MBA2294 Guest Teacher – Jessica Totillo Coster – How to Get Repeat Purchases for Your eCommerce Store

0:09Heyo! Welcome to the$100 MBA show, powerful business lessons you can count on every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zinhome. I'm also the co-founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company. I started with my co-founder back in 2014. And today's episode is a guest teacher episode. Today, we have Jessica Tutillo-Coster. And she's going to show you how to get repeat customers for your e-commerce store. But actually, her lesson today can be applied to any kind of business that's looking to get customers to buy again.

0:42If you're a fan of the show, if you're a longtime listener, you know I'm always telling you to please tap into your customer base. These people already sold on you. They're the easiest sale to make. But how do you do it? That's what Jessica's here to teach us in today's lesson. Jessica is an e-commerce and email marketing strategist. She focuses on boutique business owners and product-based businesses. She's all about supporting scrappy business owners get more sales. And with over 20 years of experience, she's here today to give you what works. Anything that helps you make you more money is worth investing in.

1:19Like this episode, listen up. You're going to love it. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business. I'm really excited to share this guest teacher lesson by Jessica Totillo-Coster. Because repeat customers, expansion revenue, retention, whatever you want to call it, is one of the most valuable levers in your business. It's actually what gives your business value. Why? Because it means your business can make money without any external marketing, without buying leads. You're actually making money from people that you already have their contact. You already have them on your email list. And today, our guest teacher, Jessica, is gonna teach you how to do it.

1:56So I'm gonna pass it on to Jessica, but I'll be back to wrap up today's episode and give my favorite takeaways. But for now, take it away, Jessica. Hey there, my name is Jessica Totillo-Coster, founder of ecommerce badassery and I am super excited to talk to you today about getting repeat purchases for your ecommerce store. Before we get into the nitty gritty of how to do it, let's chat about why it's important because I find it's pretty hard to prioritize anything that we're not completely sold on. The truth is retention is where you make money. Yes, acquisition is important because you need customers to create repeat ones, but customer acquisition costs keep rising and it's hard to stay profitable on that first purchase.

2:41But each time the customer returns, that transaction is more and more profitable. Studies show that not only is it five times less expensive to get a repeat purchase than a new one, but those repeat customers spend three times more than a newly acquired customer. Those are numbers we just can't ignore. All right, So now that you know how important retention is, let's talk about how to do it. It all starts with creating a great first time experience. And my favorite way to do that is with a post purchase email series. I discovered the power of this post purchase series at my previous day job. We were selling this new to market product that everyone in the industry was raving about.

3:25Every blogger was talking about it and they were selling like hotcakes in store and online. But our e-commerce division was receiving a lot of return requests. After having conversations with these customers, we quickly realized that it was actually user error. In store, the customer had the associates to walk them through how to properly use the product. But online, we didn't have anything in place to help them with this. Once we identified what the problem was, we quickly implemented a post-purchase email that was sent the day after their order shipped that walked them through exactly how to use it and how to avoid the common mistakes our customers were making.

4:06And guess what happened? The return request stopped. Now, what you put in this series is going to depend on your product. But ask yourself this question, what does the customer need to know and understand about my product so they have a great experience and come back to leave a positive review? If you're not sure, one of the best ways to discover this is through your negative reviews and your customer service inquiries. I've gone on to implement this strategy with a number of clients, but one of the most standout ones and an easy to understand example is a DIY nail polish kit. This particular brand started out as an in-person experience but when the pandemic hit she had to shut down.

4:47So she took the in-person experience and boxed it up for customers to enjoy at home but people were hesitant to purchase because they didn't have the guidance you would get in a live in-person environment. To minimize the risk to the customer and to ensure they were able to create a nail polish they love so they would come back and buy more we created a series of videos for each of the color palettes that we deliver through email after they make their purchase. The videos are just set up as playlists on YouTube and we link them to the corresponding playlist based on the color they purchased. Okay, so now you've created a great first impression, but how do you keep them coming back again and again?

5:27Two things, consistently showing up to stay top of mind and giving them a reason to return. First, let's talk about showing up. When you think about all the touch points you have with your customers, social media, email, SMS, direct mail, ads, etc. I want you to start with a little mindset shift. Not every touch point is about the hard sell. Sometimes your only goal is to remind your customer that you exist so that when they're ready to buy a product like yours, you're the first one they think of. There are multiple ways you can do this social email, SMS, direct mail, etc. The medium you use isn't the most important takeaway, although we are going to talk about my favorite one.

6:13The important thing to remember is that you have to stay consistent when communicating with your customer. Yes, it really is that simple. In most cases, we over complicate this and I get it. I do the same thing. I overthink everything. But when you really break it down, when I show up and talk about what I have to offer, people take action and buy from me. If I don't, they don't. As I said, there are multiple ways that you can stay top of mind with your customers. You get to choose which ones they are, but at a minimum, you should absolutely be embracing email marketing. If you're about to tune out because you think email marketing is dead, that couldn't be further from the truth.

