#taking suggestions and requests for Cas & John interactions

[lebanon-wip]

Accidentally started to go through menopause this week cuz I didn't notice my estrogen patch had fallen off 😥

Releasing this iconic moment so y'all can hype it up and help me recover some of my missing serotonin 🙏🏻🙌🏻

[lilulo-12fanfiction]

Not Alone- Dean Winchester x Reader

This was requested by @skarsgardandredmayne​ with the following prompts:

31. I fucked up 

73. Oh, You’re Ticklish

So the prompts took me someplace unexpected. I hope you enjoy this!

As always likes, comments, reblogs, etc are appreciated. Please let me know if you would like to be tagged in my SPN stories. I also write for Avengers, TVD, The Originals, The Flash & Arrow. 

SPN Masterlist

SPN Tag List:  @deans-baby-momma @fandom-princess-forevermore @magssteenkamp @blancastans @jn-wolf​ @waywardsistersandpie​

Now: Your heart was pounding in your ears as you ran through the warehouse. You felt the cold tingles traveling your body as you willed your heart and mind to slow down. You couldn’t think straight like this. You had been desperate to prove your worth to Dean Winchester and decided to hunt what you, Sam and Dean thought was one shifter, but it turned out to be a group of 3. You wanted to show him you were a good hunter. You weren’t a liability. You were good enough. 

You had killed the first shifter with ease. The second one had been more of a challenge. Now? You were out of silver bullets and out of luck. You hated yourself for having to call him. You ducked behind a pile or rubble. You felt a tear slip out of your eye and you hastily wiped it away. You could hear the sleep in his voice.

“Sweetheart it’s 1am. Why the hell are you calling me and not here in the room asleep?”

“Dean?!” He could heat the fear dripping from your voice. “I fucked up...really bad. I’m sorry...you were right...” you had to take a deep breath. “You were right about everything. This isn’t your fault. Please don’t blame yourself.”

“Whoa whoa whoa...what’s going on? Where are you?”

“The warehouse.” You whispered. “There were 3 of them. I got two, but I’m out of bullets and I can’t find my silver dagger. He knocked it out of my hand and it’s too dark. Please just know that I care about you so much.”  The three of you had figured out that night where the shifters were camping out. You had decided to take the night to rest up and go at them fresh the next day. When Dean made a comment to you about making sure you had your shit together you had steeled yourself and made the decision to do this without him and Sam just to prove the point.

“Jesus Y/N...wait, don’t you say goodbye to me! I’m on my way.” You heard him yell out “Sammy!” before he hung up. At least you got to talk to him. You didn’t know if he would make it in time. You were stealthy when you were on your game, but a terrified you was clumsy and you knew your time was up when a pile of pipes clattered to the ground. You took off down the outer edge of the warehouse. If you could get outside you had a better chance. More room to run and more places to hide. As you approached the door you felt a hand grip the back of your hair and slam your head into the wall. Your vision blurred and everything faded to black. 

12 Months Ago:

You felt Sam wrap his arms around your shoulder as Dean lit the pyre. You and your brother had been a hunting team like the Winchester boys. Your father had worked often with John Winchester. You and your brother had carried on the tradition with John’s sons. 

The four of you had been gutting a particularly nasty vampire nest. Your brother bad gotten cocky and while he was mouthing off to one, another one ripped his throat out. You and Dean couldn’t get to him in time. You had beheaded the vampire that had killed your brother while Dean and Sam took out the other 3. Now he was gone. Your father was gone. You were an orphan and all alone. Hot tears fell down your cheeks.

  “I’m so sorry sweetheart, he was a good man.” Dean has muttered as he came to you and Sam. The two of you had a love-hate relationship. He loved to tease you-and you hated how much you loved it. The flirtation was fierce.

“Y/N- Dean and I talked, we want you to come stay with us at the bunker. We have plenty of room and this way you won’t be off on your own.” You looked over at Dean, but he had the face of a skilled poker player. You couldn’t tell if they had agreed upon it or if Sam had insisted on it. You and Sam were good friends. You knew Sam wanted you around, you couldn’t tell with Dean.

“Okay. But only for a little while.”

8 Months Ago

“C’mon sweetheart. Take me down. Fight me. You’re a big bad hunter right? You can fight demons, wendigos and everything else that goes bump in the night. You can’t take on me?”

