5 Email Hacks To Boost Shopify Sales Forever — Sergey Sapelnyk | What DTC Email Mistakes To Avoid, Why Mobile Emails Need Clear Designs, How Visual Emails Increase Engagement, What Makes Pop-ups Boost Lists, Why Email Frequency Drives Revenue (#410)

In this Ecommerce Summer School archive episode, we explore simple email marketing strategies that can boost your store's revenue.

Joining us is Sergey Sapelnyk, co-owner at Bedford Marketing. Sergey shares his experience sending over 80 million emails annually and reveals the biggest mistakes DTC brands make with email marketing. 

Learn about mobile-first email design, optimal sending frequency, effective pop-up strategies, and how to build stronger customer relationships through better email campaigns.

Topics discussed in this episode:  

• Why mobile emails need clear designs
• How visual emails increase engagement
• What makes pop-ups boost lists
• Why email frequency drives revenue
• How CTAs enhance email clicks
• What DTC email mistakes to avoid
• Why testing pop-ups for revenue
• Why emotional emails create impact

Links & Resources 

Website: https://www.bedfordmarketing.co/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sergeysapelnyk/
X/Twitter: https://x.com/BallinFil

Get access to more free resources by visiting the show notes at
https://tinyurl.com/55r7hxvw

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Transcript

[00:00:00] I send some, call it 80 million plus emails a year, and I still see so much opportunity. I mean, email's been around for decades now and, and there's still a long way to go, I think, and there's a lot of money being left on the table. I'm gonna go through a list in no particular order of. Where I would focus on if I was a DTC brand.

So first and foremost, I would [00:00:20] say

hello. Welcome to another episode of the E-Commerce Coffee Break podcast. Today we wanna talk about email marketing strategies and simple strategies to help you boost your revenue. Joining me on the show today is Jackie. He is the current co-owner of Bed Fork Marketing Do co. [00:00:40] And he also founded two successful e-Commerce Brand Society socks and Pearly Drinks.

Saggy specialize in helping brand SPOs grow through email marketing, especially in today's challenging landscapers platforms like Meta Ads and TikTok Shops is today to share actionable tips that you can use right away to improve your email marketing and grow your business. So [00:01:00] let's dive in and welcome to the show.

Hi, how are you today? Great, great. The loud of applause is, is crazy. It's really loud. Hopefully people, uh, in the car listening to this podcast are clapping along as well. I hope so too. So let's dive right into email marketing. I'm a big fan of email marketing for 20 plus years, and, um, [00:01:20] specifically with DTC brands, it's always, it's a big opportunity there, but it's not always easy.

What's your take on, what are the biggest challenges and the biggest mistakes that you see when it comes to email marketing for DTC brands? Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. So, for some context, dual, easy to read and so on, [00:01:40] just goes such a long way. Just thinking about the basics, you know, as they say, kiss, keep it simple.

Stupid, frankly, is something that a lot of brands, you know, should be following. Now, in terms of tactical changes in that area that I, I would focus on first and foremost, mobile responsiveness. I mean, most people, just like you and I, cla open their [00:02:00] emails on phones, you know, as high as 70, 80% of emails that I send depending on the brand, are opened on phones.

So just make sure that you're building emails for that. I mean. Of brands send an email, you can't really read what's going on, uh, on the phone and the person just closes the email. So just being very clear from that standpoint. Uh, and beyond that, just [00:02:20] making sure that the hierarchy that you're following in your email is, you know, basically following basic ui ux principles.

You're going from a headline, transitioning to a sub headline, having clear call to actions, and so on and so forth, so that the eye follows, you know, what story you're trying to tell me. And then finally, I would say avoiding extremely long paragraphs, because if you're a DTC [00:02:40] brand, you know no one really cares about the massive paragraph you're gonna.

You're gonna send me, people are visual creatures. They just want the pants, the underwear, the makeup that, that you're selling. Uh, and typically, unless you have something amazing to say, I would stay away from longer paragraphs. So that's the first bucket is. Being more visual, simpler and, and, and [00:03:00] just easier to read.

