Lauren: Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Publish & Prosper. And I can already tell you this is going to be one of my favorite episodes we've done in a while, because I am lucky enough to be joined by one of my favorite guests. Welcome back, Laurie. Thank you so much for being willing to sit through another one of these episodes with me.

Laurie: I'm really excited to be back, actually, so thanks for having me back.

Lauren: Well, it's always a treat.

Laurie: In the, in the new studio.

Lauren: In the new space. I think you're the first... you're our first guest in this set up.

Laurie: Oh right, cause Chelsea –

Lauren: Because Chelsea and I –

Laurie: – was out.

Lauren: Yeah. We like, just kind of invented a new space. Didn't go well.

Laurie: Oh no.

Lauren: The overhead lighting in that nook is a motion sensor lighting.

Laurie: Oh.

Lauren: So it kept going off.

Laurie: Oh no.

Lauren: Like mid, it would just, like we would be like, deep in a conversation and then it would just, like, slowly start to turn off.

Laurie: Oh no.

Lauren: Cause even though we were there we weren't moving enough.

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: It was great.

Laurie: Did you like, flail your arms up like one of those inflatable...

Lauren: We should have. But –

Laurie: The lights are very much on in this space.

Lauren: The lights are on.

Laurie: We won't have that issue today.

Lauren: Studio’s lit, the mics are on. We are ready to go.

Laurie: We are.

Lauren: And we are ready to talk about emails.

Laurie: Back to the email topic.

Lauren: It’s a hot topic.

Laurie: Best topic around, right? When you're talking marketing and not talking podcast.

Lauren: I mean. It's, it is a never – what is it? There's a, you have a sticker or something from a conference that is something about like email, email will never die or something.

Laurie: Right, yeah. Email's Not Dead.

Lauren: Yup.

Laurie: It's, it’s, I think we're past it now, but for a long time people were like what, email marketing? Like, what is that? But yeah, it's, it's worth talking about continuously. It's worth incorporating into your business. When you are able to like, sustainably put time into it.

Lauren: Yeah.

Laurie: I wouldn't open that up if you, you know, just don't have the bandwidth right away. But the sooner you get to it, the better.

[2:27] – Episode Topic Intro

Lauren: Yes, absolutely. And it is something actually that we have referenced, Matt and I have referenced fairly often in recent episodes. The, the value, not just the value of having your customer data, but the value, like, specifically in using your customer data and your emails that you are allowed to speak to them with, to convert maybe like a one time buyer, or a casual browser or something, into a loyal –

Laurie: Subscriber.

Lauren: – subscriber.

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: So rather than have me or Matt explain transactional emails over and over again and get it like, maybe 50% right, I thought we'd bring our in-house expert in to talk about them.

Laurie: That’s a great segue into the topic.

Lauren: Thank you. I do this professionally.

Laurie: I heard.

Lauren: So I asked Laurie to join us here today to talk about transactional emails. Kind of what they are, how you can use them, how – like, what the difference is between the transactional emails and marketing emails. And like, you know, why they're valuable and why you should make the most of them.

Laurie: Yeah. So, I've been on the podcast to talk primarily about marketing emails. And so just to kind of differentiate, the transactional email is going to be based on the customer action. They've placed an order, they've started to place an order, they've filled out some kind of survey, or they've taken some kind of action, and it's an email that gets triggered off that behavior. And so if they have submitted their email to your website in some form while they're doing those actions, then you can send them an email transactional email about their order. Or if it's to, you know, get a PDF or something, you can send that product to them. It is not a marketing opt in. So that's totally separate. The marketing is they've selected a box on your website. They've said yes, I want to sign up for your marketing emails. And so that's more of an explicit consent to receive emails, where transactional should really primarily – it shouldn't be dressed up as a promotional email. It should be focused on that action. But there are ways that you can kind of, still use that real estate, as you put it really nicely, to try to convert those people onto your marketing email list.

Lauren: So this is like if I'm checking out on a... we’ll say Shopify-powered site, and I have, I'm at the checkout point and let's say this store has a box in there that says, like, sign me up to receive emails from this shop or whatever. I unclick that box. I do not want to get emails from them. That –

Laurie: That’s a shame.

Lauren: I know, I know. That is a marketing email.

Laurie: Exactly.

Lauren: The email that I get after I place that order that says your order has been confirmed. That is a transactional email.

Laurie: Exactly.

Lauren: I do like those emails.

Laurie: I mean.

Lauren: Cause they’re telling me that I'm getting cool stuff.

Laurie: Right, right. They’re, they're emails that are almost guaranteed to be opened and to be clicked and like, looked for, somebody’s looking for that in their inbox. If you place an order and you don't get an order confirmation... Yeah, you start to wonder what's going on.

Lauren: Yeah.