He was goading you. It was his favorite past time. Well that and flirting mercilessly with you when you both were drinking, usually as an apology for criticizing you on cases. He was extra hard on you. You had heard Sam admonish him for it. Dean always blew it off.

Right now, he was frustrating you. He knew he was getting under your skin. He resided there as of late. He knew getting you going would make you sloppy. He easily caught you as you lunged at him in the gym located in the bunker. He easily caught your leg and before you knew it, you were flat in your back with the wind knocked out of you.

He had a smirk on his smug face and a glint in his green eyes. You couldn’t help but admire the crinkle of skin next to his eyes when he thought something was funny. He always smiled with his eyes. You weren’t sure if it was the man hovering above you or the impact on the mats that cost you your ability to breath.

“Sweetheart you have to do better than that If you’re going to best me.” He leaned down to whisper in your ear. As his hand ghosted the skin of your stomach you squirmed with an involuntary giggle.

“Oh...are you ticklish?” The mischief in his eyes gave him away. He had you pinned to the mat with his knees on each side of your hips and your wrists pinned above your head with one hand. You knew he was strong, but you didn't expect him to be able to hold you down so easily. Maybe it was because you didn't mind it.

"Dean- please don't." you begged for her mercy. Luckily just before he was able to deny you, Sam had walked in effectively dumping cold water on the interaction. From that day forward, Dean never gave up the opportunity to tickle you just a little bit any time he had the opportunity to torture you.

5 Months Ago

You sat in the library reading one of the random books you had grabbed from off of the shelf. The boys were off on a vampire hunt, after your brother, you weren't ready to revisit that wound so you decided to stay behind. Dean had sent Castiel to stay at the bunker with you. Why he thought you couldn't handle yourself, you didn't quite understand. You and your brother had split up on plenty of occasions and you were still standing. His lack of faith in you was starting to grate on your nerves. You would get ready to give him a piece of your mind but then he would give you these intense looks with his sea green eyes and you'd back down and agree to whatever terms he set. Sam couldn't get over it. Any time he gave the mere suggestion that you step back and let them handle something you went up one side of him and down the other.  With Dean...you just couldn't and part of you hated him for it.

"Y/N?" Cas' voice pulled you out of your thoughts. You jumped at the sound of his gravely voice. "I apologize for startling you. I just wanted to make sure you were alright."

"Yeah...I'm fine. Why?" He stared at you intently. Cas had a way of making you feel that he could see right through you.

"Well I know it's not really normal for you to skip out on the action. Dean mentioned that this particular case might bring up some memories for you." You took a breath and closed your eyes to compose yourself. The truth was, you couldn't get the image of your brother's lifeless body out of your head. You knew you would be distracted if you went, you would be a liability. Cas put his hand on your shoulder.

"He wasn't wrong. I just...it's been a year since I lost him and it's still so fresh. I feel like I can't breath any time I think about him. With them hunting vampires, I just couldn't.  I didn't want to be distracted. I didn't want them to have to save my ass because I couldn't keep it together. I didn't want to prove Dean right about being a liability." You could feel the back of your throat constricting. You were desperate to hold your tears back. You dug deep and looked up at Castiel. He had his head tilted slightly to the left as he studied you.

"Y/N...Dean doesn't see you as a liability. In fact, I've never heard Dean say one disparaging thing about you. He admires you." You scoffed.

"Thanks Cas for being here. I appreciate it. I think I'm going to go lay down for a bit." He pulled his hand from your shoulder and watched curiously as you headed to your little corner of the bunker.

2 Months Ago

You choked as you took a sip of your drink. You watched as Dean's eyes crinkled as he watched you. "Yeah...that is straight Jack Daniels...not a drop of coke in sight." You and Dean had just finished a salt and burn. A "milk run" as Dean had put it. Sam had needed some space from everyone. Every once in a while, one of the three of you just needed some room to breath. Since it was an easy case, Sam stayed behind to catch up on some sleep. The ghoul case you had finished prior had taken a lot out of him. Plus you were certain if he had to listen to you and Dean bicker in the close quarters of the Impala he might murder you both.

"I thought you were tougher than that." he laughed as you smacked him in the arm. You felt him pinch your side and you jumped away and laughed. He studied your face for a moment. It wasn't often he saw you genuinely happy, not since your brother had died. His death was a constant burden on your mind.. "You should do that more often."

“Almost choke?” You grinned.