6:54Email still has the highest ROI of any marketing activity you can do in your business as high as 40 to one in many cases. I'm always reminding my clients and students. If you only have time to create a social media post or send an email, 99 % of the time the email will generate more revenue. Now I have a lot to say about email, but we have a limited amount of time together. So I want to focus on a framework I developed to help you create an email marketing calendar. Because the number one hesitation I get when I talk to entrepreneurs about their email strategy is, I don't know what to say. It's called the STAR method.

7:32And if you follow these steps, when you sit down to strategize your email sends, you're going to have a lot more to say than you think. First, we'll break these down one by one, and then I'll walk you through what it looks like to actually implement it. The S stands for start with the important dates. This can include calendar holidays, relevant social media holidays, product launches, promotions, etc. The T stands for telling stories. It can be your own story or customer story. And I'll give you an example of that in a bit. The A stands for add value. For instance, if you sell makeup, they probably care about skincare.

8:10If you sell mattresses, they care about getting better sleep. If you sell a food product, recipes are a great way to add value to your audience. The R stands for repeat, resend and repurpose. And this is probably the most important one because we all struggle with this. Have you ever felt like you've already said everything thing you have to say or that you're repeating yourself all the time? Yeah, me too. But the truth is no one else is paying as close attention to you as you are. And you have new people coming into your orbit all of the time. So even if you had said something before, there is someone in your audience who hasn't heard it yet.

8:49One of the stories I share about myself a lot is how I used to sleep in my new shoes as a little girl. One day I posted that story on Instagram and someone commented and said, Oh, I used to do that too. But here's the thing. That was probably the fifth or so time I had said that on social media. And this person had been following me for two years. My point is, yeah, you are going to feel like you said this thing already. And you're even going to feel like you're being annoying. But you've got to push through that because it needs to be said again. Studies have shown that it takes someone an average of seven times before they'll take action on something.

9:29And if someone has heard it before, they're just going to tune it out. It's not like they're going to say, oh, they're talking about this again. What's that Dr. Seuss quote, those who matter don't mind and those who mind don't matter. That definitely rings true here. And that leads me to re-send. There are two ways this applies to your email marketing. One, when you have a specific marketing campaign, product launch, sale, promotion, etc. going on in your business, you need to send a minimum of three emails about that thing. One to launch it, one as a reminder, and a last chance. I will also often resend emails I created to people who didn't open them the first time.

10:10People's inboxes are flooded and sometimes you just need to pop yourself up to the top again. The second way, and this is something you can implement in your business in the next 24 hours, is to find an evergreen, which just means non-time sensitive email that performed well in the past and send it to your new subscribers. You can even resend it to people who didn't take action on it the first time. Maybe they just weren't ready for whatever you were offering. If it's been six months or more, you can send that email exactly as is. Same subject line and content. No one's going to know. And last but certainly not least is repurpose.

10:48We spend so much time, energy, and effort creating content, and then it just sits there and collects dust. Make the most of that content by repurposing it across your marketing channels. You'll want to tweak it, of course, to fit the medium you're sharing it on. But if you wrote a really great blog post, send a sneak peek in email. If you created a really fun reel on social media that could help someone make a buying decision, send an email telling them to check it out. And it doesn't even have to be your own content. You can just do a roundup of other people's content that you've seen around the web that you think your customers will find value in.

11:24All right, so what does this actually look like to implement? Let's walk through the process. When I'm sitting down to create an email marketing calendar, I always start with an actual monthly calendar. First, I'm going to lay out all the important dates for that month or quarter, however long you're planning for, plot them all out on the calendar. Once you've done that, you can start plugging in the days you know you want to send email. If we go back to the star method, we know that we want to send multiple emails about our campaigns. So plug in all of the emails you're going to send for each of your marketing focuses, your promotions, etc.

12:00Truth be told, after you do this first step, your calendar is going to fill up pretty fast. But if your goal is to send three emails per week at a minimum, you might see a handful of holes. That's where your value added content goes. Of course, there is a little overlap. The T and the A in the star method is really more about the type of content which you can absolutely use in your salesy emails too. But you know, I wanted to come up with a fun acronym, so they ended up in the center. As promised, let's talk about the storytelling piece really quick because I know it can be hard to actually put this into practice.

12:35And an easy way to think about this is story, lesson, offer. Let me give you an example. I have a client, she sells scented candles. Each scent has a name such as rest, calm, new day. She recently had an experience that reminded her how important it was to rest and recharge. So she sent an email telling the story, talked about how it reminded her the importance of rest, and then featured her rest candle. And guess what happened? People bought that candle and then some. She's been using this framework for the last few weeks and every time without fail it generates revenue. She keeps sending me messages to tell me about it.

13:18It's the best. Now let's talk about giving your customers a reason to return. There are lots of reasons why someone would return to your store to shop again. If your product is consumable they'll need to buy more. If you're a clothing boutique customers will naturally come back as the seasons change or your customer may just come back to buy something complimentary to what they already purchased. Most businesses have some sort of built in reason for returning customers. But I don't want you to just sit back and wait for the customer to return on their own. You'll be more successful if you're actively inviting them to come back and see what you have to offer.