Laurie: Where's my money, where's my product? Like, is this coming? So yeah. And sometimes they might take a couple minutes to kind of come through, but. Exactly.

Lauren: But it is, you're right. That is something that like, it's probably the only time that I'm actively sitting there refreshing my inbox, like. Confirmed? Did this go through? Shipping? What? What’s happening here? So yeah, I mean, very much so, think about your own user behavior, your own customer or consumer behavior. These are the emails that you are most likely to open. So they are obviously, from a store owner perspective or, you know, just a marketing perspective in general. These are the emails that are going to have the most eyes on them.

Laurie: Right, yeah. And, and many transactional emails are strictly that, there's no, you know, kind of like suggestion to go to another landing page to opt in. But there's really a missed opportunity there. So we can talk about that today.

[7:14] – How Transactional Emails Work

Lauren: Am I getting too far ahead of myself if I ask how, like, how transactional emails are sent? Is this too soon in the conversation?

Laurie: No. I don't think so, no.

Lauren: Okay.

Lauren: So like if I, if I'm using – we'll stick with the Shopify example. If I have a store hosted on Shopify, are the transactional emails sent through Shopify? Is that who's handling that process? Or is my email service provider set up to do that?

Laurie: Yeah, so –

Lauren: Who's, who's sending them, Shopify or me?

Laurie: That's a great question. So Shopify is going to send the order confirmation and send your shipping confirmation. I believe the shipping confirmation would include tracking. And you can edit those emails. And it's, it's best to just let Shopify handle that. There might be a way to like, work around it if you want full control over it. But, yeah, Shopify is going to handle it. And ideally you let them handle it.

Lauren: Makes sense. One less thing on my plate.

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: So if you can edit those then you can just kind of like, make them generally what you want them to be. They don't have to be like super super personalized.

Laurie: No.

Lauren: Spotify or – Spotify.

Laurie: I do that all the time.

Lauren: All the time. Shopify will handle the, the personalization details with the customer information –

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: – and the order information.

Laurie: Yes.

Lauren: But you can put in there, if you want, like, like a, like a thank you message or something?

Laurie: Right. Yeah. Yeah I, I can’t imagine that you can customize them as much as you would a marketing email, because that's not the point of them. But you should at least be able to add a line of text that you can link, or direct the customer to do some next step.

Lauren: Why wouldn't you want to like, overload a transactional email with a bunch of... Like if, I mean, we were just saying, like, these are the most opened emails. If that is true, and if these are like such valuable resources, then why am I not, like, filling every single transactional email possible with as much –

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: – information about me as possible?

Laurie: I mean, if you want legal issues and, you know, to live dangerously, maybe you would do that. But –

Lauren: Livin’ on the edge.

Laurie: But –

Lauren: Sending marketing heavy transactional emails.

Laurie: Oh my gosh. But like literally, the transactional emails are only for emails that are only for reasons that are relating to the customer's order. And you can't just take someone's email address and start marketing to them. They have to opt in to that particular message. In my head, it's really clear between transactional and marketing, but I'm not sure if that's coming across. You definitely want to think about... if you're unsure about what is transactional versus what's marketing. You know, if you're scheduling a campaign and sending that out, that's going to be marketing. If it's triggered by the behavior of the order or the shipping, that tells you, okay, this is behavior-based, that's going to be transactional.

Lauren: Makes sense. I mean, so, to underline what you just said, literally, legally –

Laurie: Yeah.

Lauren: – you have like, guidelines about what you... not, not just like, best practices because this is what the industry says you should do. Like, you could actually get in trouble legally.

Laurie: Yeah, and –

Lauren: If you are using them too much as marketing emails.

Laurie: Right, yeah. And I'm, like, we're not going to go into that. The legalities of it. But I will just say you know, there's different parts of the world that have different laws around it, even different states. And as someone who's marketing from the United States, if I have customers in different parts of the world, like, I have to follow the rules in the other parts of the world, too. So. But transactional email is just, you know, based on the order, based on the transaction. And if you want them to opt in, you're going to have to be compliant. But kind of gently invite them into your circle.

Lauren: You're just letting them know that it's available.

Laurie: Exactly.

Lauren: And like hey, if you like the product...

Laurie: Stick around. Come hang out more. There’s, there's some more where that came from.

Lauren: This is, I think, like I said earlier, Matt and I have, have referenced that this idea a lot in recent episodes, but I think the one that we did so the most in was the episode on, I don't remember what I actually called the episode. I think it might be Giving Your Customers a Reason to Come Back. But it was the one that was about like, what is the difference between one time customers that impulse buy something because they saw your ad on TikTok and then they can't even name the brand –

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: – that they got it from. Versus people who are like loyal, dedicated, I'm there at 10 a.m. every week when the, when the new product drops every Monday, like, you know? And this, this is one of those ways that you convert –

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: – people –

Laurie: Yeah.

