Fix Your Flows #1: Aisling Organics
Welcome to the first edition of Fix Your Flows!
I’m super excited to launch this brand new weekly content series.
Here’s how it works…
Each week I’ll go through submissions from DTC brands wanting me to take a look at their flows. Then, I’ll choose one lucky winner and Fix Their Flow.
This can be anything from Abandoned Cart flow to Browse Abandonment to even unique flows like a membership upsell flow.
The more variety we have the better (for both you and I).
This is the order of the breakdown:
Review the brand and give a quick intro
Show the emails we’ll focus on and the currents metrics for each
Subject line analysis
Body copy analysis
Urgency + selling ideas
Final thoughts
Here’s the ONE THING I want you to remember when you read these breakdowns…
What I recommend is to be tested (bold + underline + italics = serious shit). It isn’t a guaranteed performance increase. Nothing is guaranteed in the marketing world…
Every list is its own living, breathing thing, and most of the time, things really don’t make sense. But when they work, they just work.
So, the number one rule is to test what I recommend against what you’re currently doing and see which works best then go with that.
Now onto this week’s winner, Aisling Organics
I love a good startup story and this kind is one of my personal favorites…
The founder identified a problem (because she personally dealt with it and wanted it fix) then fixed it.
*insert mindblown emoji* *insert boom emoji*
This DTC brand was started by a 21-year-old named Krysta right after she graduated from college.
She suffered from all kinds of problems including migraines and nausea and, long story short, she found out her cosmetics were the root of her problems. She had them tested and found things like “formaldehyde, flame retardants, mercury and aluminum… things that belong in an auto shop and not your beloved beauty products.”
Obviously, a lot of stuff that shouldn’t be spread on your face or body.
So she built her DTC brand around high-quality cosmetics made up of organic ingredients.
Aisling Organic’s reached out to me and wanted me to take a look at their abandoned cart flow. I saw some areas I believe they could work on so I chose them as this week’s winner.
Aisling Organic’s Abandoned Cart Flow
I like to keep a simple formula to keep in mind with abandoned cart sequences:
Reminder + reason why + urgency = $$$
Keep it light, keep it fun, but remind them that they need to buy.
Emails in the Flow
Abandoned Cart Email #1:
Abandoned Cart Email #2:
Abandoned Cart Email #3:
Email Stats
Email 1:
28% open rate
3% click rate
6.9% order rate
Email 2:
24% open rate
12% click rate
8% ordered product
Email 3:
27% open rate
0% click rate
6.7% order rate
Subject Line Analysis
Email 1 subject line: Shop Now, Pay Later with AfterPay!
Email 2 subject line: Color matching online can be difficult…
Email 3 subject line: Checking in!
Starting with the all-important subject line, this flow has pretty good open rates. Although the number of people put through this flow was small, the percentage of opens is still pretty solid.
A few areas that I recommend testing to see if opens improve…
Add a little curiosity to boost open rates
The first email is direct, the reader knows what’s going on immediately. You’re selling them something.
I prefer a more indirect approach to get them to open the email. Some subject lines that have worked well for me in the past:
question
was this you?
did you just…
this wasn’t you was it?
Re: order #12985
The last one is extremely powerful. I learned that one from Ian Stanley and it’s crushed it for a lot of flows I’ve put together.
The main thing here is to use curiosity to get the open. Right now, they’re leaving the second they read your email and don’t feel like buying, you’ve got zero time to try and convince them with your actual email.
Remember: The first step is NOT to get them to buy, it’s to get them to open your email. That’s it.
Baby steps!
Focus on benefit-driven subject lines
Another thing I would test to see how well it works is benefit-driven subject lines.
If you could take the top three problems your readers want to be solved and make them into subject lines, I bet your open rates would skyrocket.
For example (I’m not a makeup guy so bear with me here)...
Is your makeup causing major breakouts?
Does your makeup give you pimples?
What if your makeup was the cause of your acne…
Could THIS be the cause of your bad skin?
See how that works?
We’ve now combined a little curiosity with MAJOR pain points the reader is dealing with. And those types of subject lines are what get opened over “your discount is expiring.”
