98 | Using subscriber behaviour as the main driver of your customer journey (rather than your sales agenda) with Nadine Nethery
How To Personalise Your Emails Using Trigger Links
WITH NADINE NETHERY
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In this episode, I'm chatting to Nadine Nethery, from Can Do Content, all about how she uses trigger links to create a customised email marketing strategy for each of her subscribers.
LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
🔗 Join The Audience Growth Club
🔗 Score a behind-the-scenes tour of Nadine’s trigger link setup
🔗 Grab Dama Jue’s Four by For Footers (aff link)
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Nadine Nethery is the founder of CAN DO! Content, and she is an audience-driven copywriter and customer experience strategist for online business owners who want to intentionally attract, retain and wow their dream customers.
Over the past 7 years, Nadine has given hundreds of online business owners the words that allow them to shine, and the strategies to build a sustainable audience-centred business. And today, she is going to share one of her best strategies with you, for free!
In this episode, you’ll learn…
The benefits of shifting to a way of selling that’s led by subscriber behaviour, rather than your sales goals
Smart ways to create genuine urgency that converts
And The impact of evergreen trigger-based email marketing on your headspace, time and bottom line (and, of course, your relationship with your subscribers)
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Episode Transcript
This transcript is AI generated. Please bare in mind that it may not be 100% accurate.
Tish
00:00
Hello and welcome to the podcast Nadine. Why don't you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your business and how you got started in the online space?
N
Nadine
00:11
Yeah, absolutely. So I'm Nadine, an audience driven, copyright turned customer experience strategist, and I help savvy online business owners to intentionally attract retain and wow their dream customers and ultimately I'm on a mission to make mediocre customer experiences and copy a thing of the past. I sort of fell into copywriting after being made redundant on MatLeave, such a common story, unfortunately, among female online business owners nowadays.
N
Nadine
00:46
But looking back, it really was the best thing that could have happened to me because it sent me on a soul searching mission and I really went deep to see how I can apply my background in marketing corporate comms and sales to yeah something bigger something beyond the corporate space And copywriting was part of a course that I did at the time. And I sort of fell in love with it. And the audience driven approach to things where really it's all about the audience, the customer and how I can support my clients customers to come to that conclusion that their thing, their offer, their product is the ultimate thing they need to buy to solve their problems. So I've been in business a little over 7 years and I'm a 1 woman show a mum of 3 I wear far too many hats but I actually like it that way because it means yeah I know how to work smarter not harder And that's what I support my clients with as well nowadays as a customer experience strategist.
N
Nadine
01:54
So really helping my customers not only wow their audience and support them to that decision, to that final decision, but also to, yeah, really be delighted along the way and feel like the most important person in their, you know, universe. So yeah, that's me in a nutshell.
T
Tish
02:16
I love that you're so passionate about putting the customer first because I feel like a lot of the time it's just about sales, sales, sales and that's what we're taught but a copywriter who focuses on customer experience and not just sales is so refreshing And you're here today because we're going to talk about how we can use subscriber behavior as the main driver of our customer journey rather than our sales agenda. And I really liked how you described this when we were talking about you coming on the show for this episode. So I was wondering if you could tell us why is it so important to prioritize the customer journey over what you described as our sales agenda and What do you mean by that?
N
Nadine
03:02
Yeah. So it really all started, yeah, from a personal need. So I said before, I'm a mom of 3, 1 woman show, and I really felt that life launching not only felt icky to me because, you know, we are pushing that sales agenda. So we want to make sales, we want to grow our bottom line, but ultimately sending 10, 15, however many emails at a time to people who, you know, most likely aren't going to buy and most likely aren't interested in what we have to say just fell off.
N
Nadine
03:38
And I quickly worked out that I didn't have the energy to do it. I didn't enjoy the process. And I actually could use the data and my subscriber behavior to put them basically behind the steering wheel of how they are experiencing my offer suite, whether that's one-on-one services or my digital products or my membership. And that has just really taken the pressure of not only permanently life launching but it also means I have developed such nice relationships with my subscribers.
N
Nadine
04:15
My open rates are you know close to 60% most of the time. The click rate is up towards 5% and it just means people are engaging with the content that I sent them because it is tailored to their interests, to their needs, and what they are interested in right now based on the behavior that they've shown. And yeah, it's such a nice way to use behavior-driven emails. Most of them are evergreen to, yeah, as a low lift evergreen sales strategy in my business.