Lauren: – from the former to the latter. I had to think of that one through for a second.

Laurie: Yeah.

Lauren: Former first latter later. So there is, there is that fine line, right? I mean also, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I'm also assuming just, email best practices in general are not to overstuff your emails with every single thing you've ever wanted somebody to do –

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: – in a single email?

Laurie: Right, exactly. And you can think about it too, which we'll probably get into later, as you know, there's that one order confirmation and there's that shipping notification, but there's also just post-purchase transactional emails that you can follow up with your... you know, if, if there's, you know, you're requesting them review your book or something like that, like that can fall under the transactional window.

Lauren: That sounds like a great opportunity to – like the post-purchase and the post- I'm assuming also, if you're timing this right, post-delivery, not just post-purchase.

Laurie: Yeah, yeah.

Lauren: Cause there is nothing more annoying than when I get an email asking me to review a product that I haven't received yet. And it just makes me want to be like well, I'd love to tell you all about it if I had it.

Laurie: And it can happen to the best of us. But yeah, I mean, exactly. You want to time it well, after you expect that user has already received their product.

Lauren: Good advice. Good advice, definitely.

Laurie: Yeah. You gave that. You gave that advice. That was great.

Lauren: I'm so good at giving advice.

[14:14] – Best Practices for Transactional Emails

Lauren: So what would you do, like what would you recommend, if people were going to try to use their transactional emails appropriately as a, as marketing real estate? Like, what would you – do’s or don't’s.

Laurie: Okay.

Lauren: Like what would you kind of...

Laurie: Yeah.

Lauren: If you were doing it for yourself.

Laurie: Well, just again, be very clear between transactional and marketing. And you know, kind of the first thing I would do is when someone is making the purchase on my site, do give them the opportunity there to opt in to marketing with the little checkbox and the disclaimer, hey, do you want to sign up for email? So that you don't even have to then nurture them through this transactional way. But off the bat, just be really clear about the difference between the two. And then we kind of talked about like, the focus of that transactional email should be: thank you for your order, here's your order number, here's the content, expected delivery time if you're able to give that. But then, you know, don't leave it at that. You can create just a simple line that asks users to get more information. And it could land you on a page that, you know, kind of isn't just about email, but includes an email opt in. So it could be, you know, additional books or a related product. But again, you don't want to have any kind of like, large promotional blocks. You don't want a bunch of images about something else. It should be strictly what the person is ordering. If it, if it is indeed an order confirmation email.

Lauren: And I'm assuming relevant.

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: To, like...

Laurie: That action that they took and the reason why they're getting the email.

Lauren: Yeah. You know, if you're gonna, if you're going to put the effort into putting that content in an email in, in a way that's appropriate, make sure it is also relevant.

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: And not something that you're like, wow, you wasted real estate and made it clear that you don't actually know your customer at all.

Laurie: Right, right. And, you know, I imagine that – I don't know this for sure, but I think like with Shopify order and shipping confirmation – or any, any of the integrations. Like WooCommerce and Wix and any other ecommerce platform. I don't know how precise and like, detailed you can get with serving up a certain message based on what they've ordered. But if you're selling a book and a calendar or, you know, a series of books, like what you're putting in that line is, is easier to determine to be more generally relevant to what they're purchasing. You know, there might be ways to get highly personalized with it, but the main thing is to stay general, if you're trying to get somebody to opt in, because it it isn't a marketing email, right? Like. And essentially you're just kind of nudging that person on. And, and it's also an option to just leave the order confirmation as is. And maybe it's in the shipping confirmation. Or maybe it's again, the post-purchase, it comes a few weeks later where you're like, review my book and also opt into email to stay in touch. So it doesn't have to be that first email.

Lauren: Yeah. I mean, I think that if I was thinking about like, which – if I was thinking about myself going through like, that consumer behavior, one of those three emails, the one that I'm the most likely to open is the like, shipping confirmation with the tracking number in it.

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: But I'm not even reading that email. I am literally just skimming it, looking for the link to click the tracking info, or if it has the built in like expected delivery date –

Laurie: Yeah.

Lauren: – right there in the email. I'm not even looking at the rest of the text –

Laurie: Yeah.

Lauren: – in there.

Laurie: Well, that's a good point. So –

Lauren: So.

Laurie: – yeah, you can –

Lauren: Yeah.

Laurie: – kind of determine what works best for your customer and where you would place that.

Lauren: Right, where it makes the most sense for them. To me, I think the post – the post-delivery transactional email’s, probably –

Laurie: Yeah.

Lauren: – the one that I'd be the most receptive to being marketed to –

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: – in there. But it probably –

Laurie: Same, because you're just focused on, you're like, I just ordered this thing. This is what I'm... I'm not going to be – I might not be ready to opt in. Maybe you are, maybe you're not, but. There's, there's options.

