Dose #18: Email Flows for Subscriptions

Matt here with your weekly Subscription Prescription ??

Dose #18: Subscription Email Flows

This week we’re tapping into the lifeblood of any ecommerce business: email.

There are a lot of different flows your business uses, and subscriptions add to the mix.

To give a deeper insight into what emails you need and why, I’m really excited to have Reinis Krumins join us. He’s the founder and brains behind an incredible email agency, AgencyJr.com. You can also follow him with @emailreinis on Instagram and Twitter.

First, a basic overview of the flows you should already be using for your site:

1. Abandoned checkout sequence
2. Browse abandonment sequence
3. Site abandonment sequence
4. Welcome sequence + popup strategy
5. Thank you sequence
6. Bounce back sequence
7. Subscription upsell sequence
8. Winback sequence?

The subscription upsell sequence is triggered based on one-time purchases. For example, someone buys a product twice, without a subscription, which triggers an email sequence to get them to subscribe.

The winback sequence is important for one-time purchasers as well. If they haven’t purchased from you in a while, subscription or otherwise, you send this to engage them again and drive a sale.

Subscription-specific email flows include:

1. Subscription Cancellation / Pause
2. Subscription Failed
3. Subscription Winback
4. Card Expiry Notice
5. Upcoming Payment / Order Processing

Subscription cancellation emails start by confirming that they’ve canceled the subscription. If the customer selects a reason that suggests reengagement, like they had too much product, you can wait 60 or 90 days to restart a winback campaign for them.

You can also create a specific campaign for paused subscriptions. This can be low-touch with the purpose of engaging with a customer that may still like your product, but wanted a break or had too much product.

Subscription failed emails let customers know that their order failed to process and why. This is especially important because customers often don’t know this is happening and don’t actually want to cancel.

The subscription winback email applies to customers with canceled, paused, and failed orders. You nurture them back to reengage and make a purchase again.

Card Expiry notice lets your customer know that their card is about to expire. Critical to get that updated before the order fails.

Upcoming Payment and order processing emails are extremely important. This is becoming a law in many states and countries where customers need to be notified that their order is coming up. This is a great opportunity to remind them of the benefits of their subscription and why they ordered in the first place.

Thanks again to Reinis for his thoughts and feedback! If you’d like to work with him, check out his site to learn more.

Did this dose help? If so, please forward it to a friend.

That's it for this week - stay tuned for Dose #19 next Tuesday!

- Matt Holman ??

Head of Growth, QPilot

Looking for a new subscription platform?

If you’re on WooCommerce, then you need to check out our plugin, Autoship Cloud. If you’re on Shopify, we’ll be there soon - let me know if you’d like to be added to our waitlist.

Free Resources:

Launch Best Practices: Checklist on what to consider when launching a subscribe and save program.

33 Subscription Tips: A list of ways you can incrementally improve your subscription machine.

Learn more on these recent Podcast appearances:

Advice from a Subscriptions Expert - Wizards of Ecommerce

How Successful Brands Are Scaling Subscriptions - Flowium

Add Subscriptions to Your Online Store - the SALTcast