405 – How to Increase Customer Retention with Kerri McDonald

Gift Biz Unwrapped guest,

episode number 405.

It's the way that you can get directly into your customer

at the most specific time of when you think they're gonna

buy or buy again.

Attention, gifters,

bakers, crafters and makers.

Pursuing your dream can be fun.

Whether you have an established business or looking to start one

now you are in the right place.

This is Gift Biz Unwrapped,

helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.

Join us for an episode packed full of invaluable guidance,

resources, and the support you need to grow your gift biz.

Here is your host Gift Biz gal Sue Moon Heights.

Hi there,

it's Sue.

I'm thrilled that you're here with me today and appreciate your

loyalty and support of this podcast going into another year.

Make sure to hit the subscribe button if you're new to

the show so you automatically get all the goodness coming your

way for this year.

One of those things is the bashes there back.

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you can go back in the lineup and listen to one

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title. These shows provide you an opportunity to get your business

seen by this whole listening audience.

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They're actually a recorded zoom get together that turns into a

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about doing a joint product collaboration.

Valentine's Day is right around the corner,

and our next bash is scheduled this upcoming week,

January 19th.

Intentionally planned that way.

Of course,

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Go to gift fizz unwrap.com/bash

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If next week's get together doesn't fit your schedule.

Today we're talking about the most important thing you can do

to grow your business.

That is retaining customers who have already purchased from you,

so they'll buy again.

Yes, some customers will drop off month to month or be

only a one time purchaser,

but if you put the strategy you'll hear about here in

place, you won't be spinning your wheels all the time trying

to find a fresh new set of customers each and every

month. You'll get repeat orders that naturally build upon themselves over

time. It's such a stress reliever when you get to the

place where you can predict confidently that these orders will come

in. That is what brings sustainable business growth.

You know,

that arrow that you want to continually see making its way

upward in your sales reports.

Listen in right now to hear how to make this work

for you Today.

I'd like to introduce you to Carrie McDonald.

Carrie Dove headfirst into e-commerce over four years ago,

driving her brand to eight figure status as director of marketing

in less than three years.

Ready for a new challenge.

centered on e-commerce,

email and SMS marketing.

The greenhouse has quickly grown into an agency where clients take

root and flourish,

generating over 10 million in revenue for its brands in the

first year.

When not growing brands,

Carrie inspires others by sharing her own multifaceted story.

Ooh, we're gonna have to hear about that later.

From major career challenges and rebounding from a business failure to

co-found a thriving business,

Carrie helps others craft a fulfilling,

unique path in life that defies limits.

Ooh, that's enticing and interesting too.

Carrie, welcome to the Gift Biz Unwrapped podcast.

Thank you so much Sue,

and thank you for the amazing intro.

We're gonna dive in in a minute.

Yeah, absolutely.

Lot of stories in there.

Okay, before we do that,

though, I shared with you a little bit earlier,

I like because we're all handmade creators who are listening here

to learn about you in a more creative way,

and that is through a motivational candle.

So if you were to close your eyes and just dream

up a candle that totally speaks,

Carrie, what would it look like?

Yeah, definitely.

So they have these really cool candle bars now in Miami

where I live,

called Candle Land where you can go like pick your vessel

and you pick the filling and everything.

So I've been actually thinking about this a lot lately because

I didn't wanna go there,

but I think me,

in a candle,

the vessel would either be like clear or it would be

like a ndy pink color,

and the candle wax itself would be like a nude pink

color, like baby nude pink,

neutral color with mica powder in it to make it glittery.

And the quote on the outside would probably be something related

to affirmations or law of attraction.

I have always liked this quote,

don't downgrade your dream to fit your reality,

upgrade your conviction to match your destiny.

And I've always used that from back from when I was

teaching and it applies now to what I believe in.

So I think that's me in a candle.

I like it.

And I'm all about law of attraction and manifesting here too.

Actually, we had Bob Doyle on the show probably two years

ago or so from The Secret.

He came on and talked all about that.

So people who have been listening for a while are totally

in sync with us.

Carrie. Yeah,

it's very real.

Just saying go back and listen to that episode if you

haven't heard it.

Absolutely. I mean,

and your quote also,

I really like because it doesn't limit you,

it says to go after what you're looking for and not

make sacrifices.

You know,

maybe you have a different route to get where you're going,

but don't change your dream and make your dream less than

what you really want.

Which you know,

especially as we're into brand new year here,

it's a great outlook to have as we go forward.

Yes, absolutely.

