Vicente Beltran

Today I’m happy to say that I just got Klaviyo certified 🙂

This verifies that I’m actually fully capable of using Klaviyo in an effective way.

Fun fact:

I took the test having more knowledge about Klaviyo than what I was required to pass it, after having been learning about it for 2 years now, plus having worked with several e-commerce brands at this point.

But hey, I guess having my skills verified with a certification is a nice to have 🙂

Next step:

Becoming a Klaviyo partner! 💯

What did you accomplish this week?

Remember that post in which I took an email from an e-commerce brand and ran you through everything I liked and thought could be improved, and then explained why?

(If you haven’t seen it, here's the link to that post: https://www.facebook.com/VicenteBeltranEmails/posts/3079895732108628)

If you noticed, at the end of it I also hinted at the possibility of me creating an alternative template to that one in which I implemented the things I would’ve loved to see in that email because I thought those changes would’ve helped that brand squeeze more revenue out of it.

(Potentially. I would’ve liked to see an A/B test. Theirs vs mine, head to head).

So here’s finally my take on that brand’s email.

Now, in typical fashion, I’m going to walk you through every single detail and explain why everything’s set up the way it is so that when you create an email yourself in case you have an e-commerce brand, you have somewhat of a guide on what to do.

But before, let me make a disclaimer…

⚠️I’ve never worked with FRS International, and this email template does not represent their brand or their marketing.⚠️

With that out of the way, let’s get into the details:

✅ I created it using:

Adobe Xd for the initial concept of the email (to know what I was going to do and how it all was going to come together),

Illustrator for the icons and text,

Photoshop for the first image (yes, the bottle, the drink, and the peaches and mango are all separate images I put together and then created the shadows for),

And Klaviyo to put it all together (images, buttons, header, and footer).

✅ There are two versions of it. A PC version (first image) and a mobile version (second image).

This means the PC version’s images are different from the mobile ones because I needed to enlarge the text size for mobile to make it readable and tweak their design a little bit.

✅ It was created with the brand in mind, so it had to match their website’s style and voice.

(This is a must for every brand’s emails. The communication across channels has to be consistent).

That was done through:

▪️ The design of the email, by making the header similar to their website’s, using their font for most of the text (the exceptions are the footer and header text for design and functionality purposes), setting up the different parts of the email in a similar way to what they do in their website, and using their brand colors.

▪️ The copy by adapting it to the new email structure and making it sound more like they want to help instead of push the sale (that’s a copy improvement I think this email needed) while retaining the brand’s voice.

✅ The subject line would be: "Can we make your life a little more peachy this summer?"

This is the original subject line, but as I said in the post where I analyzed their email, I think it’s pretty clever, so I don’t see the need to change it.

(It might be the winner of an A/B test (?))

✅ Preview text: "50% Off Peach Mango Concentrate!"

Again, the original preview text.

I think this works well with the subject line because it sums up the email in a sentence after having created curiosity, making those who are up for a discount (and everyone in their list in general as well) more likely to click on the email and read it.

✅ For the first image, I combined the header text with the image and added a CTA (not an actual button).

I think doing this makes the email more aesthetically appealing than having the image being separate from the header text, while at the same time lets the people who want to get the discount straight away know that they can get it by clicking on it, not needing to scroll down any further.

Now, talking about the Alt text…

(You know how important I think it is. I like to think of it as a lifesaver in case something goes wrong, AKA images not being displayed),

For this image it would be “Starting Now. 50% OFF Peach Mango Concentrate. Get the Discount”.

✅ The text below the first image is an image.

Ideally, it would’ve been text using a custom font, but since those don’t render in most inboxes (I’m aware I could’ve used a fallback font, but since I don’t want that secondary font being displayed in most inboxes, that wasn’t an option for me) and using a custom font for this template was a must for me, I had to opt for making it as an image.

But don’t you worry in case images aren’t displayed because Alt text is here to save the day.

All the text of the image would also be incorporated in the Alt text section.