“Laugh...smile. You light the place up sweetheart. Look, I know it’s been a hard year. God knows I know how hard it is. But he would want you to let go, to really be happy. You deserve it. I know you blame yourself...but it wasn’t your fault.” 

You studied his face. It was rare that Dean expresses genuine emotion. It was rare that Dean wasn’t giving you a hard time. The mention of your brother had you rapidly blinking for a moment to compose yourself. You felt the intensity of his gaze increase. Finally you met his eyes again.

“Thanks Dean. I know you’re right...about him wanting me to be happy. I promise I’m trying. Being with you and Sam helps. I didn’t plan on sticking around this long; but the truth is, I can’t imagine leaving. You guys have become my family. I couldn’t do this alone.” He put his hand over yours as it rested on the bar and squeezed it.

“You don’t have to. We ARE your family. Me, Sammy and Cas. We got you Y/N. Your place is with us. You are not alone.” You felt your heart rate quicken. His damn eyes got you every time. It was the little crinkles in the corners.

The two of you spent the night drinking and telling funny stories about your brothers. It was a good night. It was the most fun you had in a long time. As you both stumbled back to the motel Dean took your hand in his and pulled you to him. His hand tangled in the back of your hair and he kissed you. 

He captured your bottom lip in his teeth before exploring your mouth with his tongue as his other hand cupped your face. You had the lapels of his canvas jacket gripped in your hands. After a few moments sense took over your brain. As much as you wanted this, he was drunk. Sober Dean wouldn’t do this, so you pulled away and he studied your face with questioning eyes.

“We shouldn’t Dean. We’re drunk. I don’t want you to regret anything.” You thought you saw a look of hurt cross his eyes.

“Right. You’re right.” He stifly opened the door and you followed him into the room. He didn’t say another word to you that night.

The next morning, whatever warmness that had developed between the two of you had frosted over. Maybe you had been wrong about him having regrets.

“Dean- about last night...”

“It’s fine. No regrets right?” His voice had a little snap to it. You stared at the back of his head with shock. The ride back to the bunker was painfully quiet. The frost between the two of you grew from there.

A week ago

“Dammit Y/N!” Dean slammed the motel room door. Sam got to work at digging the bullet out of your shoulder. The three of you had been after a demon. You saw the gun before Dean did. You ran and shoved him out of the way. The bullet would most likely have been a fatal shot had you not pushed him out of the way.

“You should be thanking me for saving your ass! You didn’t see the gun.”

“Maybe I would be paying better attention if I wasn’t worried about making sure you didn’t get yourself killed!”

“Excuse you. I was hunting well before I met you. I don’t need you to protect me.”

“If I didn’t look out for you, you’d be dead by now! You’re off of your game and you’re a liability. You’re reckless with your own life. You don’t care what happens to you. Since your brother died.”

“Dean...” Sam’s tone was warning.

“No Sammy. Enough. I can’t watch you lose someone else. You may have been a good hunter. But you’re not anymore. Not like this. Not when you act like you have something to prove. I don’t need your death on my shoulders. There’s enough blood on my hands.” Dean stormed out of the room. You sat blinking back tears. So much for being where you belonged.

Now You could hear their voices, but it was impossible to open your eyes. It was like they were lined with lead. 

“Cas if you healed her why isn’t she awake?” Dean’s voice was frantic.

“It was a pretty serious head wound and then the stab wound to her stomach was deep. She lost a lot of blood. She just needs some time.”

“I said horrible things to her after our last hunt. That’s why she did this. I didn’t even mean it! I was just so damn scared when she took that bullet for me. She has to know I’m sorry.”

“Dean...” Sam’s soothing voice echoed as you fell back to sleep. A few hours later you groaned as you stirred awake.

“Y/N...sweetheart. Open your eyes.” You felt Dean’s calloused hand run over your forehead and through your hair.

“You found me.” Your voice was horse. You blinked a few times to pull him into focus. “I was so stupid. I’m so sorry. I just wanted to show you I could still do it.”

“Shhh. Don’t you apologize. If I hadn’t lost it on you, this wouldn’t have happened. I was afraid of loosing you and I took it out on you. I’ve been taking it out on you since you turned me down.”

“Oh my God you’re dumber than I am. I didn’t turn you down. I just thought you were drunk and would regret it." The way he was looking at you took your breath away.

