Survey Sweets: How Licorice.com uses emails to collect inspiring customer feedback

Speaker 1: 0:00

Have you AB tested it for yourself where you’ve sent from Jonathan and from Sarah and seen from your own data that her name gets more open?

Speaker 2: 0:07

Yeah, yeah, we’ve done it multiple, not just one test. We’ve done it multiple times. I wasn’t giving up too easily.

Speaker 1: 0:12

Welcome to Email Swipes, where we peek behind the scenes at the emails that catch your attention and earn their place in your swipe file. Every other week, we’ll talk to an email expert about an experiment they ran and in the following episode we’ll dive into the strategies and methods used in the email so you can inform and inspire your own email work. I’m Miky Elbas, the copywriter behind winning emails for eight and nine figure Sassan e-commerce brands like Shopify, forse, zygmatic and Sprout Social, and I know that hearing the background stories to these emails will help you turn pie in the sky. Insights into plug and play actions. Ready to make inspiration tactical. Let’s go First. Let’s read today’s email.

Speaker 3: 0:49

Hi Jonathan.

Speaker 1: 0:50

I’m Sarah, one of the co-founders of Ligreishcom. I hope your new year is off to a wonderful start. I’m not sure you know this, but you were actually one of our very first customers. We’d love to hear about your experience. We want Ligreishcom to be the best place for Ligreish lovers like you, and your input would be so helpful. Do you have two minutes to answer some questions? Click here to take the two minute survey. Thanks so much for being part of the Ligreishcom family, jonathan. Here’s to a long, delicious relationship with love and Ligreish Sarah. Jonathan, thank you so much for joining.

Speaker 2: 1:21

Of course, happy to be here.

Speaker 1: 1:23

Super stoked to have you on. Tell me how you got involved in Goat Foods.

Speaker 2: 1:27

Pre-Corona. You know, a whole different life for everybody. I was working in finance in New York City. I was actually really enjoying the job, was working hard, living in Upper West Side with my wife, corona hit, everybody’s world went upside down and I obviously started working from home and my father-in-law, who’s been a serial entrepreneur, gave the family a call, called a family meeting and said hey guys, you know, everybody’s world is turned upside down. I got this really great domain, ligreishcom. I’ve been studying the category for a little bit. Who’s in? Yeah, so raise my hand. I really thought it’d just be a cool side hustle, nothing really too crazy. So got working on it. Obviously, before you could sell a product, before you could have a sale, you got to build a site. You got a packaging product, all that fun stuff. So started working on that about three years ago, so late March 2020. Then we did our first sale on Ligreishcom from October 27th 2020. And then it’s been off to the races ever since. It definitely is not a small business anymore, not a medium-sized quit, my full-time job and now 100% all in on this. And it’s been a roller coaster ever since. And since late 2020, not only did we launch Ligreishcom, but we have pretzelscom as well, and then we have a third product called Popsters, which is a popcorn product, and in a couple of months we’re going to be launching Caramelscom, which we’re really, really excited about, and a few months after that we’re going to be launching Cashewscom, which we’re also excited about. So it’s been fun and I think we’re on a great journey.

Speaker 1: 3:05

That’s so cool. Did you just buy up every food domain you could possibly put your hands on, just in case? Reminds me actually of another brand. I know that randomly bought a domain at one point in their life and then years later built it into a business. Sometimes domains could start businesses.

Speaker 2: 3:19

Oh yeah, big time. It was a good investment by my father a few years ago.

Speaker 1: 3:24

That’s awesome, very cool. So this email, what prompted this send?

Speaker 2: 3:28

Yeah, so, as I was saying, we started late 2020, and we just we completely sold out at Ligreish, and we’re not talking about a couple pounds of Ligreish, talking about tens of thousands of pounds of Ligreish in just two months. So we came back beginning of 21, after the holidays and said what just happened? Got all these orders. We were trying to figure out how to fulfill them and we just said, hey, you know, we had all these customers in a short amount of time. Let’s send an email from Sarah, who’s also part of the Founding Team, my wife, you know, let’s pull our customers. What did they like? What didn’t they like? Why did they buy? What got them there? So that’s what we did and we sent it out and the response, the responses were just out of control, like we were just sitting there refreshing our browser constantly Like what you know? Next response, next response, next response and we just got people responding. You know, this Ligreish brings me back to when I used to spend time with my grandfather. He used to give me, he used to give me Ligreish. We got people reaching out. Hey, I’m an investment banker. I see you guys are a new company. If you ever need help with financing, please reach out to me. Our third response was what was from one of the wealthiest individuals in the universe who built a tremendous company. He reached out saying hey guys, I really love what you guys are doing. If you ever wanted to get some advice, please reach out. And we’ve had calls with him ever since. So that email to me is just really. I just remember that time. It’s almost sentimental. This isn’t a fluke. People actually are enjoying this. Bring back memories. So I really love that email.