Yes. So,

and you used to have a Nazi shop,

I understand.

Yes, yes.

Do tell.

Yes. So I feel as though I've lived a few different

lives, like so it feels like different places in the world,

different places in my life and different career paths.

So to me they feel like different paths really that are

all cohesive of my life.

I had summers off,

so I had a lot of time on my hands and

I was also trying to like switch career paths.

I didn't really know what I could do and instead of

downgrading my dream to fit my current reality,

what I did was learn new skills.

I like learned new things.

I started watching YouTube videos and all that and I got

really into calligraphy.

And when I had my summers off is when I really

started my Etsy shop and just made invitations and signs and

wooden signs and all of that hand lettered.

So that's what I did.

That was my Etsy shop.

I did that for probably like three or four years maybe.

And then when I changed careers I ended up shutting it

down. But yeah,

I am a maker.

Yeah, I mean you have the experience and knowledge of what

other people who are listening have done.

So that's really helpful as we go with the conversation and

we can all relate to you better now just because of

that, cuz you've done it the same thing.

So you were teaching then before you became the director of

marketing? Yep.

That's the sequence of events,

right? Yeah,

yeah. From teacher to Etsy shop to director of marketing,

e-commerce, and now agency owner.

Yeah, it's been quite a journey,

but I think one thing that has stayed as a constant

has been like creativity.

I'm a creative person so it's really like I was a

music teacher.

My Etsy shop rooted in creativity,

marketing is all about creativity and what I do now,

still marketing,

all rooted in creativity.

So that's like the common thread I guess,

between them all.

Okay, got it.

Wonderful. Okay,

here comes an unexpected question.

Are you ready?

Yeah. So being a shop owner,

obviously just being a consumer overall and then jumping into e-commerce

director of marketing,

what were some things that you didn't realize as you came

and became more professional in that area?

Like what did you find versus being a consumer and a

a shop owner that you learned different when you went into

corporate or director of marketing if you will?

Yeah, so I mean my route to director of marketing was

through a startup.

It was startup at the time when I started and they

ended up getting acquired by a larger company.

So turned sort of corporate at the end.

But I started,

you know,

as a graphic designer and my way up to director of

marketing. I think one thing I didn't know,

and I hope this answers your question,

one thing I didn't know about marketing is that I'm a

big time consumer.

Like I am an unhealthy consumer.

My mom and I like it's all we do is we

shop, we love to shop and we're always going shopping and

I'm always on like online stores.

Like I'm always on Etsy looking for unique gifts.

Like I'm just a consumer.

And what I didn't realize about marketing when I first started

in it and what I was learning is that it is

so important to have the mind of a consumer as a

marketer. Like if you are a big time consumer and you

follow and you buy from a lot of brands,

I think those are some of the best marketers because they

understand what their customers like go through,

right? And so you can put yourself in the mind of

a consumer of like,

when does it feel right to hear from you?

Like what type of products might you be looking for?

What type of like problems might you have that you can

help solve?

And so,

you know,

that was like one thing was like,

I didn't realize at first,

but as I started getting into it,

I'm like,

I'm really great for this job because I buy a lot

of things so I know how to speak to people who

buy a lot of things.

And I think that is a really interesting perspective too,

because when we switch over and we're the business owner and

we're putting together our marketing strategies,

we forget that we need to sit in the consumer chair

and see how we would receive what we're putting out.

Always, always.

I mean that's like,

it's one of the best things that you can do and

it's something that I've been wanting to post about lately is

just like before you send anything or put out any communication

or develop any kind of campaign or anything,

like sit and think about what state of mind might your

consumer be in right now.

Right now it's all about gifting.

So the only content that should be going out is around

gifting last minute gifts.

Did you forget here's a gift card,

like get what size to buy,

like what color to pick.

Like that's just the mindset that everybody's in or they're frazzled,

you know?

Right. They're just frazzled all over the place.

So it's always good to like try to take stock of

like where your customers,

where they're at mind fully at this time of day,

year, week,

whatever. Yeah.

And that's for posting emails,

any interaction that you have with them?

I'm thinking,

Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay.

And so then what was your thought pattern or what was

your decision point to jump to your own business?

How did that happen?

It's funny because I was telling the story the other day.

I've, I've always had I guess a entrepreneurial bug or more

so I will just call it that I've always wanted to

pave my own path and so that can be seen when

I started my Etsy shop I was teaching and I just

didn't feel like it was really fulfilling for me and where

I was at and where I,

I wanted to go in life and I thought,

you know,

starting something on my own would be a lot more fulfilling

for me.