"Sweetheart I could never regret anything with you except for the way I acted." He helped you sit up on your bed. You looked around, they had gotten you back to the bunker. "When we got to that warehouse, the shifter had you hanging by your wrists, blood was dripping down the side of your head. They knew I was coming for you and they wanted to make you suffer in front of us. It was one of the worst moments in my life. The idea of not bringing you home. Of not listening to you sing to yourself when you make coffee in the morning, of you not calling me out on my shit and giving me a hard time, it was too much to take. They didn't know Sammy was there, and he got him from behind right after he stabbed you in the gut. If it were for Cas...well...we wouldn't be having this conversation." You threw your arms around his neck and squeezed him.

"I'm sorry Dean. I shouldn't have gone off like that. I know better. I was just so determined to show you I was still as good as I was before my brother. I was determined to prove that I wasn't a burden." Your hot tears hit his neck and you felt his hand cradle the back of your head.

"You are NOT a burden and you're an excellent hunter. We all have off days, especially after going through loss. God knows I've had my fair share of off moments and mistakes. I shouldn't have thrown it in your face. I was just trying to push you so you wouldn't ever put yourself in the line of fire for me again. I'm so sorry." You pulled back to study his face, he smiled at you and wiped the tears from your eyes.

"There isn't anything you could ever do to push me away." Before he could respond you pressed your lips to his. It took a moment for the shock to wear off and then he was kissing you back. You both jumped back when you heard Sam clear his throat.

"I was just peaking in to check on Y/N. I'm glad to see you're awake. You really gave us a scare." He smiled at both of you. "Oh...and it's about time guys." He walked out of the room chuckling.

"Y/N...I'm not great at relationships. Every single one I've had ended in one way or another because of this life."

"That's what makes you so perfect for me. Because I've dealt with the same thing. But we're both in this life. We're in this together." Dean pressed a light kiss to your lips.

"I promise you...I will do everything in my power to make this work. But there's plenty of time for all of this. You should rest. Slide over." You shifted your body to the left and Dean climbed into your bed with you and wrapped an arm around your shoulder and pulled you into him. You fell back to sleep listening to the steady beat of his heart.

[listiqueblog]

Holiday Email Marketing Unpacked: 15 Examples, 9 Tools and a Checklist to Make 2017 Your Biggest Success Yet

As an ecommerce business owner, you know that your holiday email marketing strategy is important.

But with so much going on, it can seem like the days are just dropping away — and taking your customers with them.

After all, it’s a competitive time of year, and you already have concerns about cutting through the noise and standing out from the competition.

And those concerns are valid. Most brands start planning their holiday email marketing campaigns in September, meaning you may already be behind.

Not to worry – though. You’ve landed in the right place.

In the follow guide, we’ll walk you through:

Quick email marketing stats: The current state of email marketing and ecommerce

The basics of a holiday email marketing campaign: Using welcome emails, catering to stressed holiday season shoppers, and the cure for abandoned carts

Best practices and next steps: Turn your new knowledge into sales

Let’s dive in.

Download Your Free Holiday Campaign Lookbook

Get a short and sweet visual roundup of everything you should be doing to make your campaigns stand out this year – courtesy of Springbot.

Quick Stats: Get Personal With Your Email

According to Statista, Gmail has over 1 billion active users. And that’s *not* accounting for the folks using Outlook, Yahoo or bespoke professional emails.

The ability to capture a slice of their email pie and send out specified messages to increase brand loyalty is what attracts so many to branded online stores to begin with.

It isn’t something you can do on Amazon: Even if you can make millions there, you can’t market to previous customers through email. That’s a big Amazon no-no. They market to them instead.

It isn’t something you can do if you only have a brick-and-mortar: Sure you can send off emails, but you have no immediate call to action (other than come to store) and little opportunity to test the effectiveness of that CTA (did they come to the store? How do you know? Manual cross-checking?)

It isn’t something you can do if you only have a website – not a webstore (Looking at you B2B industry…): Again, yes, you can send out emails, but you don’t have a call to action that increases sales or revenue. You only have a link back to your site, a request to email or a phone numbers. And while you can measure the effectiveness of those campaigns, their conversion rate is going to be much lower than just sending your buyers to a personalized campaign on your site. 

So, why is it that email marketing –– and ability to build a highly engaged list and market to it –– is so popular and loved by the industry?

It’s the data.