The second I would say is, let, lemme just stop you there. I just wanna dive a little bit, bit, um, deeper into the email, the mobile view of an email. I think that's particularly important. You said it's 70, 80% are opening on mobile devices. Um, and you said there's sometimes problems that people just cannot read it, it's either too long or they put text [00:03:20] on graphic or whatever.

What would be a, a structure from your side? For mobile first to, to get it right from scratch. Yeah, yeah, certainly. So to get it right from scratch, I guess two, two directions you could take it. So first. I see a lot of DTC brands. The way they send emails is they just insert like [00:03:40] JPEGs or PNGs into an email.

Uh, and a lot of the more sophisticated email clients or email softwares like Klaviyo for example, allow you to upload mobile and desktop specific images. So if you're the brand that says that, that sends blocks like that, I would just make sure you have. Mobile images with bigger text. Now, if you're a brand that [00:04:00] said sends actual almost like plain text or HTML emails, I would just bump up the size and don't worry about e, about fonts looking too big on desktop.

A lot of these builders also are, are dynamic when it comes to desktop versus mobile. So just make sure that you're bumping up that size. And ultimately what I suggest everyone always does is send yourself a [00:04:20] preview. You'll instantly be able to see is this too small or too big or not, and, and you'll be able to suss that out.

Yeah, I think that's a great tip. Um, I know you should never send anything out before you haven't tested it. And maybe also give it to your colleagues to proofread for typos and different devices, not only your phone, um, other devices as well. And then only then hit [00:04:40] the send button. Um, I have probably made any, every mistake there's in the book over the, over the years and I have been very, very particular on testing before I hit the send button.

Cool. Um, dive into the structure, let me know a little bit more about it. Mm-hmm. Yeah, for sure. So beyond that, uh, what I typically like to focus on and, and [00:05:00] fix and with a lot of brands that I start working with is just having cleaner and clear call to actions. So first and foremost, making your CTAs look like actual buttons goes a long way.

Consumers are. Such, you know, quick distracted animals at this point, you know, we have messages firing at us from, from all angles. Just [00:05:20] having a button that looks like a button goes a long way, making sure it's big and easy to find in the email. Now, beyond that, um, kind of a, a, a pro level tip that I would give is making sure that the story that you're telling in your email.

Leads into the button. So the example that I always love to share is just naturally guide the person. So [00:05:40] if you're selling, let's say a hair loss product and you're talking about the problem, oh, you're losing hair. We know you want your hair to grow back, I would make a call to action test something like, grow back your hair.

Now here's how to grow back your hair, whatever. Tie it to the story and I can guarantee your, your click through rate is going to go through the roof. [00:06:00] Hmm, great tip there. So you said sending emails and people get far too many emails, and as a brand, obviously you wanna communicate as much as possible with your client.

What's the, the frequency of emails that you are sending out? I, is there any kind of guideline there is or what's your experience? [00:06:20] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. So, um, Klaus, you probably have a variety of, you know, business builders from, you know, different run rates, uh, listening to the podcast. So I'll talk about the different tiers and how I think about it.

Mm-hmm. If your business is doing, let's say, under a hundred thousand dollars a month in run rate, I would say at [00:06:40] minimum aim to have at least one email every single week. So you know, even if your business is doing 5,000, $10,000 a month and you're just starting out, make sure you're nurturing that list because the last thing that you want to do is for people to forget about you and for you to come back in a year when you're doing $200,000 a month and for your email list.

To [00:07:00] just not care. Uh, and I see that happen very, very often Now, uh, don't take the list for granted, but also, you know, make sure you're nurturing these people right away. And it doesn't have to be complicated. You know, I said previously, don't send massive paragraphs in an email. It's okay to send a simple email with a couple of sentences and just a simple image [00:07:20] that you designed in Canva.

That's totally fine. Just, just follow the basic principles and tell a nice story. Now, if you're. Let's say above a hundred thousand dollars in run rate, up to maybe 200, $400,000 a month. I would say at minimum, you should be sending two emails a week. And if you're not sending that many emails, you are probably leaving a lot of run [00:07:40] rate on the table.