Speaker 1: 4:59

Wow, that is an amazing story. That is so, so cool. And it also. There are so many brands who are so scared to pull their customers on. I don’t want to bother them. I don’t want to put this. This is the complete opposite. If you’ve got something people love, then they want to share that feeling. That’s amazing. That is so, so cool. Is it part of the plan to have it continually? A yearly survey?

Speaker 2: 5:19

Yeah, we I mean we survey. Even more than that. We probably survey every three times a year or something like that, and the responses are phenomenal. Sometimes we’re like we’re sitting in the office and we just be like guys, let’s do a survey next week. We’re out of touch with our customers, let’s get in touch with them. We got to get a pulse on them, so we send, we send the survey.

Speaker 1: 5:37

Wow, cool. What does that look like when you feel like you’re out of touch?

Speaker 2: 5:41

It’s just a feeling. Sometimes it’s just timing. We’ll look back in our Klavia account. Last time we we sent something was four months ago. Okay, let’s do it next week, so something like that.

Speaker 1: 5:49

I think that’s something that really attracted me to your brand is that it feels so customer-centric. So I think that idea of like it’s just a feeling, you know it sounds very fluffy and non-qualitative, non-quantitative, but it comes across it really does. So you sent this to all your customers from that point back.

Speaker 2: 6:04

We actually did two segments the email to our customers, and then we also sent something to people that are on the list that didn’t purchase and ask them like why they didn’t purchase, why they signed up. Are they waiting for? Maybe? They signed up in December, but they were, you know. They got, uh, holiday gifts for everybody and they wanted to be on the list for Valentine’s Day, something like that. So, and those responses were also great. We got constructive criticism. They priced us too high. That also was a great email. We learned a lot from there.

Speaker 1: 6:29

I actually think I remember that email and the way you structured the survey as well. It felt very personal and it felt very casual and not pressurizing. I think I remember that that’s cool, nice, very smart, awesome, awesome. In the survey, we’ll wear the questions.

Speaker 2: 6:42

We asked our age. We asked what was our reaction when they just came across the domain licoricecom, what they order, how to compare it to licorice had before. Was it a gift? And if it was a gift, who are you gifting it to? And then the last question, which got all of our really awesome responses, was an open-ended question. So, is anything else you know? Let us know. And people just told us all these life stories. Just a bunch of stuff came out and it was fascinating to read them.

Speaker 1: 7:07

Were there any considerations to send a discount or some other kind of incentive or something like that? Is there a hesitation of people aren’t going to respond? We need to add something on.

Speaker 2: 7:14

Not really. It was our first one and since then we learned hey, you know, our customers like to talk. That’s like a phrase we throw around here in the office. Our customers like to talk to us, so we don’t feel that we need to give a discount. Sometimes, down the funnel, as they are on the list and they haven’t purchased, we’ll give a discount, but we don’t like to do that. We want it also to be sincere, right? We don’t want to say, hey, we’ll only give you a discount if you’ll answer this, because then it’s not really so sincere. So I feel like, because we didn’t give a discount, the responses were really sincere.

Speaker 1: 7:45

Yeah, definitely, you get the people that really care and are not just, I mean, the people that want a discount are also people that want to buy again and like you. So there is that. But yeah, whenever you can get away without a discount, you definitely get more authentic data and you also get better margins, so that’s always a good thing to do. Exactly so was there any decision around Sarah being the sender name?

Speaker 2: 8:06

The data says that people open up an email more frequently if it comes from a female. Sarah is obviously a female name, so that’s why we did it and we keep on doing it because of that reason. Just when it comes from Jonathan at liquoricecom, she’s obviously better than me.

Speaker 1: 8:23

And now she has it on recording. So have you A-B tested it for yourself where you’ve sent from Jonathan and from Sarah and seen from your own data that her name gets more open?

Speaker 2: 8:34

Yeah, yeah, we’ve done it multiple, not just one test. We’ve done it multiple times. I wasn’t giving up too easily.

Speaker 1: 8:39

Come on your moment of fame. I love being able to see these best practice ideas and seeing that they actually follow through in your own email marketing. Very cool. Was there any hesitation to send this out? Was there a fear of we’re bothering our customers or anything like that?

Speaker 2: 8:54

Yeah, a lot. That’s why I was refreshing it every two seconds. Are people answering? Are people answering? Are people answering? Are people answering? There definitely was, and then we discussed it for a while before sending this out. Is it the right time? Maybe we’re so old? So, yes, definitely was going back and forth for a little bit before sending it, but once we sent it we felt really comfortable. Sorry, once the results came in, we felt comfortable. It was the right decision.