13:57Of course, email automation like replenishment reminders, win back campaigns, your rewards program, and even special birthday discounts are all great ways to do this. But the most impactful strategy I love to teach is creating product launch events in your business. Not only are they a great way to get your existing customers excited to return, but it's also a great way to attract new customers and grow your email list. What I really love about this strategy is that it's a repeatable process that you can improve and refine over time. There is definitely some technical setup that has to happen to pull this off, which we don't have time to go into today.

14:38But let's walk through the four main steps, which are more than enough to get you started. Step one, build a list of potential customers who are interested in your specific offer. This is your VIP list. You'll even want your existing email subscribers to opt into this specific segment if they want in on this launch. The reason we want them to opt into this list is that it qualifies them as being interested in this specific product and is an invitation to email them about it more. Step two, breadcrumb tease and nurture that audience up until launch day to get them super excited and ready to buy.

15:19This is where you'll want to share sneak peeks of what's to come. Make sure they have all the information they need for launch day and essentially get them to a place where on launch day, they're refreshing their inbox, just waiting to be able to buy from you. Step three, give those initially interested early access to get their hands on your offer before everyone else. So they feel special. This is essentially the marketing message you're going to use to get the sign up in the first place. Step four, after your initial VIP access time, which typically 24 hours or less is plenty, you'll open it up to the general public to get as many eyes on that offer as possible.

16:00Throughout this entire pre-launch and launch process, you'll want to really lean into the STAR method for your email strategy. You can always give people a way to opt out of this launch messaging and email, but don't hold back. All right, I know I threw a lot at you in a short amount of time. Let's highlight a few of the key takeaways from today's lesson on how to get repeat purchases for your e-commerce store. Number one, create a great first impression to ensure they have a positive experience with your product with a thoughtful and strategic post-purchase email series. Two, make sure you're showing up consistently in front of your perfect customer.

16:41Three, give them a reason to come back through clever marketing campaigns and launch events. And the biggest takeaway of all, don't be afraid to repeat your main marketing messages again and again. No one is going to see every email you send or every post you make. And that's a wrap. Thanks so much for hanging with me today. My name is Jessica Tutillo-Coster. If you want to learn more about e-commerce and email marketing strategy, head to ecommercebedassery.com. Now back to Omar. What a fantastic guest teacher lesson by Jessica Titillo-Coster. One of my favorite takeaways from this lesson was that she mentioned a lot of us think that sales are just going to happen.

17:27People are just going to come back to my store. People are going to remember me. People are busy. People got a million things on their mind. They got a million things to do. They got to cook dinner. They got to pick up the kids. They have to do the chores around the house. They got their job. They got their boss that needs something ASAP. They got to get healthy. They got to go to the gym. They got to go get groceries. There's a million things on their mind. So you just hoping that they're going to remember your store or your website and say, hey, let me go buy something from them again without you intervening, without you reminding them you are delusional.

17:57Seriously. So you're doing them a service. You're doing them a courtesy by emailing them and letting them know, hey, we have this offer. We have this great new product. You might be interested in this or this or this. At the very least, you go back into their brain. You are top of mind again. You remind them that you exist. And of course, you can't sell if you're not selling, right? You can't make sales if you're not selling. If you want people to buy your offers, you got to make offers. It's pretty simple. And this is why I love the fact that she recommends putting yourself on a schedule, right?

18:30If it's a schedule, if it's on the calendar, then you're just going to do it as routine. You're not going to forget. You're not going to have to think on the spot of a reason to email your list. you already have it all planned out. And you ensure that your email list, your customers hear about you, hear from you frequent and often. Because what you're trying to do here is increase the likelihood of your customers buying from you again. And how do you do that? Well, you increase the likelihood of you offering your products or services when they need it, when they want it, when they need a gift idea, when they need that new thing you're offering.

19:04And if you are in contact with them regularly making offers, then you're going to catch them at a time when they're going to want to buy. But you'll never catch them if you're not emailing them, if you're not messaging them, if you're not in contact. Thanks, Jessica, for that powerful lesson on how to get repeat customers. Really appreciate your time. Guys, don't stop the learning here. Jessica has given me a URL that allows you to keep on learning. Go to this link, ecommercebadassery.com slash Omar. At that link, you can get some free resources and training to grow your e-commerce business.

20:01on social media. Tell your friends to head on over to 100mba.net to subscribe to the show. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. They say business is a contact sport. The more you contact your leads and your potential customers, the more you're going to make sales, the more you're going to be in business. But the same goes with your relationships in business, your network. You got to stay in contact with everybody you know, with interesting people you met at a conference or person that you met online. Make yourself a schedule and email or message each person as frequently as possible. Because when you're top of mind, opportunities will be there for you.

20:38Because they'll be like, hey, thanks for messaging me because I have a good opportunity for you. Or would you like to speak at my event? Or I got a client that needs help with XYZ. Can you help with this? I can't tell you how many times this happened to me because I'm just insight in mind, staying in contact with my network. Like my buddy Jordan Harbinger says, you got to dig your well before you're thirsty. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

21:24Thank you.