T
Tish
04:52
Yeah. And can you tell us kind of how you find out what their behavior is like?
N
Nadine
04:58
Yeah. So I use something called Triggerlings, or that's at least what Drip, the email platform that I use Coursum, I know ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign, all the major email platforms have something similar. So trigger links basically are regular links that are infused with hidden superpowers. So they trigger certain actions based on a subscriber's behavior.
N
Nadine
05:25
So you can determine what that action is, whether it is reaching a certain lifetime value, whether it is, you know, opening a certain number of emails or clicking on a certain number of links, or also simply checking out your sales page. And ultimately, the good thing about trigger links is your subscriber has no idea what's happening at the back end and that their behavior is helping you tailor your content and the emails you're sending them to be hyper specific and yeah it is just such a powerful way to enable your subscriber to decide for you which emails you're going to send them. So how I use them in my business for example, you know, I know it's hard to imagine so I'm just giving you some examples here. So I use trigger links to deliver hyper-specific content, as I said.
N
Nadine
06:20
So if someone checks out a certain link in my email, clicks on that trigger link for a product, then I remove them from my regular weekly emails and add them to a nurture sequence for that particular product. And how that works is that clearly the subscriber has shown me that they have an interest in the product that I was pushing in my original weekly email. And I am simply giving them an opportunity to receive more related value adding content to move them a step closer to being ready to buy. And if they're not buying, that's fine.
N
Nadine
06:58
They're going back into my normal flow after that sequence. But if they buy, obviously, you know, the tailored content has supported them to that decision. And I look at it from a serving perspective. So again, I'm not pushing a hard sell.
N
Nadine
07:13
The emails that I'm sending are often repurposed and they are based on audience research that I've done for this particular product. So I know it's resonating. I know it's what the customer needs to hear if they're interested to be ready to invest. And ultimately I'm just supporting them to make a decision either way.
N
Nadine
07:34
If they are interested, I'm giving them the information to make that call and invest. And it's without being icky, without pushy, sleazy, fake urgency and scarcity. It is all genuine and simply extended and invitation for people to take that next step.
T
Tish
07:54
Yeah, so it's a great way to automate the segmentation of your list and just make sure that your emails are going to the right people, only the people who are interested. So I love this strategy. How would you say that leveraging these trigger links has benefited your business?
T
Tish
08:13
Like what kind of results have you seen from it?
N
Nadine
08:16
Yeah, So I'll take a step back first. I'll share how I worked out that it is such a powerful approach for pretty much anyone's online business if you are willing to focus on a great customer experience. So I am very data-driven when it comes to audience research, but also my email marketing.
N
Nadine
08:37
So I don't just send emails. I actually look at my automation, my flows, my emails, how they're performing, what's resonating. And yeah, when I came to that conclusion that I simply don't have the time, the headspace to constantly live launch, I actually looked at my data and thought I'd check out, you know, how much people are buying second, third times, fourth time. So how my repeat purchase rate was performing and it really blew my mind because ultimately I worked out that it gets easier and easier to convince people to buy the more they experience my brand because I am really over delivering even for low ticket offers.
N
Nadine
09:21
Like I'm putting personal touches, personal welcome videos, like I pride myself on my customer experience. So obviously delivering that hyper-specific personalized content is impacting the brand experience. And so the more I started to rely on subscriber led email marketing, the more my subscribers came back for seconds and thirds. So I checked my stats before recording this.
N
Nadine
09:48
So currently 67% of my email subscribers have signed up for at least 1 of my digital products. 25% of those have bought a second time. Out of those second time buyers 31% have bought a third time, 38% of third time buyers have bought a fourth time and it keeps going. So as you can see the repeat purchase rate goes up the more products people buy.
N
Nadine
10:14
So That means all I have to do at my end is deliver that next logical step. So once people purchase for the first time, they're basically hooked and the likelihood increases that they're buying again, which is nice for me because it increases my bottom line on autopilot. And currently my conversion rates for those behavior driven product funnels are sitting between 6 and 10%. So that means 6 to 10 people out of every 100 that go through that funnel make a decision that now is the time to buy, which is amazing.
