Email Nurture Sequence Tips to Grow Your Wholesale Business
Building your email list on the RETAIL side of your business (aka selling your products for full price on your website or Etsy shop) is A LOT of work! If you’re over there trying to grow your email list, or maybe you’re too overwhelmed to even get started, then you feel the pain! Building an email list for the WHOLESALE side of your business is a totally different ball game with a completely different strategy.
For the wholesale side, I’m always preaching “build your Leads List!”. Building your leads list is simple, find a store who might be a good fit for your products and reach out to them to see if they might be interested in buying your products. Put all this contact information in a master spreadsheet. Not reinventing the wheel over here!
However, if you continue to follow up with customers, day after day, month after month…sending manual emails, you would be spending all of your time…sending emails! You are WAY too busy, and way too TALENTED to be spending your time being a professional emailer. You want to be spending time doing the things that light you up in your business. BUT sending consistent emails to wine, dine, and give your potential customer the opportunity to get to know you is essential. It’s all about BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS and you need to be putting your efforts towards marketing the products you worked so hard to create.
An email nurture sequence (aka a sales funnel) is a fantastic way to set an automation to create a series of emails that will automatically be sent out to wholesale leads - your potential wholesale customers.
Here is a 5 part Email Sequence you can set up TODAY to be scheduled to send out automatically automatically. Basically you could be sitting on the beach sippin on a margarita and these emails can be automatically going out without you having to do the work.
First things first, you need to be set up with an email service provider who offers automations. I personally love Flodesk. If you’re new to email it’s quick to set up, easy to navigate, and pretty inexpensive as far as email service providers go. If you want to get 50% your subscription and start emailing today for $19/month please use my Flodesk referral link. It helps me out, and I promise you’re going to love the ease of Flodesk.
Once you get set up in Flodesk, you’re going to create a new Workflow and call it “Wholesale Nurture Sequence.”. Then you’re going to connect this workflow to a Segment. A segment is essentially a tag where you organize this list of email addresses. The one I personally use for my own Wholesale Nurture Sequence is called “Wholesale: Nurture Sequence” - not reinventing the wheel over here, but I like to keep my segments organized. Then you start writing and adding emails to the sequence and timing them out accordingly. I put the suggested times next to each email.
Now on to the sequence…
EMAIL #1 - WHO THE HECK ARE YOU?
Storytelling and YOUR WHY. Who are you? Why did you create this business? Where does the name come from? Make it FUN and about you, but make it more ABOUT THEM and what you can do for them as a fellow business owner. Making it fun really is VERY important. No one wants to read a snooze fest email that’s incredibly self serving. Fun. Relatable. Interesting.
EMAIL #2 - BENEFITS TO THE BUYER (Kitty Meow suggestion: Schedule 5 days after email 1)
Why should they purchase from you? Do it in the form of a fun and relatable story. They can literally order from anyone out there on the internet, but what about you and your products makes you unique and special? What core values does your business have that will benefit them as a customer?
EMAIL #3 - FOCUS ON THE PRODUCT (Kitty Meow suggestion: Schedule 5 days after email 2)
In this email you really want to highlight the product. Share some pictures. Tell them about the creation of the product, where your inspiration comes from, all the emotionally charged content that will get them emotionally invested in you and your product line. Keyword here, you want them to be invested in YOU - the maker!!
EMAIL #4 - SOCIAL PROOF (Kitty Meow suggestion: Schedule 5 days after email 3)
Show them you have previous happy customers! Highlight previous, 5 star customer reviews. If you don’t have these for wholesale yet you can highlight custom client testimonials or even retail customers. Don’t get all fancy here. A simple screenshot of an actual review looks the most authentic.
EMAIL #5 - INCENTIVE EMAIL (Kitty Meow suggestion: Schedule 5 days after Email 4)
Time to lure them in with a freebie! Who doesn’t love free stuff? Maybe you can offer some complimentary cards if they reply back to your email and ask to order. Offering free shipping is also an option. Simply putting the offer out there will build trust even if they don’t act fast on it.
Make sure that each individual email subject line is engaging and peaks curiosity. You could have really awesome email content hiding inside the email, but if you can’t get them to actually open the email because the subject didn’t get their attention then all that work was for nothing.
Now it’s time to hit PUBLISH!!
Remember, this is a long game strategy and the real magic is going to happen when you are consistent in your efforts. I’ve had people on my wholesale email list for YEARS before they decided they were ready to purchase. You can’t give up because you don’t see results right away. Feel free to use this sequence in your wholesale business. And make sure to continue to email your customers after the sequence is complete.
If you’re ready to create a confident, personality filled brand while building your revenue through wholesale & memorable client experience, then click here and let's grow your product based business in ways you never imagined!
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