That way you’d still be able to read it (and click on it, which would redirect you to the product page) even when images are not displayed.

✅ Let’s talk about the formula.

That section of the email is also an image because of the need to use a custom font as well.

What I did for this one was to create the icons (including the leaf (a tea leaf, not a random one), and except the pill and quercetin drawings themselves) which I thought would make the email more aesthetically appealing than having just a block of text, plus, the readers would be able to know what the product contains at a first glance.

As for the copy, it’s the same they used in their email and use in their website (except on the mobile version, which I simplified a little bit so that the image wouldn’t take too much space).

I think there’s no need to change it as it perfectly describes the benefits of the drink, although maybe it’s a bit too long.

Lastly for this section, the Alt text would be “The Formula: Quercetin, Green Tea Extract & 7 Essential Vitamins”.

There’s really no need to say more than that because after all, that’s what that section is all about.

If someone wanted to know more about the formula and its benefits, they’d be able to click on the text, which would redirect them to the product’s benefits section of the website (just like the image would).

✅ Now, moving on to the customer reviews…

This is also an image, except for the CTA at the bottom which is an actual button.

I decided to include them (these are from their website. I didn’t make them up) because besides being a fundamental part of selling a product, they’re especially important when it comes to supplements as there’s a lot of misleading information out there and it’s something that concerns people’s health, so we all tend to be extremely picky with these.

(I know it because besides all the research I’ve done about that for the past 6 years I also use supplements myself).

So my advice is, if you’re selling supplements always include social proof, especially if the recipient of the email is new to your brand.

And one last thing about this section…

The Alt text would be “Customer Reviews”.

I followed the same principle as for the image about the formula here as well, so if people were to click on it or the image if they can see it, they would be redirected to the reviews section of the brand’s website (or the product page if the reviews were there).

✅ Lastly, if you’ve noticed, I didn’t include any social links.

The reason behind this is that I want the reader to focus on just the offer, which was unique for the circumstances (that’s why I want it to be the center of attention), and avoid distractions as much as possible.

So with that, I think I’ve covered all the details of this template.

If you have any questions, comments, or feedback in general, feel free to let me know!

Have a great day!

◼️ “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” - Leonardo da Vinci

A few weeks ago I mentioned that promotional emails (and probably all forms of advertising) are going to get more simple as we get closer to BFCM every day…

And I told you I was going to explain why.

So besides the short attention span we have nowadays, which a squirrel’s is very likely to be longer at this point (the attention span),

There’s the fact that online advertising is going to increase significantly in comparison to previous years, in part because most retail stores, and especially the big ones, are going online and are going to double down on their digital marketing advertising in order to keep their businesses afloat.

And on the other side,

Every business that was already advertising online is going to double down on that as well because most people are going to be buying online more than in previous years due to Corona.

That means that the information overload this year is going to be over the roof.

Now combine that with a short attention span and you’ll get the perfect recipe for decreasing the chances of someone buying something from an ad they just saw or an email they just received.

So how do you go about this in an effective and efficient way?

Well…

Simplicity is the key, my friend.

You could take the same route most businesses take and send more emails,

But since that’s what most are going to do and it’s precisely the information overload that’s going to be the problem, I think opting for simplifying the content of every email is going to work really well.

This is why.

First, it requires less brain power for your subscribers to go through every email, which means they’ll be more likely to read them and make a decision faster and easier.

Second, it’s less work for you, which will allow you to adapt faster to any changes.

And third, because it’s less work, you can also choose to increase the mailing volume as well if you want to decrease the likelihood of your emails getting lost in your subscribers’ inboxes.

Seems like a pretty good deal.

You’d be killing 3 birds with one stone (that’s a lotta damage).

So that’s why I think a lot of emails are going to get considerably more simple in the coming weeks.

And from what I’ve seen so far, some brands have already adopted this strategy.

In fact, an email I received from a big brand about a clothing collection release consisted of just a headline, a 5-word sentence, 4 images, and a couple of CTAs.