N
Nadine
10:51
And I don't have to do anything other than set up that funnel the first time around. And it just operates in the background. I don't feel like I'm constantly selling and very important as well, those people on the receiving end don't feel like they're being sold to something that's completely irrelevant either. So yeah, mind-blowing steps.
T
Tish
11:10
Those conversion rates are so good and I'm with you on not wanting to live launch all the time, it really can be exhausting. And that's why I love funnels and the way they can help you automate your business and obviously make sales on autopilot as well. Now for those listening and thinking that they might like to set up trigger links for their own business?
T
Tish
11:33
What steps would you advise them to take and what tech pieces do they need to have in place?
N
Nadine
11:40
Yeah, so you don't really need that much complex tech. So you need a decent email platform. That's important.
N
Nadine
11:47
I know Flodesk recently has introduced Triggerlings. Unfortunately, their segmenting is rather basic. So really have a look at whether your email platform is actually supporting Triggerlings in a way that helps you to surf up that type of specific content. But what I would start with is really having a look at your best sellers, so your most popular products or services, where you know that They're really proven offers and people love them.
N
Nadine
12:19
Then have a look at some key questions. So I would start with the question, you know, what does an action tell me? So if you're sending value adding emails, let's say your weekly email, where you're exploring certain aspects of the niche you're operating in and you're organically linking that particular offer or service. Look at, you know, the intent behind that click.
N
Nadine
12:42
Does it mean people are ready to buy? Does it really mean people are interested? If that's the case, then move on to that next step. How can you support them from here on?
N
Nadine
12:51
So, you know, what is that next logical step behind that click? What do they need to hear? So that's where really knowing your audience inside out and really having your messaging in line comes in handy. So make sure you know what resonates with your audience, the objections that they need to overcome before being ready.
N
Nadine
13:14
So all those things need to be then inside the particular TriggerLink funnel. And the question then is whether adding genuine urgency or scarcity might just be what gets people across the line. So not all my TriggerLink funnels have a timer with a special offer behind it. And some of them actually have 2 steps where I sort of have a second trigger link inside that funnel that shows me they're actually interested, but there's something missing.
N
Nadine
13:44
So Have a look where that potentially deadline funnel, those sort of tools might be useful for you to just put that urgency behind it because humans unfortunately are designed to avoid risk. They like their comfort zones. So sometimes having a timer behind it that delivers a special 25% off if you buy before then might just be what gets them across the line. So really mapping it out, so starting with that trigger, is it enough to show me that they're actually interested?
N
Nadine
14:21
Then what action you take? So how do you segment them? What sits behind that trigger? So how many emails?
N
Nadine
14:27
You can absolutely repurpose things. I'm a huge fan of repurposing things. So if you have live launched previously, potentially look at what performed really well and repurpose that in your emails. And also you can totally use social proof.
N
Nadine
14:46
So testimonials, feedback from existing students or customers is amazing in here. Case studies, so really things to increase the trust and share actual results from students, work a treat and Yeah, then see how it performs. So my funnels even with my conversion rates are never really Finished I'm obsessed with tweaking and improving So I keep a close eye on my stats as more and more people go through the funnel. So Yeah, just really obsessed with your data, obsessed with your customer, know them inside out and then do it product or offer by offer.
N
Nadine
15:26
Don't feel overwhelmed. I know all this can seem totally overwhelming. I just started product by product. So I started with my bestseller, looked at how that performed, learned from that funnel and then moved on to the next.
N
Nadine
15:40
So baby steps and product by product.
T
Tish
15:44
Amazing. And you have a free lesson that walks us through how to set these trigger links up, right?
N
Nadine
15:51
Yeah, absolutely. So I'll share the link with you. It's just 5 minutes and it actually shows you step by step what I'm talking about here because a lot of us are very visual.
N
Nadine
16:01
So you can see how it works on the backend, how it triggers, what happens. And it just makes things a lot easier to visualize.
T
Tish
16:10
Wonderful, yeah, because I feel like with things like this, it can be so hard to hear about it and then think oh my god like how do I actually implement this but when you have the video in front of you and you can see that it makes it so much more simple so I will make sure to link that in the show notes. Now I did have something else I wanted to ask you because I am on your email list and I think your emails are great and at the bottom of your emails I noticed that you always have a question of the week where subscribers can vote on whatever question you're asking. I would love it if you could tell us about that strategy and how it helps to engage your audience.