These numbers come from Soundest:

Average revenue per email marketing campaign broken down by country:

US: $446

UK: $380

AU: $466

CA: $273

IN: $281

A series of emails (versus a one-off email) will get you:

69% more orders on your cart recovery

90% more orders on your customer reactivation

93% more orders on your welcome campaigns

And these charts come from Klaviyo’s commerce email marketing benchmark report (2017). They are broken down by annual business revenue size to you can better gauge what you can expect:

What all of this data suggests is that your email campaigns are in fact revenue. For each email you send, you can track the added value to your business.

Now, that’s if the email works –– and to make it work, you need to be strategic, play upon psychological triggers and be relevant.

For instance, email subject lines containing ‘thank you’ have the highest above-average open rates. Good to know –– you should probably use that phrase more often (and also think through why this could be).

For instance, with BigCommerce’s Blog weekly email (which you should totally sign up to get!), they’ve begun using more personal language in the body as well as the subject line. Tracey will say:

Thank you!

I feel ya…

Is something wrong?

Why? Because people like being spoken to by other people –– people that they identify with and feel as though could actually be their friends. Otherwise, why would they want to give *you* their money?

This also explains why personalized emails which use the customer’s name get opened 17.6% of the time, compared to 11.4% for non-personalized emails.

Again, here is how you win via email marketing campaigns:

Know your customers

Talk to them in your brand voice (which should resonate with them)

Show them something (ideally a product) they actually want –– and at the time they want it.

OK –– that sounds like a lot of work. I get it. But here’s exactly how you do it –– specifically for the holidays.

What Sending 100 Million Emails Teaches You About Emails

For a really in-depth look at what works and what doesn’t, based on the experience of sending over 100 million emails, check out Noah Kagan’s post.

The Streams You Need in Place Now

With an ecommerce business, especially a B2C business, there are a lot a lot of customers and prospects in and out in the months between October and January.

Some of them will just be browsing, others will make purchases, and around 70% will abandon their carts.

You can’t keep track of every single interaction with your site, and you can’t win ‘em all, either, but you can help temper the stress shoppers are feeling by having a thoughtful, relevant, trigger email in place.

For the holiday season — including Halloween, Cyber Monday, Black Friday and pre- and post-Christmas sales — your best friends are:

Welcome emails

Relevant promotional emails

Abandoned cart emails 

Let’s look at why.

Welcome Emails

According to an Experian report:

Welcome emails experience 4X the open rates of bulk emails, and

5X the click-through rate (CTR) of bulk emails

Not sending a welcome email when a visitor or customer completes an action on your site is like not being offered a ‘thank you’ and/or a receipt on a purchase in a physical store.

It leaves people feeling disengaged right from the start.

At the very least, it creates doubt as to whether the action they took was successful.

If someone completes an action on your site, such as opting in to a newsletter or signing up for a coupon, they are ready to go.

Any delay you create by not sending your welcome email straight away, only serves to decrease the likelihood of an engagement or a sale.

Pro Tip

Welcome emails do not need to be holiday season specific. Instead, you just need welcome emails in place to make sure that you are nurturing those who sign up into becoming customers.

Over the holidays, many brands see an increase in email subscribers before they become purchasers. This is your chance to close that gap and more formally introduce your brand.

What Makes a Successful Welcome Email?

Welcome and receipt emails are the most opened of any type of email. Which means you should be making full use of them to start engaging with subscribers and customers.

As for what makes a great welcome email, there are lots of elements:

A simple ‘Thank you’

Great photographs

A clear call-to-action

A personalized message from your company’s founder

Let’s look at how Tommy John is making this come to life:

Want to check out your competitor’s email marketing strategy? Then you need MailCharts. 

A few things to note:

Email 1

Welcomes you to the brand

Gives you a discount.

Explains “Why Us”

Has clear CTA buttons and clean imagery throughout

Email 2

Clear 15% off reminder

Offers up product options to browse

Allows for category browsing as wanted (getting the newcomer used to the site and brand flow)

Explains guarantee offer (i.e. – why wouldn’t you buy?)

Email 3

A departure from the discount email –– this email aims to educate the newcomer further on why to buy from this brand

Clean imagery

Call outs address pain points

Clear CTAs to category pages

Email 4

They have upped the ante – 20% off now

And they’ve added a countdown (HUGE psychological trigger)

The rest of the format follows email 2 –– and that’s OK! Most customers won’t open ALL your emails. It’s OK to use the same format for various emails.