Lauren: Well especially if I'm a first time purchaser. If I'm new to your brand and this is the first time purchasing something, and I haven't received it yet. I don't know if I like it yet. What if I get it and it's crap? Then I'm going to be really annoyed that I subscribed to your emails cause it’ll take me seven to ten business years to unsubscribe from this email.

Laurie: Oh my gosh, that's a, that – Don't get me started. Lauren! Don't get me started.

Lauren: We can restart the clock now –

Laurie: It should never –

Lauren: It’s okay.

Laurie: Okay. I think I have talked about that in other episodes, but yeah. Make it really easy for people to unsubscribe.

Lauren: Yes, yes please do. Please do. I also – if, if you are new enough to this podcast, or if you just want to refresh your memory on the episodes that Laurie has done with us previously, I will make sure those are linked in the show notes. They were two other marketing emails, or – marketing emails. Two other episodes on marketing emails and emails in general, and they were fantastic. So I'll make sure we have those available. You can go listen to those.

Laurie: Yeah, it's the trifecta.

[20:03] – Leveraging Transactional Emails with Lulu Direct

Lauren: When we talk about selling direct and we're talking about like, why you should sell direct, we often talk about the value of customer data.

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: And I, I sometimes feel like we do a bad job of drawing the lines between point A and point B. We’re always like collect your customer data collect your customer data collect your – like, this is why you should be selling direct. Then it's like, okay, what am I supposed to do with that customer data?

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: And the answer to that question is very often email marketing.

Laurie: Exactly.

Lauren: So how do transactional emails work with Lulu Direct specifically? For people that are not just using Shopify to sell, but specifically selling books with a Lulu Direct plugin.

Laurie: Right. So I did read up on this before the podcast. So this, this is good information to have, but –

Lauren: She came prepared. We love a prepared queen.

Laurie: Yes. Of course. As we mentioned earlier, Shopify, Wix, and WooCommerce, they all have their built in transactional emails for the order confirmation and for the shipping confirmation. Each of those handles it a little bit differently. So there might be a setting or... it's either Wix or WooCommerce, I think, is it Woo? I forget which one. You have to kind of plug in a tracking app or something to get the tracking in there. So we can probably add that help article. I'm just gonna –

Lauren: Yes.

Laurie: – volunteer that information. There's a help article that'll get into the nitty gritty, but.

Lauren: Yes, I will make sure that I have linked in the show notes some resources because it, as many things do with the, the different Lulu Direct plugins for Shopify, Wix, WooCommerce, whatever. They, they vary from platform –

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: – to platform.

Laurie: But the, the, the most important thing to know is those transactional emails are handled by the ecommerce platform. Now, if you use the Lulu Direct Buy Button, the order confirmation and the order shipping transactional emails are sent from Lulu. So we handle those. They cannot be edited in the way that if you're a Shopify Direct, WooCommerce, or Wix customer, can. So those are just totally automated for you. Which is a good thing, you don't have to worry about it. But if you want to be able to... You, you, I will say, you can still get that customer data. So when someone's on your site or on your Instagram and follows a link, they are able to opt in to your marketing emails. And if they do, you have their contact information that you could still set up a post-purchase email that is transactional or is marketing, depending on their opt in. And then the last one I will mention is the Order Import tool. So that one's a little bit unique in that the order confirmation is the responsibility of the shop owner or the author. So if I'm collecting preorders ahead of time, I'm going to be the one that sends that order confirmation. But once I upload my CSV through the Order Import tool on Lulu and the order’s processed, fulfilled, and then shipped, then Lulu sends that shipping notification.

Lauren: That makes sense, yeah.

Laurie: So it just depends on... Yeah, which method of Direct that you're selling with. But there's opportunities with all of those to reach your customer.

Lauren: Yeah, it sounds like it. I want to tug on the thread a little bit that you just said. And the idea that even if your... the transactional emails on whatever ecommerce solution you're using are not super customizable, there is still a way for you to create your own transactional emails that you can be a little bit more custom with.

Laurie: Yeah. So again, be clear on the legalities of it. However, what I would do as an email marketer is, if I've got that customer data, the emails of the person who has, you know, ordered my book. Then in my back end, however – if it's a manual upload or you've got tools that automatically kick that stuff over – I would use that data to then trigger that post-purchase email to kind of provide a little bit more information and nurture them to come into your email marketing platform.

Lauren: Sounds like a good reason to sell direct. And want to get that customer data.