So I've always had that in me.

And then when I moved to the e-commerce company that I

worked for for three years,

became the director of marketing again,

I realized,

you know,

I'm really meant to like be doing my own thing.

And at that point I had a lot of skills and

a lot of knowledge to be able to go more successfully

into my own business.

And then aside from that,

like for me having a support system,

so I started now my agency with my boyfriend who is

my business and life partner and just having an accountability partner,

someone to help you build the business really helped like scale

it and catapult it in a way that I was never

able to do before.

So I felt like,

you know,

I had someone keeping me accountable to really focus on this

business and grow it and get where I need to be

and I had all the skills and the knowledge and if

not now then went and so we quit our jobs and

we went for it full force.

Love it.

So before we get into the topic in total today,

what does the Greenhouse do?

What is the single mission of the greenhouse?

Yeah, the greenhouse exists to provide really high quality email and

SMS campaigns to customers all while helping our e-commerce businesses generate

higher customer lifetime value.

So it's all about retaining customers and getting them to buy

multiple times,

building a community around the brand and the business.

But from a consumer side of point,

we're trying to just put out the best looking,

the best sounding,

the best email and s m s campaigns that you can

get. Got it.

Cuz you can do both of those types of campaigns and

not have them hit.

You could take the action,

write the email,

yeah, do the SMS campaigns and see nothing as a result

of It.

Yeah, that happens a lot.

That's why people come to us.

I know.

And then they say,

oh well email doesn't work,

but it might just be that you know,

these, both of those are great tools,

you might just need to do it differently.

Right. So people will come to you for that.

Correct. Yeah.

Anyone who says that email doesn't work,

I would like to have a chat with them.

Okay, good.

Well It always works And I think email is going to

be part of the topic that we're talking about,

but I love the concept of this topic and what we're

gonna be talking about and why am I leaving everyone in

suspense customer retention,

you know,

so often we're going after the new customer,

the new customer,

the new customer,

and we forget that we have this wealth of gold in

people who have already bought our product and we often ignore

them, right?

Yes. So this is what I wanted to bring Carrie on

and talk about is how do you take that and really

use it to your best advantage?

And again,

top of the year you can do things differently if you're

one who thought email marketing didn't work or s m s,

and maybe we're gonna get into both of those,

I don't know how we're gonna gonna go,

but the whole thought is you've got value in your existing

customer base.

Are you using that to your best advantage?

So Carrie,

why don't you underline or what would be your comment on

all of that,

just top line first.

Absolutely. I mean retention is necessary for any business.

Like customer retention is a hundred percent necessary because I think

it's something like three to five times more expensive to acquire

a new customer than it is to retain a current customer.

That's number one.

And think about like if you're always having to go out

and search for or find the new customers,

it's very unsustainable business model then to say I have 40%

or 60% returning customer rate,

then you know at least 40 to 60% of my customers

are going to be coming back on a regular basis and

then I need to fill the gap with the new customers.

And then if you can even increase that repeat purchase rate

over time,

then you have to do less work on the acquisition side,

it's very valuable to pump up your retention and customer lifetime

value as much as possible.

Very, very valuable for any business.

Yeah. And really that's the only way your business is gonna

grow because just think like if you had to go,

you wiped out all your customers and every single month you

had to go find and have people transition into buying your

product every single month and then at the end of the

month you started again with a zero,

you're spinning your wheels and you're never gonna get anywhere.

Absolutely. And the cycle is vicious.

It's like,

you know in the beginning there's so much education and discovery

that happens to get a customer to buy a first time,

right? And so once they're there and they already have that

education and they already have that knowledge of the brand,

of the product,

of the whatever,

then you have them already and you can get them to

buy again.

There's three buckets really that I see e-comm businesses in and

that would be the first bucket being acquisition.

How are you acquiring and bringing in and finding new customers?

So all these three buckets are important,

right? But some of them weigh heavily than more than others.

So acquisition,

conversion, how are you getting them to buy?

So once you've acquired the interest,

once you've acquired the potential customers,

how are you getting them to buy?

Is it easy for them to buy?

Is conversion seamless?

Like is there a welcome discount you can give them?

Like something like that.

And then retention is how are you then once they convert,

how are you retaining them as a customer?

The idea is that if one of those buckets falls down

at any point in time,

the other buckets are there to support,

right? So like recently people who were advertising on Facebook had

a hard time with advertising and so their acquisition went down

a little bit.

