark for downloads and have 1700+ reviews on Shopify with a good rating.
They’ve generated over $48,000,000 in extra sales for their current customers and are the only app for an abandoned cart that integrates with Facebook Messenger (as of December 2017).
They also just got greenlit by Facebook allowing our merchants to have the “send to Messenger” widget pre-checked (which should give you much higher conversions).

Always Be Testing – The Same Rules Apply Here

Ecommerce is an area I see a lot of growth in for 2017.
The one major advantage we have as affiliate marketers is that we have a different mindset.
I’ve found that the majority of Shopify store owners don’t understand split testing, targeting, optimizing, tracking etc.
They don’t even think to do that sorta stuff.
Most Shopify store owners will set up a store, and then run traffic to it. They are happy with tiny profit margins because it’s just a hobby for them, or it’s an extension of their physical store.
As affiliates, we know that you have to test, test test.
I’ve absolutely dominated ecommerce because I come in with the affiliate mindset.
I see a problem, and I test out 5 solutions.
3 of them don’t work, 1 breaks even, and one takes off.
Then I move on to the next split test.
After 5 split tests I’m light years ahead of the average Shopify store owner.
The same rules apply in all areas of online business – ecommerce is no exception.
Read more »
Email Marketing
Email Marketing

Powerful tips and tools for email

August 23, 2018
In this guide, you will find everything you need to help you capture new email leads and maximize the content you send. This can create new streams of revenue as potential customers want to check out your landing pages and shop with you.

Your Email List and What it Means

73% of consumers show interest in a brand because they like the features or identify with the brand. Getting your products and services in front of prospects is the first step to converting leads into customers. By building up email lists, you can focus on sending coupons, discounts, blog articles, how-tos and other promotions to interested readers.
This is why building your email list should focus on people who have bought from you in the past, subscribed to your newsletter, requested a product sample, or given you their email during a face-to-face interaction.

Keep It Fresh and Current

Another way to improve your campaigns is by staying up to date with the most recent social media platforms. Popular sites
come and go, and what was “in” yesterday may not make it to the end of the week. Reach out across as many different platforms
as you can and work on optimizing the same content for several sites. If you write a two-paragraph post for Facebook, you’ll
have to totally rewrite it for Twitter’s 140-character limit.
But it’s not just your copywriting and marketing language, online advertising is all about images. Would you rather buy a t-shirt from a website that displays their clothes dangling from a hanger, or in a fun, real-world setting? Your images need to be as fresh and current as the language in your ad campaigns -- update them both, and do it often.

Create a Subscription Campaign

The first step is one of the easiest: advertise your newsletter across your current website and your face-to-face meetings. Keep in mind some of our top recommendations for places to advertise a newsletter or email campaign:
  • Home Page: This is the most viewed page on your site -- always include a subscription form here. It can be a pop-up, or a segment at the
    bottom of the page.
  • At Checkout: If you have an eCommerce platform, include a checkbox for new users to sign up for your newsletter as well as a form at checkout for existing customers.
  • Blog: Include a subscription form here to let customers know you have more great content in your newsletter and occasional releases of FREE eBooks.
  • Your Email Signature: If you post to online forums or send emails to networking groups, include a link to subscribe to your newsletter in your email signature.
  • In-person transactions: If your business engages customers face-to-face, ask employees to offer a discount on purchases if customers provide their email address for promotions and discounts.

Offer an Incentive


Incentives give people a reason to provide their email addresses, and there are countless ways to show your customers that keeping in touch with your business is worth it. Try these incentives to capture new leads:
  • Free eBooks: There’s no reason to make it a long and drawn out affair. 3,000 words should be enough insight to motivate customers to sign up for your campaign.
  • Discounts and Deals: Everyone wants a coupon. By offering a product-specific discount via home page advertisement or social media post, you can further ensure that what gets sent to the customer is relevant to his or her interest.
  • Promotions and Previews: Harness the excitement of new products and services by promising to keep them “in the loop” with a signup form. Being a part of an inner circle is valuable to interested clients and you shouldn’t let that interest go to waste.


Increasing the reach of your email campaigns is simple: Keep your content fun and relevant, and prospects won’t feel like they are being spammed with pointless newsletters. Don’t be afraid to give a little something up -- such as deals, discounts, advice, and content -- for increased conversions and revenue.
Read more »
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