Speaker 1: 9:16

What do you think contributed to the success of both the email and the survey responses?

Speaker 2: 9:21

I think you said it before. Right, it’s personal. You just felt it coming through the screen. We really wanted to know what you thought and I think the copy was really well done. It wasn’t so long after you purchased, right? So sometimes you’ll send a survey a year after they purchase. They’re not interested, so you want to hit them. You don’t want to hit them too early, you don’t want to hit them too late. So I think that sweet spot is really effective into getting great answers.

Speaker 1: 9:43

Did you see a difference between the responses of people who were repeat purchasers?

Speaker 2: 9:47

We didn’t analyze it. Remember again this is an email that we only had three months right. So didn’t have too many repeat purchasers in that three months span. But no, we didn’t analyze it, but definitely that’s a great idea to deal.

Speaker 1: 10:01

If you were to go back in time and perfect this email, or you mentioned that you continue to send these kinds of emails, what are you doing differently? What would you have done differently?

Speaker 2: 10:10

I don’t know. Can I say I wouldn’t have done anything? It might be perfect. I think it was a pretty perfect email. I mean, really this is we’ve sent a lot of emails in the last three years. I pulled this out because I really thought it was a great email and it’s something that we’re really proud of. Usually now we work on an email. It takes no more than an hour to, you know, whip something up. We worked on this for two to three days at least.

Speaker 1: 10:33

What about the survey? Would you have changed anything about the survey or are you changing the survey?

Speaker 2: 10:38

We change the survey all the time, just depending on what time of year it is. I guess on the survey maybe we would have asked more questions. Just looking back on it, this is no more than 30 seconds to fill out, right? Maybe if you’re writing a long winded answer at the end, then yes, then it’ll take more than 30 seconds and even more than two minutes than we said, but it’s just like once people get in a flow of answering questions, they’re going to keep on going. So we would have asked more questions. We didn’t ask non-purchasers what state do they live in? We really like knowing that. Just because it helps with other marketing efforts. We like to know where they’re coming from exactly. Other than that, I think that the survey, along with the data that we get from when they purchase, really tells us all that we need to know.

Speaker 1: 11:21

I’m curious what you do with the age question. Is that also just you know? For marketing efforts?

Speaker 2: 11:24

Yeah, marketing efforts. We’re advertising on linear TV. People that skew older watch probably more news type of stuff. People that skew younger or are not watching news or probably watching something more entertaining. So we really like to know age. That’s a huge part of our data that we like to analyze.

Speaker 1: 11:43

Okay, I guess we’re up to the last question, then what is your favorite brand to call email inspiration from, and why that’s a good one?

Speaker 2: 11:51

Can I add two?

Speaker 1: 11:52

Of course, more the barrier.

Speaker 2: 11:55

I really like the Hexclad emails. They’re a cooking wear brand. They’re much different than us Much higher AOV. But I really like how the emails are structured Really great graphics, cta, always above the fold. We study those emails a lot, just how it’s structured. And the second one is a company called Flock Foods. They sell snack chicken strips. I get their emails and I actually think that they’re doing a one on one email to me. Whoa. I sometimes open it. It’s like why is he reaching out to me? Like, even though I’ve been on the list for a few years now, I still get fooled and I’m a marketer.

Speaker 1: 12:30

I know it’s going on.

Speaker 2: 12:31

That’s saying something. It’s really. It’s so well done. Mostly plain tech. They hit you. Their funnels are amazing. I mean, a regular person probably won’t know that they’re in a funnel, but I know that I’m in a funnel sometimes if I do a browser band and a card abandonment, something like that, and they just hit you at the right time with the right message. Really, really well done. That sounds like something else. Yeah, it’s special. Actually, I saw them at a conference a few months ago, Went up to them and just congratulated on their email marketing, which is like guys, this is amazing.

Speaker 1: 13:01

That’s so cool, that’s awesome, that’s really nice.

Speaker 2: 13:04

It felt touched.

Speaker 1: 13:05

All right, I’ll have to go sign up for both. Thank you for joining. This was amazing. It’s so cool to hear the backstory furthering this brand relationship kind of thing seeing that. So thanks so much. Thank you, nikki. Thanks for joining me for email story time. If you enjoyed today’s story, give this podcast a review so email marketers like you can have more fun with email. See you next week when we dig into this story’s takeaways.

Speaker 3: 13:28

Up next, on email, swipes. When he showed me this email and said, hey, this is the email I want to feature, I was like, hey, I know this email, but wait, no, like what, no, it’s different. And I realized that I got the non customer version of this email.