Or maybe social media is hard or TikTok is not showing

your videos for a week,

you know,

whatever it may be.

At least you have those other buckets like up and running

successfully in order to support and still be driving your sales.

Okay, wonderful.

And retention is really where I wanna focus right now.

How does someone figure out what their retention rate is?

Because if certainly it varies by product,

I would be looking at it as a customer base.

So if I don't know how different platforms work,

like I know for sure Shopify will tell you your repeat

purchase rate.

So you can easily track that month over month what your

repeat purchase rate is.

40 to 60% is a good number to shoot for.

On the other platforms,

I would assume,

like if someone's selling on Etsy,

and I don't remember,

it's been a while since I've been on there,

but I would assume that they would also have insights on

what the repeat purchase rate is.

But we also use platform called Clavio for our email marketing.

And that platform will allow you to like export your customer

data and you can actually get like customer lifetime value,

so the lifetime value of one customer.

And then from there you wanna find like the average,

what is your average customer lifetime value?

And I would use those two numbers,

your repeat purchase rate and your lifetime value as kind of

like the north star numbers to follow and aim for for

retention. All right,

so I think the best way to approach this to help

everybody is,

let's pretend someone hasn't even done this,

they're just starting fresh,

they have a business up and running probably,

but they've never really considered retention before.

They might be doing emails already,

I mean they're working their business but never with the mind

of really focusing on someone who's already purchased and making sure

that they come back.

So where do you go with someone like that?

One of the very first things that I like to do,

especially if you have a good existing customer base,

let's say it's even like,

you know,

50 customers,

right? Any number is a good number to start.

I love to survey the existing customers,

get a survey out after someone has purchased,

ask them why did they end up purchasing this product or

from you,

right? What made them finalize their decision?

Why did they like the product or do they like the

product? Like are they happy with it,

right? Why do they like it?

What problems does it solve and what else would they like

to see from you?

Like right,

try to collect information because you know,

we can sit here and talk about strategies and you can

guess, but the best way is to go to the people

who are actually buying and ask them.

So that would be like step number one is like start

collecting information.

What Do you think about phone calls instead of a survey?

I think if you have the time,

if you have the time and the resources to do that,

I just feel like you get so much more information and

better information now not everyone's gonna wanna talk with you.

I get that.

Exactly. There's a lot of scams happening over the phones lately,

so I think people are a little iffy.

But yeah,

any way that you can get directly to your customer.

So we wanna do a survey or somehow get feedback on

what motivated them to purchase and then what they liked about

the, the product and potentially additional things they'd like to see,

right? That kind of thing.

Correct. And you could even throw some demographic questions in there,

like what do you do on your spare time?

Like what are your hobbies?

Like then that will help you kind of get to know

the customers a little bit more.

You can then put that into like a word cloud and

see like let's say you ask about occupation and the word

nurse is like the biggest one,

right? Then you know,

if you're making products or you're thinking about launching new things

like well I should make products that are targeted toward this

subset or this interest,

right? Yeah.

So I think like data and having feedback is like one

of the most valuable things that you can start with for

sure. Okay,

so we've done that.

We have some information and I liked what you said,

look, we start where we are,

right? So whatever the number is,

if it's two,

you know,

whatever it is,

it's gonna build from there,

right? Yes,

correct. And there's no limit.

The data is valuable whenever you collect it,

whether it's one person or 50 people,

it's still valuable feedback to have and to use in your

marketing and in your retention efforts.

So okay then what?

So now we have information.

Absolutely. So then I would spend some time like,

you know,

understanding like buying cycle,

it's, it really depends on the product,

right? Because you need to think about first like why are

people buying your product mostly,

are they buying it to solve a problem in their life?

And this is what the survey will help you understand as

well. But are they buying the product to help you like

solve a problem in their life or are they buying the

product more as like gifting for people?

Yeah, so someone who,

let's see,

let's think about this.

So someone who sells jewelry bags for travel,

you don't need one of those every single month.

Well exactly.

Someone who sells lotions,

your buying cycle is going to be more frequent.

So you've gotta look at your products and I'm gonna guess

that most people,

if they really put some thought to it already have a

lot of those answers.

They know,

they know how many people need or,

and I've been thinking about this a lot lately Carrie,

so I'm just gonna spit it out cuz it kind of

applies here is I think we need to provide the reasons

for people to buy that they might not have thought of

before. Like go back to that jewelry holder,

right? It might be great for you for travel,

but it also could be a great gift for a friend

of yours who's going away,

you know,

a special vacation or a hostess gift for someone who's coming

and staying with you for a while.