And then if you're above the threshold of, you know, let's say roughly five h hundred thousand dollars a month in, in revenue, I would say send at least five emails a week, if not more. Because when your business is that big already, when you're getting into the five, $10 million a year. Revenue, uh, scale.

Your list is probably super [00:08:00] big. You could start segmenting and getting more, you know, complex and, and figuring out where the opportunity lies that way. So that's kind of the sliding scale for me. At minimum, try to send one email every week or every two weeks up to five to seven emails a week. Mm-hmm. I wanna dive a little bit into on how to collect email addresses.

Obviously [00:08:20] email address is the best base database you can have. Its owned marketing. It's not based on someone else. And obviously yes, you get a order in and then you have an email to fulfill the order, and then you start your marketing. What are other ways to build your email list? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Massive, massive opportunity. You're, you're spot on. [00:08:40] Honestly, in the email world, this is the most valuable asset that we have and honestly. As meta and, and Google and all of these paid advertising platforms get harder and harder and harder every single year. Your own email list, your own media becomes increasingly important.

So it's such a valuable asset that, you know, you gotta plant that seed now and you'll start seeing [00:09:00] results, you know, years down the line. So, uh, popups are the biggest way for you to leverage getting new opt-ins and new emails into your e-commerce brand. Um, a, a massive stat that I love to share is just, um, an example of.

Let's say you're, you're, you have a hundred thousand monthly visitors to your website. Um, and the [00:09:20] difference between a 1% opt-in rate and a 10% opt-in rate on your popup is the equivalent of half a million dollars in a year. Half a million dollars and call it 120,000 people on your email list. So, huge, huge, huge difference.

And you can see how that compounds over time. Now, the, the beautiful part about, about collecting emails and opt-ins [00:09:40] is it's really, really easy to test. Uh, frankly, you know. The popup. Uh, typically you get so much data and so quickly, especially if you're getting a lot of traffic, that you can test things very, very fast.

Now, what I would suggest brands do is they follow a really simple hierarchy of what they're testing in their popups. [00:10:00] Uh, typically I like to test first and foremost what the offer and messaging is so. No percent off, 10% off, 20% off a gift, whatever. I would test that. Then I would test the copy, and then finally the creative and you know, how mm-hmm.

How you're communicating, um, how you're communicating your brand in the popup. Um, and, and frankly, I would [00:10:20] just start running these tests right away because if you're not running tests right now, you're leaving money on the table. Um, now one quick tip here for brands is. Unlike meta ads where you know, a lot of the time you see brands that you think perform, but you don't really know what performs with popups.

You know what performs, because you can look at the best in class brands, [00:10:40] the true classics, ridge wallets, somersault, and you could see what popups they're running on the website. And more likely than not, that's a great starting point for you, especially if you're a small, smaller brand. Good point there.

Just looking at what others do doesn't give you any kind of insight because they're trying to figure it out as well. So it's not that they have all the wisdom out there, [00:11:00] but when it comes to popups, one thing that comes to mind is, how can I watch that? I annoy my customers with too many popups. So how often do I show popups and where in the customer journey do I show them?

Yeah, that's a great question. So it really depends on the brand and and the audience. But a couple of rules of [00:11:20] thumb that I would say first, make sure that if you have random upsell apps that you're leveraging on your website, that those upsell apps are not. Uh, layering on random popups throughout the consumer journey that, that you're not accounting for.

Because what I see with a lot of brands is they have the initial popup when you get to the website, then there's a [00:11:40] popup when you get to the product page with some sort of offer, then there's a popup at the cart, and then when you click check out, right, there's another popup. So just don't overload them.

You can audit that very quickly. Yourself. Beyond that, what I would say is. Typically I avoid showing a popup right away to the consumer. You know, like with no delay, it's just too annoying. You're, you're spot on class. Like [00:12:00] no one likes that. No one wants to give you their information. You have to show me why I should give you my email address.

