That’s Hot: Nicolas Moulin gives us the scoop on how Fashion brands can keep emails fresh and effective.

Nicolas is an email marketer for Fashion brands, working primarily with stores between $50,000 and $500,000 in monthly online revenue to build their email marketing strategy around two main objectives: converting the new sign-ups in first-time buyers, and increasing repeat purchases from past clients.

We caught up with Nicolas for his thoughts on how fashion eCommerce brands can build better email marketing strategies.

What is your top piece of advice for eCommerce brands looking to increase their email list size?

I have two main strategies  to grow an email list.

The first  is to forget about quantity and focus on quality. Too often we see brands trying to get as many users as possible in their list, but when you analyze the revenue and conversion of these users, it is pretty poor.

It is better to have 1000 new users every month with 30% of them converting, than 5000 with only 5% converting.

Nicolas Moulin

The second advice is to always test new ways to get people to sign up. 90% of fashion brands use the 10% discount incentive, and when I ask them why they do that, the majority answers “everyone does it”. We have found great successes in rewarding Free Shipping or a Freebie with the order, or even sign them up to a monthly gift-card draw. Test new things always.

For brands starting out or looking to go from 6 figures to 7 or 8 figures this year, what are the must-haves and expert level haves when it comes to email automation flows?

Must-have flows are the usual 6: Welcome Flow, Abandoned Cart Flow, Post-Purchase Flow, Winback Flow, Sunset Flow, Back in Stock Flow. These are the 6 you need, and the way you structure your flows needs to depend on your own customer journey, their problematic, and your own data. The majority of brands do have these flows implemented, but the logic and structures of the flows and the emails that they contain is what makes the difference.

What’s some tips and tricks to 10x Email Marketing revenue?

There is no magic trick to 10x your Email Marketing revenue, unless you have absolutely nothing in place of course. Email marketing is all about finding small incremental revenue here and there. If you can increase your order rate by 20% on your welcome flow, by 20% on your abandoned cart flow, and repetition rate by 30% on your post-purchase or winback flow, it can make a huge difference. And no amount of great email marketing will ever solve a bad product or offering. So having a good product and offering is the foundation for growth.

What’s the typical tech stack you use and support to drive strategy for email marketing?

Here are different tools and platforms I like to use for email marketing:

• Email Marketing platform: Klaviyo or Sendlane
• Review Platform: Reviews.io
• Loyalty platform: Influence.io
• Repetition and Lifetime Analytics: Lifetimely

What metrics matter when making business decisions such as driving repurchase rate?

I believe that more than metrics, to drive repurchase rate you need to better understand the customer journey. For fashion brands, as there are no real repeatable products, you need to understand what would your client base be interested in for their next purchase. Do they want to complete their look? Do they want to replace their sneakers with a new model or add a new one to the rotation?

A tool like Lifetimely is perfect to get that data and understanding if a client buys product X, which product is he/she buying in the second order and how long after. This also is beneficial to understand which products to push to new audiences for a first purchase. 

The next big thing in Email Marketing is…

Without trying to predict the future (if I could, I’d live in Las Vegas), I believe Email Marketing is in a similar state as Performance Marketing. Some years ago, you could get great results with some very basic Meta Ads strategy and creatives. Same with Email Marketing: you could get some good conversion with basic emails and flows. Nowadays, it is much more competitive, consumers have some less impulsive purchase and tend to think a bit more about what they buy and who they buy from. 

This is why I recommend brands to implement surveys in their email marketing strategies. Whether it’s to understand why people bought, or why they haven’t. You really need to get information from your user base on how you can improve, what they are looking for, what need to be changed. Sometimes, brands assume their audience wants A when really they want C. 

So implement a survey in all of your flow and in your post-purchase journey too. 

Finally, don’t focus just on selling with your emails. Email is conversational. You need to bring your users some valuable content that helps place your brand in their mind and associate it with some elements. Things like educational content or lifestyle content (ex: “Three places to visit in Lisbon”) helps get your user engaged.