Exactly. Or you need one for every room Or you need

one for like,

I don't know what it would be,

but think beyond the obvious reason for your product and why

your customer might want to purchase it again for them,

not for them for a different purpose,

you know,

all that type of Thing.

Exactly. So it depends on the buying cycle for the product

and it depends on why people are mainly buying the product.

But after that I would be setting up like post-purchase email

automations or sequences after the first purchase because you wanna make

them feel like they're a part of your business and they're

a part of what you've got involved in in your business,

right? So like thanking them for purchasing after a certain number

of days after you know they've gotten your product again,

however long it takes to make the product,

but after they've gotten the product,

like asking them how it was asking for a review and

then eventually,

let's call it 30 days,

60 days,

your cross-selling or upselling something else,

right? Let's say you have an additional product in your set

that will be a nice compliment to the one they just

bought. Cross sell something else like,

hey, if you like this product,

you'll definitely love this one and here's why.

Or if you don't have something to cross sell and you're

only selling one type of product,

then here's why you should buy more.

Your mom will love it,

your sister will love it,

your whoever will love it,

your babysitter will love it.

Everybody is gonna love this product and here's why and it's

the perfect gift.

So next time you're thinking of gifts,

that's what you need to buy.

So it all lies in the emails and reminding them to

buy again.

Okay, so I know people are asking this question,

does that mean I have to track and send out individual

emails based on the different products that my customers buy?

No, you don't have to individually track it.

There are systems and softwares that will do it automatically based

off of like a trigger system.

So like they would call a purchase a trigger and then

once that trigger happens,

then the email will automatically fire.

What if you have different products?

So someone buying jewelry might be different than someone buying socks,

Right? It all depends on the platform that you're using,

which is why I recommend,

you know,

if you wanna do a strong retention program for your business,

you do need a strong email marketing platform because retention like

the two channels that fall most heavily under retention are email

and sms,

Which is why your agency focus on those.

On those.

Yeah. It's the way that you can get into directly into

your customer at you know,

the most specific time of when you think they're gonna buy

or buy again,

right? It's the most direct route you have to your customer

is email and sms.

So I recommend to do a retention program in the most

robust way possible to use a platform like a Clavio or

some sort of email marketing platform that is strong that you

would be able to set up these automations and to your

point, yet it is a setup.

In the beginning you would have to say,

you know,

bot product is jewelry collection and is socks collection,

right? And it's like a tree.

You would make these automations,

there's Setup,

but once it's set up,

then it's automated from there It will automatically fire.

Correct. Got It.

We'll carry on with this conversation right after a quick break.

As a handmade product maker,

you create the most beautiful,

delicious, and life-enhancing products.

I'm so impressed with your talent and you always put a

smile on my face when I see your newest creations.

I'm always watching and I'm also always listening.

Let me back up here for a second In our Facebook

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Go ahead,

pause this podcast for a second and come back right after

it's that worth it.

And so what do you think about bounce back coupons to

initiate the second purchase?

I wouldn't give it automatically right out of the gate because

they've already bought once and especially if they already bought with

a coupon,

let's say the first time a lot of businesses will do

a welcome coupon,

right? Yes.

A welcome offer.

Even a popup on the website.

Yeah. Some sort of a welcome offer.

And so if then that person buys and if they use

that welcome offer,

that welcome coupon,

you target them again the second time to buy again with

another coupon,

you are training them to only wait for discounts and sales

And you're reducing your margin,

You're reducing your margins and you're also instilling in them that

your product isn't worth the full price value.

Oh, Very good point.

Yeah. So you'll almost never be able to sell at your

full price value if you're only incentivizing with coupons.

Do they work for quick hit sales?

Absolutely they do.

But if you're looking to build a brand,

a long-term business,

good healthy margins where you don't always have to discount,

you need to give people the opportunity to buy without a

discount first.

So to your point,

would I hit them immediately with a discount right after they

purchased to buy again?

No, I'd remind them two or three times and then at

the point,

let's say it's like six months or nine months and they

haven't purchased again,

then I might try to target them with a win back

or bounce back coupon.

Yeah, I'm just asking.

You know with the holidays that just passed,

I did place a lot of orders and this may be

specific to Etsy.

Yeah. Black Friday,

No, but I'm thinking of the Etsy products that I got

as holiday gifts.

We just got a new puppy,

so we're really big into dog bandanas these days and I

have a family full of dogs.