Laurie: Yeah. And, you know, you kind of mentioned it earlier. We're always hammering on about why people should sell direct so they do have that data. And, you know, not everybody feels like they're ready to take that on. But just because you collect it now doesn't mean you have to be ready for it right now. You know what I mean? Like, you don't want to email somebody a year from now if they've purchased from you, but you can kind of get that ball rolling before you have your first email set up and then just have it kind of trigger a couple of weeks later, or at some point within the next few weeks to a month, I would say. But yeah, it always kind of hurts my heart a little bit when someone's like, no, I just want to get my book out there. Which I get. You should want to get your book out there. But you also want to know who your customers are so that you can sell them your next book or sell them the second or third book.

Lauren: Well, I mean, if we really, really want to go down a tangent rabbit hole, I personally... If somebody said that to me and was like, I don't care about remarketing to my customers, what I care about is getting them to buy my book once, I want as many people as possible to buy my book. Whether it's because you want to spread the word or educate people, or just make a lot of money, whatever, whatever your reason is, doesn't matter. If you're, if your goal is just, I don't care about remarketing, I just want to get my book out to as many people as possible... The way that you get your book out to as many people as possible is by getting the people that have already bought your book to become like your street team for you. Because the more people that they recommend the book to, the more it spreads.

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: You can only recommend your book to so many people. But if you sell your book to ten people and they all become evangelists for your book, and those –

Laurie:Right.

Lauren: – ten people each convince ten other people to buy it... that's, that's how you get your book out to as many people –

Laurie: Absolutely.

Lauren: – in the world. And the only way that you build those relationships with readers is by continuing the conversation with them. It cannot be a one time conversation.

Laurie: Right.

[27:31] – Accessible Email Marketing for the Average Creator

Laurie: Right. And it doesn't just have to happen on email. Like that's a really good example for, you know, in person or social media. But you want to be able to capture those customers.

Lauren: Yeah.

Laurie: On your own channel.

Lauren: I don't – like, you know, when I, when I say I think that we don't always do a good job of, of highlighting or emphasize why it's valuable to have that customer data. I'm not disagreeing with the fact that it is. It's incredibly valuable.

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: And I think we undersell how valuable it is and how useful it is.

Laurie: And it's also not as difficult to use that data as some people might think it is.

Lauren: Yeah.

Laurie: You know? There's, I mean, I have been doing email for, I don't know, ten years or something. And the majority of the email platforms that I've used are like, very complex and have, you know, just an infinite amount of data and kind of triggers and things that most people are not going to need. But there are very kind of...pared down, maybe, I don't know what the right word is, but –

Lauren: Extremely user friendly?

Laurie: Yeah. User friendly. Has, you know, the basics of what you're going to need for, you know, a person that has a book to sell or a couple books to sell. And a lot of those are straight through the platform that you're using, you know? I mean, I don't, I don't sell anything on my website right now. I'm – that's, that's one of the things we were talking about earlier, working on that.

Lauren: Yup.

Laurie: But, you know, I, I use a different platform for my website, and they even offer transactional emails and marketing emails. And it's, I don't know how robust it is, but it's very accessible these days to do that.

Lauren: I think, I think that is something that a lot of people might mistake or mistakenly assume that something like email marketing, especially when we're talking about – like when we say words like transactional emails and legal gray area and stuff like that. Like, I can see people being like, why would I –

Laurie: Getting nervous about that.

Lauren: – why would I want to touch that?

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: That sounds complicated, that sounds like a lot of work, whatever. I think there is no shortage of first of all, email service providers.

Laurie: Absolutely not.

Lauren: In every range of the most built out, robust, ridiculous things possible to a very, very simple, straightforward, user friendly interface. But also no shortage of educational resources out there.

Laurie: Absolutely.

Lauren: I can't remember the last time that I went to any kind of conference or event that didn't have at least one email marketing session in it.

Laurie: Yeah. And also the, the platforms that are asking you to use their emails for your marketing and your transactional emails, they also provide that help. Like.

Lauren: Yes.

Laurie: As you're doing, as you're in there building your email... But that's a good point. I mean, yeah. You have all the resources. It doesn't have to be fancy. You just do really want to consider taking advantage of using that user data. And this is just such an important... I can't overemphasize how important it is to take that seriously.

Lauren: Yeah. Yeah.

Laurie: In the most basic way ever.

Lauren: Because, I mean, it is, it's – like we've said, it is very valuable real estate, but it is also like... I don't think passive is the right word but it's, it is more along the lines of one of those things that you take the time, you dedicate the time one time to set it up and to – Like it might, it might take you some time to, to get these emails set up, to get them the way that you want to, to, to get everything figured out, to send correctly where you want it, whatever. But then it's kind of marketing that's running for you –

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: – in the background. It's not something that you are actively going out and creating content and posting content and, and writing –

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: – email newsletters every single day for sixty days straight. This is –

Laurie: Yeah.

Lauren: – it's not entirely set it and forget it, but it is something that runs itself after you...

Laurie: Yeah, absolutely.

Lauren: Do the work.