Clear CTAs above the fold, and secondary ones below the fold. 

Let’s look at one more, this time from Noah Kagan’s blog (Noah is the founder of SUMO).

Things we love about this welcome:

The warm and friendly headline — Makes you feel right at home

The ‘extra bonus’ — Something to chew on while you wait for the regular content

A clear CTA — Noah advertises another piece of content here, and invites you to subscribe

The personal recommendation — You trusted him enough to hand over your email.

Relevant, Promotional Emails

Shoppers are in a rush around the holiday season, so any additional, essential information you can give them works in your favor.

A few things you can include in your emails to make life easier for subscribers around the holidays include:

Shipping info (including final delivery dates)

Gift card services

Gift wrapping options

Customer service contact details 

Let’s take a look at how Jeni’s Ice Creams did this last year.

Want to see these images larger? Click on it! 

Let’s break these down:

Email 1:

Clear campaign launch and CTA to shop a holiday gift guide

Fun graphic appealing to the indulger in us all

Clear CTA at the bottom

Additional CTA for a Thanksgiving deliver

Email 2:

The Thanksgiving dinner CTA as moved to the top of the email –– clear CTA

Holiday-themed graphics and visuals

Gift guide call out at the bottom

Email 3:

More visible ORDER NOW CTA as the deadline to order approaches

The approaching holiday is called out even more visually with graphics

Shipping costs clearly advertised to alleviate any cost concerns

Email 4:

Post- Thanksgiving, emails change to Holiday dinner push, with clear CTA at the top of the email

Visuals switch to gift-like themes for to match the upcoming holidays

Images show holiday-specific ice cream flavors

Email 5:

Even larger CTA announcing order date deadline

Personalization options advertised

Last-minute gift guide offered

Just one more example here to really drive this home –– include a countdown on your emails for the purchasing deadline so products get where they need to go in time for the holidays!

Here is how Bliss does it.

Just a Little Christmas Makeover

If you try nothing else mentioned here, then you can at least refresh your welcome email template during the holiday season.

You don’t get to meet and greet every person who interacts with your business the way you would in a physical store, so injecting some personality into your welcome email is the next best thing.

If your welcome email is usually branded and designed a certain way, something as simple as re-skinning it with a festive template can help grab the attention of a subscriber long enough to make them read something they might otherwise miss.

Download Your Free Holiday Campaign Lookbook

Get a short and sweet visual roundup of everything you should be doing to make your campaigns stand out this year – courtesy of Springbot.

The Under-Utilized Cure for Abandoned Carts

An abandoned cart is a sad thing. It means that something was wrong with or missing from the shopping experience.

We know that:

75% of people will bounce if a site isn’t optimized for mobile, and

Over 70% of people abandon their cart for another reason

For these people, it is crucial that your triggered abandoned cart emails address their specific problems.

During the holidays, 3 of the main reasons people abandon their carts are:

Shipping costs: Determine whether it’s feasible for you to offer free shipping

Better deal elsewhere: Tempt them back with price and emotional cues

Out-of-stock: How to capitalize once products become available again

Let’s look at each, and what you can do address them so you can start seeing abandoned cart numbers like these:

That’s between 16-23% revenue recaptured from abandoned cart emails. 

Are Your Shipping Costs Too High?

In a survey conducted by BigCommerce, 80% of Americans cited shipping costs and speed of shipping as a major factor in determining where they shop, with 66% deciding not to buy entirely because of shipping costs.

Sure, offering free shipping is one way to reduce cart abandonment, but for many businesses, offering free shipping just isn’t an option, especially if you’re shipping items across the United States.

Companies such as Amazon can offer free shipping because they have such a massive financial reserve.

But what about other small to medium-sized businesses? When and how can they start to offer free shipping?

ShipperHQ has designed a simple-to-use flowchart, to help you determine if and when you can offer free shipping.

Need complex shipping help? ShippperHQ has you covered. 

So, with ShipperHQ’s flowchart in mind, what are some of the conditions which need to be met in order for you to be able to offer free shipping? And what are the solutions?