Yeah. But many people,

Etsy sellers,

this will be good to talk about the difference between what

you can do on Etsy versus like a website that you

own. But many of them will give me when the product

is delivered a discount on my next purchase.

Like right away.

Yeah. And you're suggesting maybe not the best idea cuz you're

conditioning them.

Yeah, it's not a good idea from a brand standpoint because

I mean,

being the director of marketing for a 25 million brand,

what I saw was that brand was using coupons and discounts

to get sales.

Eventually they couldn't sell their products at full price anymore because

people were only buying when they were incentivized to buy,

they Were waiting.

Yeah. So when you're small and you're a small business and

those quick hit sales and those,

you know,

the daily sales,

they always matter.

But Right.

But it really,

it's very impactful and a smaller scale.

It is a good way to get a quick hit sale.

But what you are training the customer is just that my

products are only worth it if you buy a discount,

let them come back and pay full price.

You know,

and don't reduce your margins every time unless you have enough

margins baked in that you can afford a discount.

Everything. I'm kind of thinking of a couple of brands right

now. Apple Bean one,

Brighton Jewelry is another.

They never discount what Brighton does from time to time at

the store level.

But most of the time,

no. And so,

you know,

if you want either of those products and I know there's

more, you might even be able to add to my list

Carrie, but yeah,

you are conditioned that don't wait around because you're not gonna

get a,

you know,

if you want this product,

you're gonna pay full price and it's worth it period.

Yeah, and I'm not saying to never use discounts,

I'm just saying strategically like don't give it all away all

the time.

Right, right.

Like they just bought,

they became a customer.

Give them time to like absorb and love the product and

give them more reasons to love the product.

Remind them to buy again.

Because mostly people are thinking I have to give a discount

in order for someone to buy again.

When in reality all they might need is a reminder or

an inspiration.

Like, hey Valentine's Day is coming up,

did you get a gift?

Like if you love your ex product,

you'll probably love to gift it to somebody else.

Yeah. So when all they need is a reminder and you've

just, you know,

saved yourself however many dollars in margins by not discounting.

Right. Okay.

So we talked to was referencing just briefly and having an

Etsy shop versus having your own e-commerce site.

Do you wanna speak to that just so that we're all

together on the differences there?

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean it's pretty simple.

Very similar to like if you're selling on Amazon,

if you're selling on Etsy,

Etsy and Amazon own those customers and they are their customers

very similar.

If you have a Facebook page or an Instagram page,

Facebook and Instagram own your followers.

If they go down,

your followers,

your customers go with them.

You don't actually own that customer base when you start a

Shopify store,

you are actually starting your own owned like website that you

are in control of and you're building your own customer base.

Then those are people that have opted into your emails or

they have bought your products.

That's your customer list that you own and can market to

forever despite what happens with any of the other platforms.

Right, Right.

For me,

the biggest difference and for me why having an owned channel

is really important.

Yeah. And for anyone who's listening who's like freaking out right

now cuz they have a neti shop and you haven't listened

to some of the other shows,

there is nothing wrong with having a Neti shop and then

also a Shopify store because those are different audiences.

Etsy works and transitions totally different than you would with your

own. So you can also have the best of both worlds

if you will.

But what we're focusing on where you can really control Carrie

and what you work with is when you own the list

so that you can either send emails or SMS messages.

Right? That's correct.

Yeah. And that would be the gold standard.

That's the best.

I mean you are in control then and you own it.

It's an asset of your business,

your customer list.

Exactly. Yeah.

And like let's say Etsy and Amazon,

they both have very good benefits to them being on their

platforms. You get a method of acquiring new customers that you

don't necessarily have to like pay for,

right? You don't have to advertise if I'm,

it's a search engine.

So if I search for something,

your product might come up and you would acquire new customer

easily then you would if you were just trying to acquire

new customers on your own Shopify store.

But, and the platforms wouldn't like you doing this,

but I would be trying to,

if you do sell on Etsy,

at least like sending a QR code in your orders and

try and get them to sign up for your email list

on a separate platform at least then.

So you have those people who are signed up and you

can market to and that's your own list.

Perfect. Okay.

Alright, good.

Can we talk about email again?

I think for the time that we have allotted,

let's talk about email cuz that's most relevant to the most

people who are listening.

S m s a whole nother topic.

We might have to have y again about talk about s

m s,

but as a small brand,

you know when I go into my Gmail and I look

in my promotion folder and I look at all of the

people who land there cuz they're people that I follow and

companies I like,

but the big brand pretty much always they're just selling me

their product.