Laurie: Yeah. Spend, you know, a handful of hours to set it up. And I will say this is also a really good use case for some of these platforms are going to use... they're going to pull copy from your site or from something that you dropped in, and it'll help you generate other emails quicker.

Lauren: Yeah.

Laurie: So yeah it's, it's worth the time.

Lauren: It is.

Laurie: It can be as simple as you want it to be or as complex as you want it to be. And we have mentioned that before on, on previous episodes. So.

[32:16] – Making the Most of Your Transactional Emails

Lauren: So getting back to the actual real estate.

Laurie: Yeah.

Lauren: Of these emails, because that is important. Despite the guidelines that we've talked about of like, this is how... you got to make sure you're not putting too much in there. You got to make sure you're staying on the right side of transactional, make sure it's relevant, whatever, blah, blah, blah. How would you actually like, make the most of that space?

Laurie: So there's, there's a couple of different ways you can go about it. And these are just a few examples, but. You know, again, it needs to go below the, the main point of the email about the order confirmation or whatever it is. But just a simple like, let's keep in touch. And then that links out to a landing page. You are going to have to build out that landing page that has email opt in. But again, not a difficult thing to do. It can be you know, we talked about the post-purchase. So after the book comes in the mail it triggers to invite a review, join your community. Like maybe you want them to opt in to email and your social media channels. You could even just like, in the footer of those emails, the transactional emails, have like, you know, links to your Instagram, to your email sign up, to your podcast, you know. And you're not even asking them to do something. It's just there. And it's subtle, but it gives access to your other marketing channels.

Lauren: That's an incredibly, incredibly valuable point that we have not made until now. Absolutely, yes. You can just have that content in there.

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: As, as a default part of your branding.

Laurie: Yeah, in the template.

Lauren: As a part of your footer, in the template of the email and everything. Yes. And also the point that, obviously we've been talking about this in the context of email marketing. But your desired CTA in these emails does not have to be to sign up for your email.

Laurie: Right, right.

Lauren: You can still use these as a, you know, join my community. I think that's a great example. After you've gotten the book delivered, the book was delivered, you wait maybe like a week so that they've had time to read it. And then you send a post-transactional email that that says like, hey, if you want to talk about the book, come join my community where –

Laurie: Exactly.

Lauren: – other readers are talking about it over here.

Laurie: Yeah, exactly. Because that's going to provide value, which is always the goal. And it's not this like aggressive marketing in your, in your face when you're just trying to, you know, confirm that your order, it's –

Lauren: Right.

Laurie: – been placed. So yeah that's, that's a good one.

Lauren: That's one that's, it's not just you asking for – and this is something that Matt and I have talked about in other episodes too. It is not just you asking them to do something for you. It is value for value.

Laurie: Exactly.

Lauren: It's saying like, hey, you will get things out of this community by coming over and hanging out over here, and I will get the opportunity to strengthen our reader writer relationship.

Laurie: Yeah.

Lauren: So we both, like, win win for everybody.

Laurie: Yeah, exactly.

Lauren: And that, I think. I mean, personally, I'm more likely to say yes to that than I am to getting yet another email –

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: – in my inbox.

Laurie: Yeah, 100%.

Lauren: So. There's more than one way to use this, this real estate.

Laurie: There's a lot of ways.

Lauren: There's so many.

Laurie: But that's a really good way. And it's really unique to your situation. The person who owns the shop.

Lauren: Yeah. Did I cut you off in the middle of that? Was it, was there anything else you wanted to add?

Laurie: I don't... I don't think you cut me off, but. You know, just kind of encouraging people to brainstorm if they don't have a community to join, or they don't have, you know, a social media presence, you can still kind of invite them into your space. And it can be a subtle call to action in your transactional email. You know, maybe it's like, what do you want to hear? Or like, what do you want to read next? Or it's just a poll of some sort that collects some user data and then also gives them the opportunity to opt in to marketing. So yeah, there's, there's a whole long list, but those are some high level ideas.

Lauren: I like it. I love a poll. Especially –

Laurie: We love a poll too.

Lauren: Yeah. Like what do you, what do you want to read next? Oh thank you for asking. Let me tell you.

Laurie: Like let me go through my list.

[36:43] – Other Remarketing Strategies to Consider

Lauren: So to get back to our invaluable marketing space here. We touched on this a little bit already, but there are other ways to talk to people other than, than the email, the transactional emails.

Laurie: Oh, yeah yeah.

Lauren: So like, what else would, could people even possibly customize as part of this like post-purchase transaction experience?

Laurie: Yeah, that's that's a really good question. And something that, you know, can kind of just add to your retargeting and your remarketing. And it doesn't have to be transactional versus marketing. So one thing off the bat, if you are selling direct through our integrations, then you want to... well you're already opted into white-label shipping, but you want to upload your logo. And there's, there's a space actually, when you're customizing your pack slips, which will get, you know, sent to your customer. There's a space for you to leave a message. And it could be like, thanks for ordering, here's a link to our support. Or like, how to contact us.

