Walkthrough of a $200K Sales Follow Up Email Campaign
Written by Michael Cheney. Posted on 25th January 2021
A total of 377242 subscribers have gone through the email follow-up sequence I'm about to share with you.
Full disclosure;Â This campaign did include a product launch, which generated a portion of the earnings.
However, almost all of the $262,876 you see here was earned with the email sales follow up campaign.
Well over 300,000 subscribers have gone through this email marketing sequence.
You're going to learn how we maximized the sales and used some underground email marketing tactics to increase interaction and responsiveness...
I'm going to share with you, key lessons from this campaign.
So you can follow the same steps that I did, to have success with your email marketing.
This email marketing campaign promoted one of my best-selling products (14000+ units and counting) The Commission Machine.
Let's get started...
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Step 1. Give Prospects What They Asked For
Step 2. Leverage Free Stuff to Follow Up, Build Trust and Get Sales
Step 3. Be Direct, Open and Transparent
Step 4. Tell Your Prospects to Buy Your Shizzle
Step 5. Make More Money Using Mixed Media
Step 6. Use the Power of Proof to Drive More Sales
Step 7. Turn Up The "Email Heat" Towards End of Campaign
Step 8. Emphasize Urgency to Multiply Your Sales
Step 9. Make Moolah Like a Mother-FAQ-er on the Last Day
Step 10. Send a "Last Chance" Follow Up Email for Final Sales Boost
Conclusion
The most important email you will send in your follow up process is the first one.
It's important that you give people what they requested in the first place.
As you'll see from the statistics when we start diving into this - fewer people will respond as each day goes by.
The thank you page and the first email you send will be seen most.
This is why...
It's important to really use this virtual real estate.
You can give away your freebie or opt in gift on the thank you page.
This gets into people's hands quickly.
"The downside of giving the freebie away on your thank you page is they may never check their email for your broadcasts."
My policy is to ensure people go to their inbox.
It really is the best thank you page strategy to build an email list.
As you can see with the example of my first email;
I give people a link to the freebie.
But I also do not shy away from the offer - don't be scared to mention your offer in the first email.
Don't expect many people to buy the offer, right away.
Why?
Because they opted in to get the freebie.
But some people WILL buy it - this is why...
"You should always include a link to your offer inside your freebie."
It's also a very important email marketing best practice to include a link to your offer in the freebie itself.
Now let's move into the next section...
The first part of the freebie I give people is a video, which gives them a free sample of my offer.
I also make it very clear, right from the beginning that there is something to buy;
Tire kickers and freebie seekers are turned away.
I mention repeatedly that there is a deadline coming, which they cannot miss.
I make sure to;
"Include links to the offer from inside the freebie as well as testimonials and proof."
You will get a small minority of people who buy right away, and you will get a small minority of people who buy during the middle of the follow up process.
Sadly, as you can see from the first three emails in this follow up campaign, the response rate drops off dramatically after each day;
BUT:
Most people are likely to buy after you've encouraged them off the fence.
Sadly, the majority of people who subscribe, of course, just won't buy anything at all.
In fact - many of them don't even download the freebie they requested!
While this is frustrating and confusing, there's nothing you can do except...
"Clean out your email list once a month - many autoresponders charge a fee per 1000 subscribers so you don't want to be paying for dead wood."
Remove subscribers who are not engaging with your emails - it is vital to your success. I use Getresponse (and have for 20 years!) and they make this easy.
It's one of those under-rated email marketing tactics.Â
Take a look at the statistics as each day goes by;
Notice the how responsiveness drops off.
Open rates die.
Click through rates die.
This is why it's important to present your offer during the first email and any freebie you offer;
You may not get another chance to make a sale.
Okay, let's move onto...
From the very first email I send in this sequence, I'm very clear with people about what is going to happen.
You don't want to give people nasty surprises;
Don't try and get people in by offering something totally for free, without any mention of an offer, and then smack them over the head with a sales pitch.
Be upfront with your prospects.
As you can see from this email - I give people a fair warning that the freebie-train is ending.
And on the last freebie page I send them to in this sequence I even come right out and tell them not to buy the offer.
I say to them;
"Do not buy this, if you expect money to start spitting out of your computer automatically without you having to do anything."
"Don't buy this if you're scared of rolling up your sleeves and doing some hard work, or if you can't follow simple advice."
People respect transparency.
It's better to be totally upfront now, rather than tell partial truths and be hit with complaints, and refunds later.
This is especially important in how you communicate the sales email follow up sequence itself.
I'm very clear to prospects who subscribe for this campaign that there will be a series of free videos, but also that the free videos will come to an end.
And almost every email contains a deadline that is approaching.
People know exactly what to do.
"Tell your prospects what's coming up, how they can and why they should do so right away."
This brings us on to an important point.
You need to...
For some reason, many entrepreneurs are scared of making a sale.
They will skirt around the issue of selling, to focus on benefits features and case studies.
But they don't come right out and tell people to buy their product:
Don't hide your light under a bushel!
You need to recommend people buy your product.
This is inferred, of course, in the sales email follow up process.
But;
You should still tell people what to do.
This plants your flag firmly in the mind of the prospect - it's clear you have confidence and belief in your own offer.
You can make this even more effective;
Backing up your claims with a guarantee, proof and testimonials.
"You should always tell your prospects that they should buy your offer."
Let's move on to the next step...
As you've seen with this campaign already - I use different media.
There is text, of course, in the emails, videos for the freebie, and also images in some emails as well:
I refrain from using images in emails on a regular basis.
Why?
Because people become immune to them.
It's also not a normal practice for sending email - you want your email to appear personal.
When was the last time you got an email from a friend or family member, with an image embedded into the text?
It's just not natural.
"But occasionally, adding the right image to your email can be used to powerful effect."