But a sweet spot I would say is between a 10 and 42nd delay is fine. Uh, 40 seconds is probably the, the upper end of where you want to be, but I would, I would play around and test, you know, what works best. And then the final tip that I would [00:12:20] share is. Depending on the, the types of paid media funnels that you're running.

Sometimes I play around with actually not showing popups on the landing page when someone clicks from meta, because sometimes it's just a little bit too intrusive. You can get a little more like complicated and test revenue per user with and without a popup, but [00:12:40] that's probably like expert level. Um, so you know, probably as a starting point you could just.

Exclude people that go to a landing page because ultimately we are optimizing for revenue right away. Uh, and then the email, you know, maybe that person doesn't convert, but we have an opportunity to sell them in the future. But that's a second order I would say benefit. [00:13:00] [00:13:20] [00:13:40] Now, maybe our listers might be interested in a opt-in rate, so obviously do AB testing, but what's kind of an opt-in rate goal to work towards to Yeah, yeah, definitely.

So what I would say is. Two, two tiers. I think [00:14:00] about it in two different ways. If you're not running a promo on your popup, so you don't have 10, 20, 30% off, um, and it's just, you know, join our email list type of messaging. Obviously you need to get crafty and creative there and, and communicate why there's value in join your email list.

But holding that aside, I would say a healthy opt-in rate is between [00:14:20] three and almost 10%. It really depends on the brand. You know, sometimes online you see. 10% that's best in class and that's where you need to be. And a lot, a lot of the time, that's just not the reality. If you're in the range of three to 10%, that's probably a great place to be.

You could probably push it up a little bit more with testing. Now, if you're, if you do have a promotional offer, [00:14:40] 10% is very healthy. On the email popup, I have a brand that's as high as 15%, although that's really an exception, not the rule. Um, but you know, I would stay in tho aim to, to be in those ranges and.

Beyond that. Also, just don't listen to me at all and just keep testing until you keep improving and when you don't see any more [00:15:00] improvement, pause on testing for a few months and come back to it in the future. 'cause marketing constantly changes. That's true. Now obviously you're working with a lot of DTC brands at Bedford Marketing, and can you give me an example what kind of results, you don't need to, um, um, name a brand, but what kind of results your, your clients saw after implementing?

Yeah, [00:15:20] certainly implementing the right structure. Yeah, definitely. Honestly, it, it varies and it, it really varies on the brand that I work with. But I have this one example of a brand that, um, I took over sending emails for, uh, call it just half a year ago now. And, and really the big difference maker for them was just sending more consistent emails, you know, [00:15:40] to my previous point of what the biggest opportunities are.

I mean, this was a brand doing $200,000 a month in revenue. Um. Just by increasing their frequency of emails and SMS, by the way, to two to three and sometimes four a week versus one to two. Um, we took them from, call it [00:16:00] $200,000 a month to $300,000 a month. Of course there was additional opportunity also for them to start scaling their paid media because we were activating the retention side.

You know, more effectively there was more profit to be had and more profit to be, you know, sent to the meta side. But that's a, that's a, you know, a, a massive result, I would say. And it really just came [00:16:20] from, again, the basics. Keep it simple, stupid. Send a few emails a month, or sorry, send a few emails every single week.

Make sure your messaging is clear, concise, to the point, and that the consumer. You know, actually has a reason to open and read your email. Mm-hmm. No, absolutely. Right now you are one of [00:16:40] the agency owners, one of the very few who actually build DTC brands by yourself. So you have built two successful DTC brands, and then you're, now you're focus on email marketing, helping others in the market.

Who's your perfect customer? Yeah. Um. My perfect customer. Do you mean? Uh, just generally, [00:17:00] like who, who do I love selling things to on the internet? Um, what I've learned is. You mentioned Klaus. I was running a, a soc business. It was called Society soc, still running it. Um, but I would say learning number one for me was generally it is so much harder to sell things to men on the internet than women.[00:17:20] 

Um, you know, I also have, I. Past experience in, in the, uh, CPG consumer packaged goods space, uh, working at Proctor and Gamble, a best in class brand. And the mantra there would always be, we're selling to mom. She is, she is the lead consumer of the household. And really that's true, you know, for the majority of, of categories on the internet, not on [00:17:40] the internet.