N
Nadine
16:51
Yeah. So my question of the week is part of, I call it the rapid rundown, which I unfortunately can't take credit for. So Dhama Juh, You might know her. So she got me across this strategy where every week I share a mix of relevant resources, tips and offers to not only train my list to click my emails and actually scroll all the way to the bottom to check those things out.
N
Nadine
17:19
But yeah, to add a bit of fun and share my take on things. And 1 of the weekly things is a question of the week. And sometimes I make it purely fun. So sometimes I go you know favorite season, summer or winter, drink of choice, coffee or tea.
N
Nadine
17:39
But at other times I'm using that question of the week strategically to segment my list again and add people to certain interest groups to find out what people resonate with. So what I've done previously for example is you know summits, virtual summits, yes or no, you know love or hate. So I'm trying to get my feelers out to see what type of content I'm going to dish them up and what content I'm just going to exclude them from. Again, all about making my subscribers front and center of the content that they receive.
N
Nadine
18:17
And it's just worked really well. My subscribers engage incredibly well with those links. The good thing is you can also add affiliate links to it. So if 1 of your business buddies is launching, has a new offer, you can absolutely link up those affiliate links there.
N
Nadine
18:35
It is a nice way to make a little side income from your newsletter as well. So, Dharma Jewel has got a resource there if you want to check it out. And yeah, it's amazing and it pays for itself pretty much after a few emails.
T
Tish
18:51
Yeah, I love that. It's always so fun to see and vote on, but on the other end, such a great way for you to conduct market research and also engage your audience and get your click rate up. So when I saw that, I just thought it was so clever.
T
Tish
19:08
Thank you. Yeah. So I have 1 last question for you. As you know, this podcast is all about how to keep business and marketing simple.
T
Tish
19:18
So I would love to know Nadine, aside from Triggerlinks, because obviously that is a huge 1, but aside from that, what are you doing to keep things simple in your business?
N
Nadine
19:29
Yeah, so as mentioned, 1 woman show, very busy with life and family and all the things. So I decided a few weeks ago, a few weeks, 4 years ago, that I was going to keep my office suite really, really simple. So when I first started out, I used to quote bespoke projects, everything was custom and it just took far too long.
N
Nadine
19:52
So my office suite is super streamlined. There are 3 ways to work with me one-on-one, which is a yours for a day session, either custom experience or copy edition, where I work with brands on a daily basis. So very contained, you know, create for boundaries and everyone knows what to expect. Then I have an intensive which combines the copy and customer experience aspect where we really, you know, map out the copy, the customer experience, the wow factor in 1 hit.
N
Nadine
20:23
And then I have my membership, the copy confidence collective. And that again, makes things super easy for me. I can point people into the perfect direction for what they're after. And it makes my life easy promoting those offers and sharing and talking about those offers online.
N
Nadine
20:41
And other than that, my all my digital products and resources are completely self-paced. And that means again, I can sell them on evergreen and I don't have to deliver one-on-one support for those so it's it's all about boundaries, headspace for me and making my life easy with streamlined offers.
T
Tish
21:02
That's such a great tip you don't need to have a million offers and just having 2 or 3 core offers simplifies your marketing so much so thank you for sharing that and then finally where can everyone go to connect and learn more from you?
N
Nadine
21:19
Yeah, so you can check out my website, candocontent.com. I have a fair few resources there, freebies all around the customer experience and also upping your copy game. You can connect with me on Instagram at can do content and yeah, drop me a DM if you're intrigued with trigger links.
N
Nadine
21:40
I would love to keep the conversation going.
T
Tish
21:43
Wonderful. Everything will be linked in the show notes if you want to go and connect further with Nadine and also get your hands on that free training so you can see what it actually looks like to set up a trigger link. But Nadine, it has been wonderful to chat with you. Thank you so much for joining us today and sharing this strategy.
N
Nadine
22:04
Thanks so much for having me. Such a blast.
hey, I'm Tish!
I'm a multi-passionate business owner, digital marketing strategist, business mentor & part-time digital nomad ✈️
I'm on a mission to help you create more time, freedom & profit in your business through the implementation of sustainable & scalable business and marketing strategies!
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The Simple Marketing Podcast is for ambitious entrepreneurs who want to build a sustainable & scalable online business. With bite-sized, actionable episodes, you’ll learn how to create more time, freedom & profit in a way that feels good to you.
