1. Advanced Personalisation
Oh, this is fun. We can get so creepy with it on this one because to do it right, you have to build a world. I was working on a project with a client who sells outdoor cabins (awesome bloke) and because he’s smart he partnered with competitors in other states so they can service the orders he gets from the rest of the country. Much easier than trying to lug a log cabin halfway across the nation, don’t you think?
Anyway, he initially thought of sending one email with details for all states to everyone who opted in.
Ok, so that’s a pretty simple example.
And sometimes that’s all it takes—one small courtesy that makes your customer’s life a little smoother with you than any other business (competitor or not). Could be even one line that you change to give 5 uniquely personalised emails. It’s worth it, every time.
Guess what? It gets better.
Here are some ideas for you:
- Thank you for purchasing vs Congratulations on your first purchase! vs Good to see you, thanks for purchasing again.
- Hi vs Good morning vs Light lunchtime reading for you vs Before you hit the hay tonight (for different time zones or even depending on the time you’ve set the email to send).
- How are you finding it? vs Hey superuser—you cracked a record (5 logins in consecutive days—nice one!) vs Everything ok? Haven’t seen you in x days (to encourage them to use your product).
- Did you watch the video yet? vs You’ll love the next 4 minutes—they’re amazing vs Liked that? Check this out (depending on how long they’ve watched a video).
- Sweet, Georgina! You’re in. An email with your PDF is on its way to you as we speak (well, as you’re reading these words.) It is georgina@email.com isn’t it? (on the thank you page after they’ve submitted a form).
- And how about different landing pages for different segments of your list?
Imagine how far into their life you can get—right down to sending them an email or a text whilst they’re reading a particular page on your website, which they get after spending 90 seconds on a page. Now we’re talking.
In InfusionSoft?
- Use merge fields like French champagne: anywhere you want to impress.
- Be creative with them—try using their spouse’s name (yes, InfusionSoft has a field built-in for it and it’s really not that hard to get from your customers) and other ways to bring your relationship in tight.
- Befriend decision diamonds. You can keep them kindergarten simple and still make them Stanford effective.
- Whip out a few quick landing page/email sequence combinations in Campaign builder and remember to keep the links to each landing page unique depending on the segment.
2. Surprise your customers with a first-time purchase gift
I’ll keep this one simple–you want to reward people for doing the things you want them to.
So send them a gift (it doesn’t need to be huge to WOW them); just something that makes them sit up and pay attention to how much you appreciate them.
(and shows them how awesome you are)
Here are a couple of examples:
- $10 department store gift card
- Movie tickets
- Handwritten note
- Bottle of wine/champagne
- Chocolates
- An issue or subscription to their favourite magazine
- Personalised coffee mug
- Restaurant voucher
- Amazon gift card
You might want to consider doing this for your customers whenever they do what you want them to—like spend over $5,000 or cross the 1-year ‘anniversary’ with you etc.
It’s easy to set up with InfusionSoft too:
- Create your goal to decide when you’ll send them their gift (most likely a tag that’s applied when they purchase or spend over a certain amount).
- Connect it to a sequence.
- In the sequence drop in the ‘fulfillment list’ snippet.
- Save your settings (who’s sending the email and what it says, what you want your supplier to process etc).
- You’re ready to WOW.
3. An entire birthday campaign to make their special day unforgettable
Sending a birthday card from the CEO or the team is becoming quite a cliché for businesses.
Even worse, some companies treat it as an excuse to pitch or sell their goods.
The idea’s solid, it’s the execution that needs work.
So let’s be different–it’s time to up your game.
This is how you can build your relationship and warm them up to make them an offer, respectfully:
-
- Two weeks before their birthday, send an email that shares things they can reflect on from the past year. Maybe even a smart-looking one-pager with space for their fondest memories and achievements from the past year.
- One week ahead, send them an email full of ideas and activities they can do on their big day.
- Let the birthday love-bomb fly. Send them a text message in the morning, an e-card late morning and in the afternoon a present, from you, including a time-sensitive offer for your stuff.
So you’ve earned the right to ask for the sale by the end. And you succeeded in making the day special, and all about them.
Imagine if you were the birthday boy/girl on that day. Wouldn’t you feel special?
Keep this one streamlined:
- When they give you their birthday, tag them with a ‘Birthday set’ tag.
- Begin your birthday campaign with this tag application as a goal.
- In the sequence, use field timers to set each of your messages to send as a ‘countdown’ to their birthday.
- Remember to set it as “Next Occurrence” so it’ll run every year, without you even thinking about it. Even if they are one of the few who remember getting it last year, chances are they’ll still appreciate the reminder.
- Surprise bonus: if you have the budget, you may even want to combine it with number 10 above by sending them something via snail mail.
4. Turn yourself into a referral machine with gifts for your customers’ friends
The days of the ‘icky’ refer 5 friends and get 10% off are gone—if you want them to be.
That’s right, you can breathe. You don’t have to be awkward about asking for friends’ details anymore.
I’ve worked with plenty of cutting-edge business owners who are making referrals cool, casual and most importantly, ridiculously profitable.
Here’s an example:
I once got an email from a superb marketer offering a free personality test.
Except the test wasn’t for me. I’d already taken it. It was a gift for me to pay forward.
And the best part? The gift was already set up in my members area, so as soon as I logged in, I could immediately send it whizzing through cyberspace to my dear friend.
You can’t imagine how grateful she was. She said it was like I’d taken all the work out of researching personality tests for her.
Sure, I’ll pay for that.
Ok, one more. I can’t resist.
My favourite referral process I’ve ever seen was this one-liner at the end of a marketing email:
GOT FORWARDED THIS MESSAGE? PASS IT ON.
The beautiful network-trigger effect this has on your brain is incredible.
Think about it and, if you want, maybe we we can talk about it in another post soon.
Anyway, that link simply forwarded the email (no option, just a simple forward email) which is much cooler and cleaner than pushy ‘dangle the carrot’ tactics.
Like most owners I work with, you might prefer it because it still allows your client to refer because they want to and they genuinely care. Not for the sake of getting something free.
Finally, how do you put this into action?
You have my permission to use any strategies from this series and make them work for you.
So, choose ONE that will have the biggest impact on your business (or is the easiest to implement) and do it now. It might take some work upfront, but it’ll save you HUNDREDS of emails and hours down the track.
Then, once you’ve done that, come back and keep investing in it. It’s worth it.
And in case you can’t tell, this is our jam. And we’re always looking for the ‘unsolvable challenge’ (we’re yet to be stumped).
The best day for us is when clients ask us to set up a new campaign for them because they’re going on holiday.
That’s when we cheer and crack open the champagne. It means we’ve given one more business owner time to do the important stuff—you know, spend time with the kids, fly business class or enjoy a cold pina colada with a little blue umbrella.
… by leveraging their business.
Before I let you go, I want to say thank you for putting your time and attention into reading this. It matters.
If you’re ready to deck out your InfusionSoft with a more advanced automation strategy, or if you’re wondering whether you maybe need InfusionSoft now, let’s have a quick, real conversation to see what’s best for you:
Do you already have InfusionSoft and need help now to harness its full power? OR
Are you hungry for InfusionSoft so you can get the ultimate leverage too