Lauren: Yeah.

Laurie: And it shouldn't be like a long string of URL, because it's got to be something somebody can like easily type into their... they can look at it on a piece of paper and then type it into their, their browser. But. Definitely whatever is in that link, you know, it can be that, join the community. It can be... include a couple frequently asked questions, or how to contact the seller, exactly. And then within that page also include an email opt in. So just think about customizing that pack slip and the URL and what you're putting on that URL if somebody goes to that page, it is an opportunity for you to put your email opt in there.

Lauren: That's a great idea. That's a, that's – cause absolutely, if you were... I, I would, I would find – That would be a great opportunity that was like a surprise and delight moment, where I get a package in the mail that, from something that I ordered and the, the shipping or the, the slip of paper that's in there has like a hey, thanks for your order. If you have any issues with this or you want to learn more about...

Laurie: Yeah.

Lauren: Whatever, check out this URL. Like you said, you want to, you want to have it be something short, sweet, customized landing page. Which then means you can put whatever you want on there.

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: That is a great idea.

Laurie: Well, and then you can also update it for different times of year, seasonality. But keep the same URL. But definitely put your email opt in at the top of that landing page.

Lauren: Write that down listeners.

Laurie: And I think people primarily use that for just like, visiting their website or their help information or support information. But yeah, using it as a marketing opportunity is is overlooked at times.

Lauren: Yeah.

Laurie: And then of course, like we've already mentioned, the delayed flows with triggering something after. And this can be for people who are opted in and who are not. But as long as it relates to that order, the post-purchase email that comes through to you know, find out how they enjoyed the book or to join the community. We've kind of gone a little bit in depth on that, so I won't go any further on that, but just a gentle reminder that you're there and get them to opt in. And then something else that adds another layer. But if you've got your customer data, and you've got their, their shipping, like their physical address, you could consider sending them direct mailers at certain times of year. Or as, again, as a post-purchase. So maybe it's somebody that did not opt in to email, but you want to reach them. And so you could put a little bit of marketing budget aside to have a direct mailer, which is basically just a postcard sent to them, inviting them again to join your community or whatever that CTA is.

Lauren: I love that.

Laurie: So yeah, it's like it's related to the order and the transactional aspect of it, but it's kind of going outside the bounds of email. Yeah. I would, I would say that like, you can experiment with direct mailers kind of early on, but you're going to get the most out of them if you do kind of have a customer base, and you've got orders and, you know you're, you're already kind of established. But it is still something you can experiment with. Even if you don't have that yet.

Lauren: Yeah.

Laurie: As far as like getting return, if you kind of set the, the baseline, like my return is to get people to opt in and it's not like, necessarily a financial thing attached to it, like... Then I think it can be a really good use case for a direct mailer.

Lauren: I think it's worth trying. I – why not. Why not? We're going totally analog. Everything's just going back.

Laurie: I'm actually ready for that.

Lauren: Oh, same. Same. This, this podcast is going to turn into a Morse code transmission over, over a radio station.

Laurie: You're just gonna like, set up in the town square and like, talk to a crowd of people. I'll be there.

Lauren: Sounds great. I don't – that would solve all my microphone problems, because I don't need a microphone when I'm, when I'm standing on a soapbox and in front of a crowd. I can project my voice just fine.

Laurie: I wish I had that skill.

Lauren: It's... it has its ups and downs. Other ideas for outside of the inbox? I only ask this because the next one on this list is my favorite, so.

Laurie: Yeah. Okay, we can't forget – and I know we've mentioned this before in these conversations that we had, but. In your book itself you do want to use that space, you know? And you can print a QR code or you can just have the simple URL, my site.com/community or email or whatever it is. Like, just like, make it simple. Don't make it like a conglomerate of like numbers and letters and whatever. But, the good thing about having that as a QR code is that you can, you know, easily sign up right away, just scan it with your phone, go to that landing page that can get updated any time you want it to. But it's, it's, it's kind of a miss if you don't put that in the back of your book.

Lauren: Yeah. I mean, I would say absolutely 100%. Not even kind of. Like I genuinely, if you, if you do not have a dedicated page in the back matter of your book, that is how people can find you other places than the book.

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: So, QR code that takes people to your website or to subscribe to your newsletter or your social or all of the above, whatever it is. If that is not built into your book. I don't know what you're doing. Like.

Laurie: Don't disappoint Lauren.

Lauren: Don't disappoint me –

Laurie: Come on.

Lauren: – on this one. I finally moved on from screaming about justified margins in the interiors of books. This is my new hill to die on. Your back matter should absolutely have marketing content in it.

