I signed on a new client on a test trial recently, and noticed a major mistake lurking in one of his flows...
(In fact, I’ve been learning Peanut up on giving Klaviyo audits—an important step I take before even dropping my outrageous fees with prospective clients for several reasons I won’t get into here—and even Peanut, who doesn’t know a lick about email marketing or Klaviyo besides knowing that it’s how I make our monies, even she noticed several of the fatal flaws in his account, including my favorite mistake that I gotta squeeze in here before we get into the “meat” of this email, which is this: They sent out a campaign on International Women’s Day, and boy, the subject line made even Peanut cringe because it was obviously written by a male trying to capitalize on the fake holiday and trying—and failing—to “connect” with the ladies on his list.)
Anywho, today we’re talking about a silly mistake, not a cringey mistake.
The mistake?
Well, turns out, whoever set up his abandoned checkout and browse abandonment flows never actually created the coupon code that they sent out in their emails in the given flows.
So, in both of these flows, several emails mentioned this coupon code… Yet, anytime a customer tried to use it when completing their purchase, they received a notification saying that the coupon code doesn't exist.
And yes, your humble narrator here also committed this mistake.
Y’see, when I wrote new flows, I looked into the old flows, and copied the coupon code from the old flows into the new flows. Now, I delayed sending the coupon code until a few days… you don’t want to steal revenue from yourself by offering a coupon code if that ain’t the trigger that makes them complete their order.
(Lesson in there)
But, when some folks got to the last email in the sequence, the one that offered them a discount code, since I unknowingly copied the nonexistent coupon code from the old emails into the new ones, well, customers started replying, saying that the coupon code doesn’t work.
Now, this was my mistake because I should’ve double checked that the coupon code worked before publishing the flows instead of assuming that the last guy set up the flows (and coupon codes) properly.
I have a plan to rectify this issue. But it brings up an interesting point:
I don’t know how long his old flows were sending a nonexistent coupon code, but it seems like a while.
The interesting part?
Seems like nobody replied to the HTML heavy design saying the coupon code didn’t work. But since I applied a plain-text approach that feels like it comes from a real person, people actually replied, and let us know that the coupon code didn’t work.
So, yes, while this is a mistake, it was also an opportunity to improve the general experience.
(It’s not a good look to offer nonexistent coupon codes…)
Morals of the story?
Double check everything before you hit “send.”
Don’t assume the last guy knew wtf he was doing.
And find a copywriter that’s willing to admit his mistakes, and improve upon them.
Which brings us down to bidness:
Need help scaling your company by sending better emails that not only make more moolah, but also create a stronger bond between you and the email addresses populating your list?
John
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