Is that the right type of of content for our emails

as a small business,

For any size business,

I have like five content pillars for email that we follow.

And they would be the following,

like you have a launch email.

So if you're launching a new product,

telling them that something new is occurring,

new product,

new collection,

a promotional email where you're giving them a promotion,

a discount,

maybe it's a holiday sale,

maybe it's a Black Friday sale,

maybe it's you know,

specific collection is on sale,

free shipping this weekend only.

Those types of things.

Then there's educational emails which are educating the customer about the

product, the business,

anything. And then we have community based emails which are really

pushing the community user generated content aspect of those emails.

So you're highlighting other customers type thing or?

Yep. Okay.

And then you have product focus emails.

So where you're really like deep diving on each individual product,

like all about it.

So those would be what I would consider like our five

content pillars for email.

Where I think we focus and where smaller businesses should focus

most on is educational for sure,

educational emails,

community, U G C and product focus.

And here's why.

Educational emails we love to do like us versus them or

why you should buy,

you know,

from a small handmade business rather than a large company,

right? That's a type of educational email.

Educating them about what you use to make your products,

how you make your products,

right. If you think price is a deterring factor for people

to buy,

show them how you make the product and the love that

goes into it and how high quality handmade it is and

all these things,

right? So educational about the product,

the brand,

the business community,

and U G C because people love to see a social

proof, right?

So you always wanna try to be like having people tag

you on Instagram or send you photos.

When I did my Etsy shop,

I always ask for people to send me photos of their

items cuz my products were used a lot for weddings.

So I was getting back like images of my cake toppers

on wedding cakes and images of like my signs at the

weddings. And then what I was able to do is like

curate that into like wedding inspo from my shop.

And so I would put together all these,

it's the same thing as people going on Pinterest and seeing

other people's photos or on Instagram,

right? So same thing,

also a good thing to put in community or U G

C is reviews,

customer reviews,

what has someone said wonderful about your brand or your product?

And then product focus,

just like deep diving into the product,

like why they need it,

what problems does it solve?

Like how many colors does it come in?

Does it,

is the size a factor?

Like all these things.

So those are where I would focus,

you know,

for a smaller business on email.

Yeah, no,

that makes sense.

Versus just always selling,

you know,

I see a lot of product emails that come in that

are only,

here's the product,

here's the price buy now.

And what you've just outlined with these five different categories is

giving your potential customer or existing customers,

cuz you can collect emails from prospects also,

right? But a much richer understanding of what your business is

all about and why the product would be a good fit

for them.

And then reminders of why they should continue to buy from

you versus just the selling.

And I know big brands don't do that all the time,

but they also have huge budgets to do the brand.

They don't need to,

that's the problem.

Exactly. So it's very different for small businesses than larger brands

by strategy.

Right? Yeah.

I mean to your point earlier,

like Apple can literally just say the iPhone 14 is here,

buy it,

it's this price and it's in these colors.

But Apple has such a big recognition and such a big,

you know,

they're a proven business that everybody wants to buy from and

feels comfortable buying from.

Right? So smaller businesses have to work harder for that sale

and for that retention And in a different way,

just like you described,

much more personal actually.

Yeah. Yeah.

When someone comes to work with you,

what would be a couple of the biggest mistakes that you're

seeing that you need to correct for them?

Hmm. I think mainly they're not sending enough emails or they

don't have control of their campaign calendar on their own.

So just a very brief aside about email marketing,

there's like campaigns that you send on a one-off basis.

Those are things like Black Friday sale,

the educational campaigns that I was just describing,

product focus campaigns,

et cetera.

One-off. And then there's automations that you set up based on

actions that people are taking.

So if someone joins your email list,

if someone makes a purchase,

if someone puts something in their cart but doesn't check out,

right? Those are automations.

So I'll say they don't have the campaign side of things

down. For most businesses I recommend at least four campaigns a

month. But for bigger brands or brands that have a lot

of products and skews and customers,

I recommend up to 14 email campaigns per month.

And if you look at a brand like Fashion over a

Nike or Sephora,

they sending emails every day or like two to three emails

a day,

sometimes during the busy period.

So for a small business,

aim for like one a week,

a campaign,

one a week.

So that's like the biggest thing.

You need to be sending campaigns on a regular basis.

Yeah. One a week.

And also with those other automated campaigns triggering when it's appropriate

by customer.

Right? Correct.

Like I said earlier,

I think a lot of people will say,

yeah, I'm doing email and they send out one little email

of a picture of a product and a price,

maybe some other content in there,

you know,

come see me at certain show and that's it.

