Communicating your value clearly and simply is the core of a successful product-led growth strategy. That’s where the conversational bumpers from the Bowling Alley Framework come in.
In this course, you will:
Ramli John:
I want to talk about the last step here. It's fill in the details for each individual email. I want to share with you six conversational bumpers, or conversational triggers, that you really need to be think about. And I find that the first three are super important, and the next three are probably optional.
Ramli John:
The first one is welcome messages, and I guess that this is actually something you need to really consider. Welcome messages are super expected, and that's why their open rate is typically 60% or higher. If your open rate for your welcome email is shorter than this, you need to be really tweaking this. I love it when I get a personal one.
Ramli John:
One tip that I have for you is really make sure that people can reply back to the email. One of my pet peeves is a no reply email, because this is one of the way... It's called conversational for a reason because you want people to be engaging back. If you're taking away that reply option, it really does take away that conversation piece and it's more of a broadcast, right?
Ramli John:
So here's an example from ClickUp. The [inaudible 00:01:05] that is almost of a notion competitor. It's trying to tie everything together. It's a welcome message that I've gotten, and this looks personal, but it could be automated as well. And it's talking about, "Hi Ramli. I see you just signed up. I was assigned as your success coach. It might take a few minutes or a few days, but once you get used to ClickUp everything will just click. As your coach, I'm here to make it as fast as possible. I recommend checking out our on-demand demo for starters." So it's providing help for me, and I have four tips about welcome messages. There's a lot of great things about this. First of all, the subject line is really emphasizing the value of ClickUp which is all about productivity, and it's directing me any types of help.
Ramli John:
So the four tips I have... And this one's onboarding email, welcome email from Fiverr. I really love it because it's on brand. So four things. First is, your welcome message. Well, you need to think about setting the tone for your brand. Is your brand friendly? Is it in your face? Look at this Fiverr one. "Welcome to Fiverr." Looks like a guy that's about to bust a rap. It says here, "If you're not part of the global community of doers, Fiverr is a marketplace of talented online freelancers who pride themselves on getting it done for you. On time, on budget. Get everything from customer websites, fresh original content, stunning graphics and much more."
Ramli John:
And the call to action is "Get..." and it's a swear word that starts with S. "Get sh done." Right? So it provides you top service they give. Whiteboard explainer, voice over. Here it's really on brand at Fiverr. They're targeting the young, hip, creative, and they're okay to swear in their call to action. For yours it might not be, but you're setting the tone for your brand here. This is one of the highest open rates and how you present the visuals, the copy, it really does say, are you friendly? Are you professional? All of that stuff. Thinking about the emotional jobs that your user does. What are the emotions you want your user to be feeling?
Ramli John:
Second is you need to think about relaying the value of your product. This is a great place to do that, because it has such a high open rate. Here, Fiverr was clear what their value is. It's getting you to do stuff and hire freelancers easily, on time and on budget. You want to give them instructions on how to get help. Now, I probably could have just [inaudible 00:03:37] down here and told you. This one you can't reply which is too bad, but they send you to the help pages. And four, provide expectation of other emails coming up. So you want to say, "Hey, we're going to be sending you a few more tips here."
Ramli John:
That's the first one. The second email I'm going to talk about is better life emails. These are really emails focus on sharing and reemphasizing your functional, emotional or social jobs of your product. Here's an example from Canva. It says, "Let us upgrade you to completely new design experience." They're talking about... And I love this. Look at this copy here. It's speaking to the social need or social job. "Whether you're full-time graphic designer, or your boss asks you to design a flyer every now and again, Canva Pro features are specifically designed to save you and your team time effort for every type of design task." It's talking about the functional job. Save time and effort. It's talking about social job. Is your boss looking at you and asking you to do this? Can you get this done? And you will look like a pro.
Ramli John:
So this is something that you need to think about. And once again, you can reference the user success canvas that we've provided for you. The functional, social and emotional jobs and all the internal, external motivations. Think about adding that. This is the reason why you put this together is to target your messaging and have it clearer for your users.
Ramli John:
The third type of email is usage tips. So these are types that you're really getting them that nudge to take the next step in your onboarding experience. If you notice here, here's an example when I haven't uploaded the photo yet. Really love this from Canva. They don't just give you three easy steps. The 'try it now' sends you back to the product to actually try this, but they also provide gifs which is great for interaction. Mind you, assume that your users have their photo or gifs turned off, so you should really be thinking about it and focusing on your copy for your emails. This is something, if your user gets stuck in one of the straight line onboarding steps, you can definitely use this.
Ramli John:
So for your product what are usage tips that you can give for your product? What are things that you can give where they're stuck in? Just think about that for a second. You could have help articles, you have webinars, do you have on demand videos? What do you have? And make sure to think about that.
Ramli John:
The next two emails are really dependent on your business. So the first one is the trial experience. If you have a free trial, you should really consider checking out Shopify. They have some really interesting ways to get you to come back. The first one is this, "Your free trial is ending in three days. There's so much potential in your store. Keep the progress going. It's time to make a plan. Here's the set up guide. Choose a plan." So they're really getting you to choose a plan, because your trial is about to end.
Ramli John:
Other call to actions you can think about is adding your credit card, but really this is to give your user a heads up that their trial is about to end. Re-emphasize what are the things they're going to be losing. At the same time reemphasize what are the things they're going to be gaining by continuing with your store. Here they're talking about the word potential which is a very emotional word.
Ramli John:
Another one you can think about, if you have a trial, is a trial extension. You'd be surprised how many people want an extension, and they get busy during that trial period that you have. Think about that. And this is an email from Shopify, once again, "Extend your trial." They have a button to extend it for an extra seven days. If you don't have the tech or the coding to do this, ask the user straight up, "Do you want a seven day extension?" and see if they reply back. I was surprised for one of the apps that I'm helping out how many of them did request a free trial extension.
Ramli John:
Just two more. The fifth one in our case studies. So this are stuff that you want to be sharing. Success stories. People love stories. If there are any success stories, then you can share it with them. This is the reason why if you know your customer job, then you can create success stories based on that particular customer job. Even if it was industry or persona.
Ramli John:
The very last one are sales touches. So here's an example from SparkToro. It is obviously automated because there's an unsubscribe there, but he doesn't feel very sales focused, right. It says, "Hi Ramli. The hard part is now over. You've customized your SparkToro profile. Were you left with any questions? I'd love to answer them. Here are some things you can do with SparkToro." He gives out more of the things you can do. "Don't miss out. Check out our suggestion for your first 10 free searches. Start driving more targeted growth." Really high touch. The question I have for you is, when is the best time to send this? Now, I'd argue that it's when success happens. It's when they get to that first strike. You really want to celebrate with them and getting them to that next step in that onboarding which is the tipping point.