They let their website do the whole features and benefits explaining instead of doing that in the email.

Pretty clever.

That’s all I have for you today.

Questions, comments… let me know,

And as always, have a great day! 🙌

👉The difficulty to talk about a certain topic always comes from a lack of knowledge and experience.

For example, if you were to ask me about jewelry, I wouldn’t know where to start because I know nothing about it.

But when it comes to email marketing and bodybuilding (training, nutrition, supplements, and so on…), I could be talking for days on end.

So there you go, I’ve just saved you hours of research on what you should post in case you get stuck (hopefully).

Good communication is crucial for a team’s success.

In fact, I think it’s one of the things that can make or break a team.

Thoughts?

👉 Dissecting an email.

There are two types of emails in this world…

The good ones,

And the not-so-good ones.

But one thing they all have in common is that you can always learn something from them.

Today I come with an email I received from a big supplements company a while ago.

I always like to be on the loop about the latest email marketing trends, so besides learning on my own, I’m also subscribed to quite a few email lists from companies of all sizes that I think could be interesting,

And I always get to find some interesting things in several emails, or something that in my opinion could be improved.

It’s a lot of fun going through every email and analyzing every detail.

But anyway,

Why don’t we take a look at this one?

(I’ll let you decide whether it’s good or not. And no, it’s not going to be something in between)

First of all, I want you to take a closer look at it so that you familiarize with the general outline of the email, which will make it easier for you to follow along with the pros and cons I’m going to mention.

After that, continue reading here.

Let’s start with what I like about it,

Which is five things:

✅ The headline: It goes straight to the point and it’s set up in a way that the first thing your eyes see is “50% off” (Doing this could or could not work. Only the data will tell).

And yes, I know, the whole headline could be designed waaay better, but let’s just try to stick to the positive side of the email for now.

✅ Another thing I like is the subject line, which makes the “50% off” words make sense and be properly placed in the email in my opinion.

The subject line: “Can we make your life a little more PEACHY this summer?”.

I think this one’s very clever.

Not only because of what I’ve already said, but because of this…

You know the color of a peach’s inside?

It’s the same as the sun’s.

See the reference?

Plus, it also matches the product they’re offering. (If not, it wouldn’t make sense).

✅ Next is the way they’re promoting this.

They try to make it come across as them wanting to help their subscribers and not as just trying to push another offer down their throats.

And lastly,

✅ I really like the fact that they put a link at the bottom of the email giving you the option to whitelist their email address, which will help them avoid any other tab that’s not the primary inbox,

And that they have an “update your preferences” link next to the unsubscribe, and don’t just give you the option to unsubscribe.

So that’s that for the positive side.

Now let’s take a look at what in my opinion could be improved.

First of all,

❗ The overall design.

They could’ve added a couple of empty blocks that’d be invisible on the sides when coding it so that the entire email would’ve been 600px wide, making it look cleaner.

Then, the first image could’ve been full-width and combined with the header so it looked better,

And the second image could’ve been better and better placed as well. It doesn’t look too appealing (to me at least).

❗ Another thing is the paragraphs,

Which could’ve been placed below the images (or at least the first one) and could’ve been better in terms of copy (just the second one. I think the first one is fine).

❗ Next we’ve got the benefits, which could’ve been designed to be more visually appealing.

In terms of placing, I think they’re fine, just above the CTA.

❗ Lastly, we have to talk about the “Shop Now” button…

You can’t see it in the image, but when you see the email live and hover over the button, you can see that when they coded it, it’s set up in a way that ONLY the text is clickable, which kind of defeats the purpose of making it larger.

This could’ve been coded as an actual button, instead of as some hyperlinked words.

And when it comes to the terms and conditions link, maybe they could’ve underplayed it a little bit more so that the main CTA button got the most attention.

Oh,

And one last thing…

The alt text.

Not even a single image has alt text, plus, non of them are hyperlinked to their website.

That generally means…

Potential loses in revenue and possibly lower CTRs.