Laurie: Right. And like, it doesn’t have to be aggressive marketing. It’s just like, these people are interested in you, they bought your book. So.

Lauren: Yeah.

Laurie: Make it easier for them to stick around.

[44:35] – Continuing the Conversation with Your Customers

Lauren: Which I think is really – and I think this might, this might actually be a nice way to, to wrap this up and tie a nice little bow on it. Is that all of these different things, including the ideas that we've just talked about, at the end of the day, these are all ways for you to continue the conversation with, with your customers. And that's the goal. Including all those people that are saying I don't care, I just want my book out to as many people as possible. I disagree with your goals. First of all, I disagree with you on that. But I also think that genuinely, the way that you get your book out to as many people as possible –

Laurie: That's why I was going to say, exactly.

Lauren: – is to continue the conversation with the customers you already have.

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: And get them to keep talking about it. And Justin, the episode that we just did with Justin Moore, he talked about that. He talked about the idea of like, you know, getting, getting other people to talk about your book for you. The more people are talking about your book for you, the more it spreads, the more it grows.

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: And that is so true. And these things, something as, as what seems maybe as mundane and operational as a transactional email, or the packing slip that goes in your book order, or some back matter in the back of your book. Those are all things that are, yes, mundane operational parts of the production of this whole process, I guess. But can ultimately lead to furthering the conversation. And it's worth it. Whichever one of those paths – or all of the above.

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: Whichever one of those you choose, they are all aimed towards helping you continue that conversation. And that is worth it.

Laurie: Right? And so they're literally right in front of you. Like they're going to be there for your customer. And it's just a matter of if you take advantage of that space. So. Mic drop, that was perfect.

Lauren: That's it. That's it. And that was, that was the point. You just hit the nail on the head of what I was trying to say. You said it in like five words, what I was trying to say in like... fifty.

Laurie: That never happens. That never happens with me.

Lauren: But no, you're right. These things are already there.

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: And that’s, that, that's the point. These things are already there. The transactional emails are going to go out whether you take advantage of the space in them or not. This is not, we're not talking about building a twenty, a twenty email welcome series –

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: – flow that you have to customize and build from the ground up. These emails are already happening.

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: So you might as well use them.

Laurie: Yeah.

Lauren: Good talk.

Laurie: Put a little bow on that.

Lauren: So just to, just to refresh, because I know we talked about this, but I want to make sure that, that we emphasize it. If people are now like okay fine. You're right. I think I will go explore what I can do in my within my transactional emails. Just, just to solidify for them, what is the difference between a transactional and a marketing email? Or like how can they, if they're not sure...

Laurie: Right.

Lauren: How can they...

Laurie: Just very simply, the marketing email someone has explicitly gave you their email, checked a box. And they might have done that before they've even purchased anything. And they've said I want you to send me marketing messages. Those are the messages that you're going to create, schedule, and send to the customer or the subscriber. Transactional, completely relevant to their order or an action they've taken on your site. They can receive those emails if they've entered their email into your, you know, they started an order. You can’t actually email them if they don't do that first step, because you don't have that information. But yeah, that's all transactional, strictly for... relevant to their order, for the action they take.

Lauren: Okay. Err on the side of caution, but also live just a little bit dangerously.

[48:45] – Episode Wrap Up

Lauren: Well, if you have any questions about transactional emails, email marketing in general, any of the things that we talked about in this episode, comment on this episode, or send an email to podcast@lulu.com that will go to me and not Laurie, but I will convey your questions to Laurie. And if it's a good enough question, maybe we'll have her on for another episode again.

Laurie: Episode four in the works. That would be kind of fun, to just like, run through questions that people had about email.

Lauren: Oh, I would love that. Ooh, okay. Alright. Listeners, challenge. Send us enough interesting questions about email marketing that we could put together an episode that is just Laurie answering questions.

Laurie: Yeah.

Lauren: I'm going to throw some some curveballs in there just to be fun, but I think that could be a lot of fun.

Laurie: Yeah, that would be.

Lauren: So, please do.

Laurie: Pull them out of a box and...

Lauren: Yes. I love it.

Laurie: Yeah.

Lauren: Ugh, great. Listeners, don't let me down. Let's make this happen. So, please. Would love to have Laurie back. If you want to hear her come back and answer email questions, let us know. And Laurie, thank you so much for joining me today.

Laurie: Thank you. It’s been fun.

Lauren: And for immediately being willing to come back and do it again. Great.

Laurie: Yeah, thanks for having me. This was, this was a fun way to start the day today.

Lauren: I'm so glad. This has been fantastic. And listeners, if you liked it, please let us know. Like, subscribe, leave a review. Reach out. Again, that's podcast@lulu.com. And I'll be back next week with another new episode. No Laurie, but it'll still be a good one.

Laurie: Boo.

Lauren: Until then, thanks for listening.

Laurie: Peace.