If you’re a seller competing primarily on the uniqueness of your product, try increasing the average order value (AOV) by offering free shipping after certain conditions have been met

If you’re competing on price and are not willing to absorb the cost of shipping as a marketing expense, then you’ll need to raise the price of your products to cover shipping

If you are willing to absorb the cost, then do so

If you’re somewhere in the middle, and you’re based within the United States, try offering free shipping to certain locations only

Do you offer expedited shipping? If so, including a surcharge for this service could help eat some of the deficit

Pro Tip

The #1 holiday season promotion offered by BigCommerce brands is free shipping after a price threshold is passed.

This increases average order value, helps to offset shipping costs and is incredibly easy (and free!) to set up on the backend.

What If There’s a Better Deal Elsewhere?

It happens. If your product isn’t a unique one, or if there’s some direct competitor product that costs less, sometimes people choose to go elsewhere.

But all is not lost. They could have found a genuinely better deal, or they could be playing hard to get.

Some shoppers will abandon their carts on purpose, in order to trigger a discount or deal email.

Now, before you just go on and offer a discount in an abandoned cart email, know this: there is little evidence to support the idea that offering a discount on abandoned cart emails works. Doing so simply eats into your profit margin.

What should you do instead?

Upsell different products or offer bundled products. After all, bundles sell way better than individual products. But we’ll get to that in a bit…

Either way –– you shouldn’t be in a pricing race to the bottom scenario.

If you are losing a lot of customers to competitor with cheaper prices, it likely isn’t just your prices that are the problem.

You aren’t telling your brand story effectively enough.

People buy based on price –– yes –– but they also buy based on emotion and something called a “gut feeling.”

This is here your abandoned cart email marketing strategy –– and psychological triggers –– can help out.

Scarcity and the fear of missing out

Anyone who’s ever built a landing page or ran a sale knows that this is marketing psyche 101.

When the perceived value of something is raised — either because it’s genuinely rare, or it’s made to look rare — it becomes more desirable. It’s known as the ‘Fear of Missing Out’ or FOMO.

Take the iPhone X. With prices starting at $999, Apple is not concerned at all about pricing themselves out of the market.

They could create as many X’s as they want, but by limiting numbers, Apple has ensured that almost every single new iPhone X sells, and for full price.

Both The Verge and TechRadar reported that in-stock versions of the X could already be low or gone, well into 2018.

You don’t need to reduce the price of an item to make it sell. You just have to make the item more desirable.

BombTech Golf does this so incredibly well in literally *every single email* they send. Here’s a recent one:

Clear “Back in stock” language reminds you that this item often isn’t in stock –– and a call out for a stick price below $100 to draw and earn instant conversion.

Use influencers

Another way to make your products more desirable without actually changing them is to make use of influencers.

If you sell GPS watches, then offering one for review by a well-known mountaineering expert could be what you need to place you ahead of your competitors.

You can also use micro-influencers to drive increased awareness of your product. This is what Spellbinders does –– using micro-influencers (people will small online followings) to share product images and hashtags of items created with their products. This spreads the brand name while still being authentic.

Then, you can use Customer Groups to segment out emails and personalized on-site experiences for your various cohorts of customers –– of which your social influencers will be one.

Check it out:

Bundle products together

Sometimes you don’t need to do anything so involved as roping in influencers or remarketing your products.

Sometimes all you need to do is bundle them together.

Amazon is a prime example of how bundling works. By offering products all together, Amazon manages to sell more products than the one(s) shoppers were originally looking for, and shoppers usually save money, either on shipping, or on the products themselves. Check out these brands bundling as well:

Packed Party

Flash Tattoos

Glory Cycles

Are Your Items Out of Stock?

You should have ample inventory to make sure items don’t go out of stock, and while BigCommerce has the functionality to ensure that out-of-stock items are removed immediately, if something does become unavailable, then responding to customers in the right way can make or break a sale.

Take Suzanne Moore, founder of So Suzy Stamps, who uses InStockAlerts to send a personalized message to shoppers when their items are back in stock.

With InStockAlerts, I was able to send a customized email to people who wanted alerts when a product was back in stock. It’d say:

“Hey, hurry up, it’s back in stock! You need to order it before the other lady does.”

I was able to add my personality into those automated message and it’s that personality that really attracts and retains my customers.

— Suzanne Moore, Founder of So Suzy Stamps

Those InStockAlert emails, by the way, enjoy an 80% conversion rate.

In Suzy’s case, that’s partly down to the fact that she’s put in so much hard work building a great relationship with her fanbase, and partly because of how smart she is about creating desire and scarcity.