If you don’t know why, check out my latest post.

(It’s a 2 min read)

All right,

Now yes,

I’m done critiquing this email lol.

I hope you got some valuable insights that’ll help you build better emails, and if you have any questions or comments about this, let me know.

Have a great day!

P.S: Maybe at some point I’ll do a redesign of this email following the criteria I used to dissect it so you can have a full visual representation of what I’m seeing in my head.

P.P.S: Have an email you’d like me to review?

You can book a free call with me (up to 1 hour) if you want 1-1 help,

Or,

PM me / Leave a comment, and I’ll make a post about it.

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
I have a moment to spare,
And something for you.

Today I’d like to share some more…

Knowledge [Insert Tai Lopez’s voice]

And talk about an easy to set up and often overlooked thing that’ll give you the opportunity to squeeze some more revenue out of most of your emails.

It’s something that surprises me that a lot of businesses and even big brands are neglecting with the potential it has, because you know…

If I’m given the opportunity to get better at something, even if it’s just by 1%, I’d for sure take it.

(1%s add up)

And if we talk about 1% better for a big brand, that could mean some serious extra revenue.

So what am I talking about?

Alt text.

This is the type of text that’ll substitute the images of your emails in case they can’t be displayed, so in case your recipients don’t have images allowed, or your emails land in the spam folder, they’ll still make sense to those who open them.

Not only that, but they’ll also be able to click on the text that’s in their place (only if you have them linked to your website, which is something you should do as well).

But going straight to the point…

How can this make you money?

Well, I think the best way to explain it is with a short example…

Let’s say that you offer a discount code in an email, and that discount code comes in the form of an image.

If there’s no alt text, your recipients (those who don’t have images allowed) won’t know what discount code to use and with that, you’ll lose some revenue you could’ve otherwise gotten had you put that alt text in place.

And the same goes for your CTAs in case those are images as well,

Or even any other regular images that you use to just showcase your product/s.

See? Simple and effective stuff…

And I don’t think I’ll need another hundred paragraphs to explain why it’s important,

So I think that’s going to be it for today.

Now you know why I give alt text so much importance and think you should too.

If you have any questions or comments about this, let me know.

Now I can go back to the cave and not post for another month*

Have a great day 🤙

--

*Joking :)

Only put off until tomorrow what you're willing to die having left undone.

Pablo Picasso

High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation.

Charles Kettering

✅ Pro Tip:

Tags in email sequences can be used for more than just knowing where each person came from and what segment or sequence they should be in.

You can use them as a way to know which sequences they’re going through (if any).

“Why is this useful?” you may ask…

Let’s say someone’s going through your welcome series.

You currently have other subscribers that have already gone through that and are now receiving your broadcasted emails.

Since you always send let’s say 1 email/day, if you didn’t know who’s going through the welcome series, those who are new to your list would be receiving 2 emails/day.

Some of those would be welcome related, and some others wouldn’t.

And of course, you don’t want your new subscribers to have the experience of you spamming them with emails.

So instead, you tag them when they get into the sequence, and then, exclude that group from all your broadcasts.

Now your subscribers will have a better experience.

Have you tried this? How did it go?

If not, now you have something extra to implement.

Enjoy your weekend! 👊

Beware of false knowledge. It is more dangerous than ignorance.

- George Bernard Shaw

👉 Real life is just a slow-paced and more complex version of The Sims.

Agree? 🤔

Did you know there are more than 15.000 possible renderings for every email you send?

That means your emails will not display in the exact same way in every email client and every device.

So here’s where coding them comes in handy.

This allows you to modify certain “internal” parts of your email templates in a way that the design is consistent across most platforms and devices.

Sounds cool right (at least to me 🙂)?

It’s like trying to solve a puzzle (a very difficult one).

Of course, if you’re sending just plain text emails you won’t need to worry about coding (or at least too much. Remember this Monday’s post...),

But if you’re using HTML emails, you’ll definitely want to look into coding (or have someone look into the code of your templates).

