Dose #76: Subscription Emails

Matt here with your weekly Subscription Prescription 💊

Anyone that tells you email is dead doesn’t work in e-commerce. Emails are still the lifeblood of any successful brand. In this week’s dose we dive into the flows you should invest in for subscribers, starting with order notifications, onboarding emails, and wrap up with different events you need to trigger emails on.

This week’s podcast: why memberships matter

How do you unlock the most revenue possible from your customers? In this week’s dose, I talk through what makes memberships a powerful vehicle for delivering value - and capturing it in return.

Give it a listen!

What emails do you have setup for subscribers? Are you sending the right ones, at the right time?

There is a lot you could send, but like most parts of your business only a few things will matter in the long run.

Here’s my list for what you should focus on when it comes to emailing subscribers:

1. Upcoming order notifications

2. Onboarding email sequence

3. Action Trigger emails

   1. Order canceled

   2. Order failed

   3. Card expired

4. Winback emails

Some of these you’ll setup in Klaviyo, and others will get sent by your subscription app, so we’ll cover which is which.

Upcoming Order Notifications

The most important email you’ll send to a subscriber each month. Most brands default to the subscription app and what it sends for you, which is a mistake.

This is worth some investment. Think about it - this is the point where customers are reminded about their order, and is one of the two major engagement points you have each month (the second is when they get their order).

You can keep it basic and informative, or you can make it on brand and special.

This email is an opportunity to remind someone why they subscribed in the first place. Better coffee? Healthier pets? Deeper sleep? Lean into the problem you solve and write an email that speaks to your customer.

After a nice reminder of why they subscribed in the first place, remind customers that if they need to manage their order, they can login here to make any necessary changes.

Don’t mention canceling, or even pausing. You’re triggering the idea that they need to do one of those things. It’s much better to suggest that if someone needs to make an adjustment, it’s easy to do!

The final step involves mention some other popular or flagship products. You don’t have to make this too dynamic at first; instead, include some pics and links to your top 3 products, as an example.

This email should be about winning more of those subscribers sitting on the fence. That’s it. Your biggest fans already engage on social and on other emails. Anyone that isn’t satisfied is going to cancel. You want to catch someone before they get to that point.

Onboarding Email Sequence

Something I don’t see enough brands lean into, but should onboard customers to your subscription.

This should happen after the order confirmation email, or possibly replace it altogether. You should make this happen in Klaviyo or your preferred email provider.

First objective is to reiterate the benefits of a subscription and let customers know what is coming their way.

Second objective is explaining how they can always adjust their frequency, pause, or even cancel an order by accessing their account on your website. This is a fairly safe place to instruct a customer about this, because they’re still excited about the purchase.

I recommend a quick gif or video showing you navigate the portal to show how easy it is to make changes.

Third objective is to again mention the benefits of a subscription and explain how other customers have seen the benefits. If you’re selling something with a story, tell it here. If you’re selling something that takes time for customers to see improvements, explain that here.

You can run this sequence as 2-3 emails. The first email should include the order confirmation, benefits, and instruction on accessing the portal to make changes. The second and third emails should be about the product, story, and further instruction on how everything will work.

Action Trigger emails

Whenever a customer cancels an order you should send them an email about it. Don’t make this spammy, or send more than one, because you want to win them back in the future. This email should come from your email provider for a more personal touch.

Hopefully you’re using a tool like Upzelo to grab reasons why whenever someone cancels, so you can make sure that email you send isn’t about why.

You can always ask in the email, but I’d recommend not as most people (unless they’re very angry) will take the time to do so.

Instead, make that email all about thanking them and inviting to come back whenever they’re ready. Make this on brand, but don’t spend too much time here. This isn’t the best place for winning customers back.

Whenever an order fails your subscription app should trigger an email to both you and the customer, with instructions on how to fix the error. Take a moment and double-check that this is happening and/or turned on inside your platform.

This is a critical one, because order failures mean you have a customer not getting something they want and expect. Someone that would pay you, that you don’t want to fail.

If you regularly run out of stock or have other order failure reasons, let me know and I will share some ideas on how you can handle that better.

Whenever a card expires your app should also send an email. This is another one to keep on top of, because 80%+ of customers with expiring cards don’t actually want to cancel.

If you’re getting more than 10 of these a month, I’d highly recommend looking into an option like Butter Payments to keep ahead of them.

Winback emails

The last thing you want to focus on is winning back previous subscribers. If you’re collecting cancelation reasons, you can create 2 segments: a general winback flow, and one specific to the top cancelation reason.

For example, if the top reason is “too much product” you can write an email inviting them to replenish and get back on a subscription.

A general email would include a special offer for coming back, like an extra discount or free gift.

I would recommend waiting at least 3 months to try on either approach, and then building in follow-ups on a monthly or every other month cadence.

What to remember on subscription emails

Someone sees an ad or has purchased from you before, and now they’re a subscriber. This customer has the potential to be 10x more valuable than one-time purchasers.

Focus on making the overall experience one full of positive reminders and subtle instructions on how to make changes when things come up. (I hate seeing “Need to pause/cancel? Click here.”)

Keep in mind where this email occurs in the customer experience - post-purchase (and wondering how things work), after a few cycles and appreciating a reminder, or it’s been a few months since canceling and would entertain a new offer.

If you have questions or want to run a flow by me, hit reply and ask away! That’s what I’m here for. 😃 

That’s it for this week’s dose! Stay tuned for Dose #77 next week.

- Matt Holman 🩺 

Subscription Doc