That is just the simple truth. Um, so I would say the sweet spot for me has been. Working with brands that are selling to selling products, to probably women that are in the age range of like 30 to 60. It's hard to to, you know, narrow it down specifically, but, um, you know. Selling to consumers where they have a little bit more [00:18:00] disposable income, they have wants and needs that they wanna fulfill is just so much easier.

Um, you know, sometimes it, it is a little bit trickier selling to younger audiences, the, the Gen Zs of, of the world, especially given they're on such new and trendy platforms like TikTok and so on and so forth. I mean, to them you gotta market like completely differently. So I would say that's a bit of a [00:18:20] different animal, but, um, you know, no.

No, no. Kind of like specific consumer. I, I, I, you know, sell to people across the board. Okay. No, absolutely. Perfect. So for our listeners who will run a DTC, Brent and that want to work with you and optimize the email marketing, um, what are the typical onboarding process steps [00:18:40] to get them up and running?

Yeah, yeah, definitely. So, I mean, first and foremost I would just message me at Bedford Marketing Co. And typically what we do is. You know, get on a call and just try to audit your account completely for free. Um, you know, I can't, I can't tell you what, what medicine you need before [00:19:00] I, I, you know, review your brand and figure out what's going on.

So I love to dig into the brand, uh, you know, see your sending schedule, see what kind of results you've driven in the past, and then go from there. I really custom tailor. Every single partnership and every single plan. I don't believe in, you know, one size fits all because that's frankly not the world we live in, in [00:19:20] DTC.

Okay. Tell me a little bit about the pricing structure, if you can. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Um, we just price, I. Our partnerships based on a monthly retainer. It honestly ranges depending on how many emails you need every month, how many, you know, flows and automations we're working on, how much, how many popups we're doing, [00:19:40] and whether we're also helping in other capacities.

So, honestly, it, it really depends. I can't give you a range because, um, you know, I'll audit and accounts, you know, two days in a row and it'll be two completely different kind of, kind of ballparks. And it really just depends on the size of the business and, and how much help you need. Okay. Before we come to the end of our coffee break today, [00:20:00] is there anything that you want to share with our listeners that we haven't covered yet?

Um, send better emails. That's my only call to action is just spend more time and a lot of the time we're in our worlds and, you know, very quantitative and looking at numbers and that's really important. But also [00:20:20] we're selling qualitative things. We're appealing to people's feelings and I would make sure that.

Everything that you put out into the world from a marketing standpoint, you also activate that part of the brain. You think of how the consumer will feel, you think of, you know, what the strategy is and, and you know what you want to communicate to them and not just be, you know, [00:20:40] numbers based. Think of the qualitative and, and the emotional side as well.

And, and I promise you, you'll go a long way. Yeah, I agree. If you have a solid structure and qualitative good marketing strategy with email, um, you are a long way ahead because all the other platforms, as you mentioned before, changing all the time. Um, so [00:21:00] you basically always cha chasing what's happening and trying to adjust.

Email marketing is around for a long time and I don't think it will go away anytime soon, and I think it's one of the fundamental things that you need to get right as a DTC brand. Thanks so much for your time today. Um, where can people find out more about you guys? I would just [00:21:20] go to bedford marketing.co and, and message me on there and I'll be happy to chat and take a look at your email account.

Perfect. I will put the link in the show notes, then you just one click away. Thanks so much for your time today and um, I'll to talk to you soon. Thanks so much. Amazing. Thanks. Close.

Hey, Claus here. Thank you for joining me on another episode of the e-Commerce [00:21:40] Coffee Break podcast. Before you go, I'd like to ask two things from you. First, please help me with the algorithm so I can bring more impactful guests on the show. It'll also make it easier for others to discover the podcast.

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