And as a next step in my journey as an email marketer, and in order for me to improve on the services I provide, that’s what I’m currently doing.

Studying how to code emails.

I must say it’s a looong and tedious process, but at the same time, I can’t wait to be able to code email templates all by myself.

What are you working on today? 💯

Our happiness depends on wisdom all the way.

- Sophocles

✅ Interesting Fact:

This is something surprising I discovered very recently…

Just when I was about to recommend you to create your plain text emails using the HTML editor because the emails would look way better,

I found out that doing that might not be the best idea.

To explain why let me tell you what happened.

Until very recently, all the emails I sent to my subscribers were just plain text emails with basic font styling.

And then, I decided to spice the design up a little bit…

So I thought that instead of creating my emails using the plain text editor, I’d use the HTML editor.

After all, the font would look nicer and the presentation would be better overall by making that simple change.

The result of doing this?

ALL my emails started to land in the promotions tab (on Gmail)...

Meaning none of my subscribers would get a notification each time they received an email from me, and therefore my open rates would be lower.

Now, how do I know it’s because of that and not because of images or links?

At first I thought, “Well, it might be because of adding one or two links to the email, because I don’t use any images. Maybe Gmail got really picky with that now…”.

But then, I decided to send a few emails that consisted of text only.

No links.

No images.

No call to actions.

Nothing. Just pure text and content-filled emails (~500 words each).

And they still landed in the promotions tab.

So now, my next move is to go back to plain, raw text emails, and dig deeper into the reason why this happens.

(It might be because of the email’s code)

As always, I’ll keep you posted,

But in the meantime just beware.

Have a great day!

🤔 What’s one special trait that has gotten you this far in your journey?

For me, it’s my mindset of going all-in or nothing.

I either dedicate myself 100% to the task at hand, or I won’t do it.

👉 My latest creation (and what you can learn from it).

I created this template last week with the purpose of showcasing more of what I’m capable of doing in terms of email design and copy because someone wanted to see more of my work.

It took me 5 days to make this one from scratch, and I have to say that this is one of the best templates I’ve made so far.

But enough of me…

Let’s talk about the good things this template has that you can implement in your emails as well.

⚠️ (Disclaimer: I created this template just for fun. I’ve never worked with Optimum Nutrition (although I’d love to), and this does not represent their emails or their brand).

✅ To start off, I think it’s important you know that this template was created using the Klaviyo editor and that there are two versions of it. A PC version (first image) and a mobile version (second image).

✅ This email would be a part of the welcome series, as a way to make new subscribers’ supplement choices easier, leading to an easier purchase decision.

✅ As I always like to do, this email contains both, promotional content and helpful, educational content.

Plus, it doesn’t scream “Buy my stuff!!”.

✅ If you’ve noticed, there are no links to other categories in the email.

That’s because I want the reader to focus on the content of the email and not distract them with any other links.

✅ The subject line would be: "We’ve done the hard work...". (Short, simple, and intriguing).

✅ The preview text would be: "... for you". (It involves the reader).

✅ The link to see the full email in the browser would be at the top so people don't have to search for it in case they can't see any images.

✅ Every image would be clickable. The main one would redirect to the stack page, the other three supplement-related would redirect to that stack’s respective supplements,

And the last one would redirect to the brand’s blog.

This is a huge advantage for you because it’s like having extremely oversized buttons that at the same time look good.

✅ Every image would have ALT text, so in case that images are not displayed, readers could still know what those are about.

For the main image that would be “The Essentials Stack”, and for the others, “Whey Protein”, “Creatine Powder”, “Pre-Workout”, and “The Latest Fitness Articles” respectively.

By doing this you ensure that your email still makes sense and it’s easy to understand even without images.

A big plus.

✅ The block of text under every image is text, not an image, and the buttons are actual buttons.

That way you can still see and click on those parts of the email when images are not displayed.

That’s all I’ve got for you today!

As always, any feedback or suggestions on how this template could be improved are much appreciated 🙌

Enjoy your day!