You can find lots of great, free generic images at Pixabay.
In this example, I used a screenshot of multiple testimonials, I'd received about the product.
I also used text versions of other testimonials in different emails.
But this image-based email really hits home.
It demonstrates social proof.
People can see they are not alone in making their buying decision.
"There is one main reason why people don't buy or offer - they don't want to look stupid."
By demonstrating others have gone before them, and were successful or enjoyed the offer, helps to remove this anxiety from your prospect.
This needs to be something you include in your sales follow up email campaigns.
Okay great - now let's move on to...
You can never have too much proof but...
This can be a chicken and egg scenario to start with.
You're trying to sell your product, but you need proof, but nobody's bought your product.
So you can't get proof.
How do you break this vicious cycle?
One way is to offer your product for free, in exchange for somebody giving you an honest testimonial.
You need to make sure you're not giving your product away, in exchange for a positive review.
You don't want to be seen to pay, or bribe people to say the right thing...
You merely want beta testers to give you their honest feedback.
Once your offer is ready, you can reach out to your target audience, and offer a limited number of places or units for free.
All you ask in return, is they give you their honest opinion about it.
This way you can get proof and testimonials right out of the gate before you've even done sales.
The key then, of course, is to leverage and build on this momentum.
"Encourage your customers to submit testimonials and case studies by including links in the members area and email your list asking for success stories."
The more proof you get, the more sales you will make.
Okay, now it's time for us to move on to...
As you can see, it's important that you scale up the number of emails you send towards the end of your follow up campaign;
You don't want to have to higher frequency at the beginning.
People just want their freebie.
You can give them additional valuable information, of course, but if you scale up the selling too fast, it can backfire.
Communicate the impending deadline, scarcity- or urgency-related deal early on.
As long as you mention this early on in your emails you have then paved the way to talk more about this, and send further emails later.
As you can see from my seven day schedule, it's best to;
"Start ramping up the email frequency as the campaign goes on with the most number of emails being sent on your final day."
This really gets the fence-sitters off the fence and into the shopping cart.
These are not just any type of emails sent on this final day - they're each structured in a way to appeal to a certain mindset.
Some people will buy for emotional reasons, and others may buy for logical, rational reasons.
You need to appeal to both.
These are the "due diligence" types.
They're the kind of prospects who do hours of Google research before buying a carrot.
"You need to give proof and facts for those people that make logical and rational decisions."
Then there are others who make their decisions based on their own personal goals and aspirations.
For these guys, you need to tell stories.
You need to do "future-forwarding";
Paint a picture of what their life will be like once they take advantage of your offer.
Alternatively, you can describe what their life will be like in the future if they DON'T buy your offer.
Appeal to their emotions.
You need to tick all these boxes to make sure you get the most sales.
Don't be afraid to send lots of emails on the final day.
These can be very short emails.
"The final day of the campaign is the prospects' last chance to get the offer and also your last chance to make the sale - leverage this opportunity!"
Now let's talk about...
From the very first instant email in the sales follow up campaign, I planted a seed that there was a deadline coming.
People knew right from the outset that there was an offer that was going to increase in price.
It's important that a follow up sequence has some kind of urgency, or scarcity like this;
Maybe you increase the price.
Perhaps you only have so many units available.
Or maybe you have a special deal that's only available for a certain time.
Perhaps you have an exclusive bonus only available to a certain number of people.
Either way;
"Without a real and enforced deadline, your sales will suffer dramatically."
A deadline gives you a green light to be able to send more emails too.
At first, in the initial emails, you do this very gently and subtly.
As the email campaign goes on you can emphasise it with countdowns inside the email and on the offer page itself.
This is why most of the sales from this campaign come in the latter stages.
Okay, let's move on to.
This is one of my favourite email marketing strategies.
If people are still going through the follow up sequence after several days, and have not yet bought, it's for one of two reasons;
#1. They're not looking at your emails at all
#2. They still have objections
You can of course invite people to reply to your email with their hurdles.
This can be a good strategy to boost your email marketing response rate.Â
But it's also time-consuming.
A better way to address concerns and overcome people's sales objections, is to send out an FAQ email.
This enables you to tackle the key objections to them buying your offer, in a way that generates the most sales:
Notice how all the questions are framed in a way that each one can be answered with the word "Yes"?
This is no coincidence.
It's sales strategy as old as time (but under-utilized in email marketing)...
The more times you can get a person to say yes, or think yes, the more sales you will make.
But don't just dream up questions;
Actually use the most-common questions you get asked.
And don't shy away from the awkward questions either.
If you regularly get asked why your offer is so expensive - answer this question.
Are people always asking you why there is no refund policy for your offer?
Then answer this question.
"Think of all the excuses and objections people may come up with, not to buy your offer, and crush them one by one in a detailed FAQ on the last day."
Okay.
We're now at the final step, so let's talk about...
This is the easiest type of email to send, but also one of the most profitable;
As you can see, is very short and to the point.
You want this to appear as if it's been sent last minute, or maybe from a cellphone...
Literally like a quick reminder from one person to another.
e.g. "Hey. Don't miss this."
For all those fence-sitters this gives them the final, ultimate warning, that if they don't get this now, they will permanently miss out.
Of course you need to stand by your word and ensure that your offer does actually come to an end, when you say it will.
The quickest way to lose credibility is talk about a deadline like this, but not stick to it.
This last chance email is very quick to write and can get you great results.
Don't try to sell in this email.
Do not try to answer questions or give further information;
You've done all the legwork already.
Just keep it simple.
This is just a final nudge to say;
"It's now or never."
"Add this 'Last Chance' email into your follow up campaign and watch the sales roll in..."
Okay - we've gone through each of the 10 steps in this $200K email campaign walkthrough so...