So you're saying frequency and then also as you were talking

about the different topics for emails,

you know,

vary it up and have a plan.

You're saying people really aren't in control of their calendar,

they're just saying,

oh, I have to do an email and then just throwing

something together and sending it out.

Correct. Yeah,

they'll go in their inbox and they'll see someone has sent

them like,

oh, order today for delivery by Christmas for an example.

They're like,

I have to do an email about that.

Right? So that's an example.

Just not planning ahead and thinking about,

again, thinking about the mind of your customer,

where they're at in life,

what might they be thinking?

So trying to plan for that and plan ahead.

Having a strategy,

it's so much calmer when you actually do have a plan,

right? You know what you're gonna put out.

You might have to still fill in the content,

but you already know the topic.

This brings up another question,

how do you feel about being consistent with the day and

the time that you send those emails?

I don't think that's as important.

You wanna test different times and days anyway to see,

there's a lot of email gurus who will tell you to

send in the morning to send your email campaigns in the

morning, but actually we've tested multiple,

multiple times in the best time to send an email for

us and our clients is at seven,

eight or 9:00 PM at night when they're sitting at home

doing nothing,

watching Netflix,

like they're off work,

they need to decompress,

maybe they wanna relieve their stress by doing some shopping.

And you look at your sales and most businesses will see

that their sales spike in the evening and that they're not

so high in the morning.

So why would anyone think that sending an email in the

morning is gonna make them buy,

they're busy,

they're going to work,

they're getting their kids ready for school,

you know,

whatever. Hmm.

So test days and times also like Friday at 7:00 PM

they're probably at dinner.

So like that's probably not the best day and time for

an email.

So testing days and times is very important.

I wouldn't worry about the consistency,

like you don't have to send an email every Monday at

3:00 PM because you might have one loyal customer who's really

waiting for your email at that time,

but people forget they have lives and you're one of many

businesses that they buy from.

And it also,

of course,

depends on your customer base.

A hundred percent.

If you sell to corporations,

then probably mornings during the workday does make sense.

It all depends,

but that's interesting that you say that about frequency.

That's a really,

really good point.

Okay, wonderful.

So tell us a little bit more about the Greenhouse,

the types of services you offer.

If anyone would be interested in reaching out and learning more

and talking with you further,

where would you send them?

What's your direction there?

Yeah, so the Greenhouse,

you can find us@growwithgreenhouse.com.

That's our website.

And I'm mostly active on LinkedIn,

Carrie McDonald,

and the Greenhouse is all focused on,

like I said,

email and SMS strategies.

Within 30 days of working with the Greenhouse,

a brand would be able to have a campaign calendar built

for them that is tailored to their audience.

They would be have a plan in place for those flows

and automation to help improve their customer lifetime value and their

retention. They would have high quality copy and design campaigns generated

for them,

for their brand,

and that's what we focus on.

Just campaigns and automations that are designed to help increase customer

lifetime value and high quality creatives that will represent the brand

well. Oh,

That's a whole nother topic,

but we're not diving into that now.

High quality,

Creative. Yeah,

I told you.

Creative. That's the thread.

So creatives is,

yeah, a big thing that we focus on Is important for

sure. Wonderful.

Well, a final comment from you about retention overall and why

it's so important.

Yeah. Other than what I've already said,

just repeat.

Customers are very valuable.

Once you can get someone to buy for a first time,

you've already done most of the hard work.

So if you can just get them to buy again,

which is usually pretty easy if they love the product and

if you're selling a good product,

it's gonna be really valuable and pay off a lot better

in the long run for your business.

Carrie, thank you so much.

I appreciate you coming on and sharing your wisdom with us

today. Yes,

thank you,

Sue. Thanks for having me.

Such good direction about how to increase your customer retention.

Did you catch the five types of emails you should be

sending? If not,

rewind and listen to that part again.

Now the Trick is to Actually implement this into your business

hearing and knowing is great,

but doing it brings you the results.

taking a sales growth goal and putting in place a strategy

to truly make it happen.

I wanna make sure you're Familiar with my free Facebook group

called Gift Biz Breeze.

It's a place where we all gather and are a community

to support each other.

I got a really fun post in there that's my favorite

of the week,

I have to say,

where I invite all of you to share what you're doing

to show pictures of your product,

to show what you're working on for the week,

to get reaction from other people.

And just for fun,

because we all get to see the wonderful products that everybody

in the community is making.

My favorite post Every single week.

Without doubt.

Wait, what?

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