Tom Walsham - Email for Pirates: Plunder Your Customers with Lifecycle Marketing

Email For Pirates - #DevTO – Oct 29th 2012 - @tomwalsham – PostageApp.com

Email for PiratesPlunder Your Customers With

Lifecycle Marketing

Tom Walsham@tomwalsham

PostageApp.com


About Me

- Chief Email Herder at PostageApp.com

- Product Development @ The Working Group

- Quest to end dashboards of vanity metrics

- Not a fan of Hockey (-stick graphs)

- Don’t believe anecdata should drive actions

I DATA!


MVP is not just a crappy app. It’s about learning.

Use Actionable Metrics

Have at least a hypothesis of your Lifecycle (for Science!)

Track your Funnels– Kissmetrics– Mixpanel– Google Analytics

Engage and influence your users

Core Concepts


Funnels

$$$ REVENUE $$$

Understanding your user lifecycle is key tomaking informed changes to your app

Funnels are the user flows withinYour Product or Application

Guide your users through funnels

In order to maximize…


Pirate Metrics

Metrics To Measure Your Application Lifecycle

Developed by @DaveMcClure in 2007 – Angel investor, Founder of 500 Startups

Acquisition – get users to your product

Activation – give a happy first experience

Retention – keep them coming back

Revenue – pillage some $booty

Referral – existing users drive Acquisition

AARRR (geddit)


Boosting the Pirate Metrics

- Modify User Experience- UX changes, flow, change buttons!

- Change pricing models- Make it cheaper/more expensive/more plans

- Social Media– That’s the catch-all panacea, right?

- Send (transactional) emails!– “The email address is a little bit different… because you can

proactively contact them…you can annoy the fuck out of them if you have an email address” - @davemcclure


What is Transactional Email?

- Event-driven email – triggered, or flows

- Not list-driven marketing email

- Driven by user behaviours, not assumptions

- Highly personalized

- See Also: Drip, Lifecycle Marketing


Acquisition – Activation – Retention – Revenue - Referral

1,000,000 visits with no conversionsis a vanity metric

Until your funnel is optimized, this isthe last on your list

Grab email address at earliest point in the funnel



• Turn Visitors into Users• Complement your marketing• Offer simple calls-to-action• Fix your brand in memory• Win comparison shoppers



Prompt – Event Driven – PersonalHighlights Customer Service as clear differentiator

Subject: Welcome to Freshbooks!



Triggered on passive data – Clear call-to-actionSlower activation cycle requires repeat prompts

Subject: Get setup quickly with PostageApp



• Trigger with active & passive data• Customize emails with that data• Expose additional functionality• Encourage your sticky points• Remind them you exist• Often synonymous with Revenue



Heavily Targeted – Long running campaign – Clear Call-to-actionThe good side of Amazon’s retention marketing…

Subject: Amazon.ca recommends The Art Of The Start



Triggered by Passive browsing data – Creepy – Don’t show your handSent before friends & family knew my wife was pregnant

Subject: Amazon.com Invites You Back for Fabulous Baby Savings



Subject: Cathy, United States of Tara Season 2 is now on Netflix

Triggered by Viewing History – Drove Retention – Drove referralSimple CTA for retention-driven company



Goal is to Increase your ARPU(Average Revenue Per User)

Retention drives revenueAd-based Services

Clicks by visits

UpsellseCommerce & SaaSEnhancements, Add-ons

Related PurchaseseCommerceAmazon-style

UpgradesSoftware as a ServicePre-emptive plan increases



Personalized – Timely – Detailed Call-to-actionBlending External and Internal data

Subject: Raining? We’ve got you covered! ☂ ☂



Email-only offer to extend – Simple CTA – Sufficient time to act

Subject: Reminder: Your Free Trial ends soon



• Email often plays second fiddle to social media• More opportunity for rich engagement• Used well can drive massive growth• Don’t over-use, or risk spamflags



Email takes precedence – Less fleeting than SocialProviding significant incentive at both ends increases trust



Not everyone is on Social Media – Prominent in Youtube UI Let users do your targeting – Rinse & Repeat

Subject: Tom sent you a video: “Banana Phone”


Acquisition – Activation – Retention – Revenue – Referral - Re-Engagement

• Email marketers commonly ‘refresh’ lists• Primary message : ‘we want you back’• Offers drive re-engagement uptake• Enticing glimpse into what you’re missing

Not a Dave McClure Pirate Metric, but should be differentiated from retention


Acquisition – Activation – Retention – Revenue – Referral - Re-Engagement

Targeted with aggregate account data – Triggered on passive inaction dataCommonly has high complaint ratio

Subject: Thomas, you have 21 photo tags and 2 messages


Transactional Email Strategy

DO:• Trigger with relevant User Action or Inaction• Consider the timing related to your funnel• Provide effective Calls-to-action

DON’T:• Be Creepy by using passive data inappropriately• Hassle people with overly frequent emails• Mistarget. Only trigger from live data


Moving forwards

• A/B Testing

• Complex funnels

• Cohort study

• Graphs – lots of graphs


Takeaways

Best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago– Second best time is today

• Track your funnels (if you don’t already)• Pick a hook in activation or retention• Plug in some transactional email

• $Profit!


More Info• Startup metrics for Pirates : http://500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/2007/09/startup-metrics.html• PostageApp :http://www.postageapp.com• Kiss Metrics – Use Conversion Funnels : http://blog.kissmetrics.com/use-conversion-funnels/• Drip Marketing :http://www.pardot.com/infographic/basics-drip-campaigns-infographic• Transactional Email Surveyshttp

://blog.studiofellow.com/2012/07/26/netflix-style-one-click-email-survey-using-basic-javascript-and-mixpanel/

• Me: [email protected] / @tomwalshamAlways happy to talk email, metrics, startups or beer. Preferably over beer.

http://500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/2007/09/startup-metrics.html



http://www.postageapp.com/



http://blog.kissmetrics.com/use-conversion-funnels/

http://blog.kissmetrics.com/use-conversion-funnels/

http://www.pardot.com/infographic/basics-drip-campaigns-infographic

http://www.pardot.com/infographic/basics-drip-campaigns-infographic

http://blog.studiofellow.com/2012/07/26/netflix-style-one-click-email-survey-using-basic-javascript-and-mixpanel/




mailto:[email protected]

Tom Walsham - Email for Pirates: Plunder Your Customers with Lifecycle Marketing

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