Most people view an Etsy sale as the ultimate goal. Well, for me it’s just the start.
The real money is made by retaining your customers and selling to them on the backend.
We want to be able to reach our customers again and again, building up a loyal list of superfans.
But how can you do this in a way that’s as hands-off as possible?
Evergreen email strategy
Etsy shares your customers’ emails with you on every order. This is great for us, who want to reach people who have already proven they’re:
- Interested in your products
- Willing to get their card out and pay
The emails are provided to contact customers about their Etsy orders specifically.
This is not an invitation to just add people to your list and openly spam them. That’s a fast track to getting reported to Etsy, and if that happens a few times you’ll get your account banned.
So how do we encourage signups in a way that doesn’t feel spammy?
The Opt-In
When someone buys, we want to shoot them an email checking how that focuses on asking how they like their product, but also slips in a juicy lead magnet to get them to opt-in to your list.
Something along the lines of:
“Hey, thanks so much for your purchase, just reaching out to ask if there’s anything I can do to help you get the most out of your XYZ.
By the way, I’ve also got this free ABC I think you’d really love. If you click below you can get it to help get results with your XYZ.”
The most important thing is that this lead magnet is as closely tied to their original purchase as possible.
So if you’re selling woodworking plans for a garden chair, you might offer the plans for a cupholder to attach to the side.
If you sell social media templates, you might offer a “content calendar dashboard”.
For my niche, I offer a “mini-course” that goes deeper onto one of my customer’s deepest pain points.
The TL;DR here is to offer something that adds real value to the customer, to be used in conjunction with their initial purchase.
The 2 Tools You’ll Need
For gathering the emails from your order list: this Chrome extension (not sure why it has low ratings, it works great).
For sending the emails: ConvertKit or BeeHiiv. Both work great.
The Welcome Flow
When the person accepts your lead magnet and opts in via email, they’ll begin an evergreen sequence. This sequence is designed to build trust and eventually upsell them to make additional purchases.
You want the sequence to address common problems your customers face, so as people read they are feeling:
“Wow, this writer really understands what it is to be a vegan/anxious person/social media manager”.
I could write a whole book on how to optimize this flow, but the key is that each step builds on the last.
By the time you’re making your offer, the recipient feels truly understood and trusts you’re able to deliver solutions to their problems.
(Note: Emails should be sent roughly every 1 – 2 days. All emails should be sent around 11 AM Eastern for North American and/or European audiences, apart from email 1, which should go out immediately after the lead magnet opt-in.)
Email 1 – Immediate Welcome
Thank them for opting in. Introduce yourself or your brand warmly, and offer a few insights to help them get the most out of their lead magnet.
Throw in a story/anecdote to start building a human connection.
Email 2 + 3 – Dive Deeper
Tackle some common challenges/misconceptions related to your offer in Email 4.
E.g.
- “The 3 Reasons Beginner Poker Players Suck at Bluffing”
- “Why No Pain, No Gain is Not True for Runners”
- “STOP Watering Your Plants Daily”
- “How I Visited 36 Countries with $10 a day”
- “The Trick I Use to Kill Exam Stress”
The aim is to demonstrate you understand your readers pain points and show off some expertise.
You can find issues your niche cares about by sorting the relevant subreddit based on “popularity” and “this year/all time.
The aim is to induce curiosity to get the reader to open the main, and then dish so much value that they’re eagerly awaiting your next send. snippet to encourage people to open the email
Email 4 – The Upsell
This is when it’s time to sell. This email will promote a more expensive offer that solves one of your audience’s most significant problems.
It’s your responsibility to periodically test new offers here to find out what converts best on average.
Include either a limited-time coupon or some extra freebie to create a sense of urgency.
If you have a website, you can send your reader to your Woocommerce store to skip the Etsy fees. Or if your store is in a growth phase and you’re prioritizing stacking reviews, you can send them back to Etsy.
Email 5 – Reiterate and Engage
The final email should recap your offer, and retouch on the pain points it resolves. Clearly lay out the transformation you’re offering people.
Share some testimonials of how this product has helped others (or even yourself if you have none).
Encourage them to reply with any questions or for personalized advice. The feeling of a “real person behind the screen” can be the final confidence booster people need to convert.
(This will also give you valuable feedback to further tweak the sequence for better results in the future.)
Bonus: Ongoing Newsletter
So now the email flow is over, what do you do? Just throw the email address in the trash?
Nope. Once you’ve got over 1000 emails, I recommend committing to a weekly newsletter to keep remarketing these proven buyers.
I do NOT mean a traditional email list that just spams offers. I mean a valuable weekly update that feels like sitting down for coffee with a friend.
The topics you cover should relate to the products you offer, encouraging readers to check your store if they’re interested.
And from time to time, you can run the more blatantly sales-y emails like a “24-hour sale” to help convert “on-the-fence” readers.
The great thing about running a newsletter is that other companies will pay to sponsor your sends, too. So you’re able to monetize not only through your products but also the attention you’ve captured.