Now, let’s look at the body of the email…
Body Copy Analysis
These emails are converting pretty well but could use a little brand life injected into them.
Admittedly, I am quite biased, but I’d like to see if adding in more copy could bump up the conversion rates even further.
Instead of looking like every other e-com brand on the planet, why not make ALL of your emails look like a personal note from your founder like you did in email #3?
Here’s my recommendation as to where to focus your copy:
The big tipping point that most DTC brands forget about is telling the reader why they should buy right now…
When creating your abandoned cart flow ask yourself things like:
Why do they need to buy right this second?
If they bought TODAY how would their life change TOMORROW?
What problem would immediately get resolved if they bought right now?
What could you talk about in your email that would “tip” them into finishing that order?
Why would they need an Aisling Organics product delivered to their front door immediately?
Imagine the reader is literally standing in front of two gigantic buttons (think Family Feud style buttons).
One button says “buy now” the other says “wait.”
What can you tell them about your product to make them slap the “buy now” button instead of the “wait” button?
Survey says…
A reason why!
Any Family Feud fans reading this? No? Ok… whatever…
For this flow, the reason why is missing. A little copy could go a long, long way to get the job done here. I would advise diving into the true pain points of the reader.
This would be a great spot to introduce Krysta’s founder story (taken from website):
I spent 7 years suffering from migraines and nausea to eventually discover my cosmetics were the culprit. I know… the last thing you’d likely think to blame. I sent them off to a lab and they came back positive for ingredients like formaldehyde, flame retardants, mercury and aluminum… things that belong in an auto shop and not your beloved beauty products.
I searched the shelves for products that were truly natural AND had longwear abilities but quickly came short. Feeling in my soul that there needed to be better options, I launched Aisling in 2016 with a vision (what Aisling means in Irish!) that one day every individual would only put the purest products on their skin to promote optimal health.
I would imagine that story is extremely relatable to a lot of your readers. Not knowing what’s in the products you use every single day can be very scary.
Trust goes a long way with a brand like Aisling Organics.
And if you want to stand out from all of the other cosmetic brands, treat your emails like a one-to-one conversation.
I know it’s scary at first removing all of the fancy GIFs and graphics (and looking totally opposite of everyone else) but I believe it’s worth testing to humanize your brand.
So far, I’ve not worked with any brands where emails like this didn’t beat the graphic-heavy templatized emails.
Urgency + Selling Ideas
If you could fix this one thing I guarantee your conversion rate would jump…
You need some urgency in this flow.
There are a couple of options here:
Use non-discount urgency such as “you shouldn’t continue to damage your skin with harmful cosmetics, make the switch to Aisling Organics today. Finish your order below.”
Use a unique discount code that is set to expire after ~48 hours and give them warnings. You can even test two emails on the last day, one around 12 hours left and one around 4 hours left. See what works best via testing.
I also recommend you don’t take the “easy route” with the coupon code everyone else uses. Try a non-discount version of this flow and compare your revenues in each flow. I’ve seen a lot of brands create more revenue this way. Since abandoned cart flows are naturally high-converting anyways, you might be able to get away with no discount.
But, sometimes, consumers are looking specifically for that discount code. So, you never know.
Final thoughts
As you can see, a few minor tweaks can make your flows really powerful.
I’d love to see some copy-driven emails added to this flow. You’ve got a great brand story that you should mention in this flow. It’s extremely relatable to your readers and builds trust. Also, it makes them realize you’re not some giant corporation trying to make a quick buck off of them.
Next, focus on urgency by using copy in your emails. Tell them why they need to buy TODAY and what pain point they will resolve immediately.
This is the kind of copy that can easily 10x your revenue.
I hope this was helpful and I’d love to hear what you implement at Aisling Organics. Thanks for being the first official Fix Your Flows winner!
Do You Want Me to Fix Your Flow for Free?
If you’d like to get one of your brand’s flows fixed for free, send me an email and I’ll reply with details on how to enter.
Email me at nick@iamnickyates.com