Since all of the users of BCC online give their email addresses to sign up, I thought I would start with some email marketing. I’m using MailChimp, chiefly because their website is pretty and I had heard good things about their API. With the help of the hominid gem it has only taken me about 4 hours to get up and running with my first email.
Emails I’ll be sending:
- Transactional stuff (lost passwords, purchase confirmations, etc — pretty boring, not through MailChimp)
- Monthly-ish newsletters, to the people who request them. Since an absolutely ginormous portion of my business is seasonal, this will let me get in touch with the thousands of users who will sign up before Halloween again at Halloween, and remind them that they can have a great activity ready for only $30.
- Hints & Tricks: customers who request it will receive a pair of emails, 1 one day after signup and 1 six days after signup. The first covers basic how-to-use instructions and is just to jog people’s memory that they signed up. The 2nd is to show some of the more advanced features of BCC and it will probably include a strong suggestion that they buy it… maybe a coupon, too.
The emails run me 2 cents apiece, so I’ll be looking to see if they generate enough marginal business (about 1 sale per every thousand) to justify. I’m fairly sure I can do at least that well, but we’ll see. One more lever to optimize…