A message as simple as the one Suzy uses, “Hey, hurry up, it’s back in stock! You need to order it before the other lady does.” can make all the difference.

You can plan for people potentially abandoning their carts due to stock issues, by keeping your inventory in check. If you have plans to move a particular product in its entirety and you’re prepared for BigCommerce to remove it once it does goes out of stock, then prioritizing scarcity and urgency should be your focus.

The Best App Integrations For Your Holiday Campaigns

In this section, we’ve picked out some of the most useful third-party app and service integrations available with BigCommerce.

Use these to build better campaigns both on-site before visitors become subscribers, and when you’re sending those important holiday emails.

MailChimp

With MailChimp, you can:

Send personalized product recommendations to individual customers in just a few clicks.

Follow up with, delight, and re-engage your customers using our preset customer lifecycle automation workflows.

Create targeted campaigns that get the right messages in front of the right customers at the right time.

Monitor our robust campaign reports to measure ROI, see what’s working, and learn how you can get better.

dotmailer

With dotmailer, you can:

Make contact, product and order data automatically flow into your account to supercharge your email marketing.

Use the data you hold in dotmailer to better target users and create powerful multichannel automation without the need to code.

Send personalized campaigns powered by customers’ order history, web behavior and more.

Constant Contact

With Constant Contact, you can:

Create mobile-responsive emails customized to your brand that look great on any device.

Set up an automated email series to send your customers personalized welcome, birthday, and anniversary emails.

Track results in real time, and build your list with free list-growth.

Ensure your emails get delivered to inboxes, not spam folders.

Privy

With Privy, you can:

Rapidly grow your email list and store sales with high converting pop-ups, spin to win, and offers with bulk and unique coupon codes

Trigger popups using exit intent, time on site, scroll, cart size and more

A/B test campaigns to continually optimize performance

Sync new contacts to all email marketing platforms including Mailchimp, Bronto, Klaviyo, Soundest, Constant Contact, SendGrid, Adroll, Zapier and more.

Happy Email

With Happy Email, you can:

Automatically send a thank-you email from store founder/owner to new customers.

Connect, make your customers happy and build trust on your brand.

No need to worry what to write to your customers. We’ve done it all for you.

SpringBot

Springbot does some seriously cool data manipulation for BigCommerce store owners. Using your out-of-the-box analytics or your Insights (or both), Springbot layers on additional user data and provides actionable steps you can take to segment your lists and make more money.

Some customers are raving: “This is the best app ever!”

Here’s everything you get:

Marketing Dashboard: Robust data and analytics based on your customer and product data.

Email Marketing: Integration with your favorite email service provider so you can easily send personalized emails to customers as well as automated emails triggered by your customers’ actions.

Social Media: Schedule, edit and review your social media posts across Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Also, make your Instagram shoppable

Online Ads: Re-engage visitors who view but don’t purchase your items by showing them a display ad on the web, mobile, and social through our integration with AdRoll.

Marketplaces: With Amazon Marketplaces, expand your products’ reach by quickly migrating your listings to Amazon. Match your store’s products, set pricing, and optimize listings to win the Buy Box, as well as manage product listings, inventory, and shipping updates.

Onboarding and Training: Once Springbot’s installed on your site, you are assigned your very own Customer Onboarding Manager. They will help you get up and running to get the most out of Springbot.

Klaviyo

Klaviyo is the email marketing software secret behind multi-million dollar success like BombTech Golf. Why? How? Great questions! The answer is simple: segmentation.

Brands like BombTech don’t talk to cohorts of customers in the same way. Instead, they segment their email marketing efforts based on how a customer acts on their site. Here’s everything you get with Klaviyo and BigCommerce:

Products, Collections & Categories Viewed: When customers return to your website, you’ll be able to see what products they’re looking at and use the information to create super-targeted email flows.

Checkout Started: Get all the information on products in your shopping cart – including pictures and full item details – so you can trigger smart abandoned cart autoresponders.

Orders placed: You’ll be able to use the full order details to target and personalize, including pictures of items, price, discounts applied, coupon codes, and more.

Fulfilled orders: Use information on whether or not an order has been fulfilled to control which emails a customer gets, trigger requests for reviews and personalize content.

Cancelled orders: If a customer creates an order but then cancels before fulfillment, you can automatically get in touch to ask why and incentivize them to reconsider.

Refunded orders: Filter and target based on refund events and specific details associated with the refund, like value, items, discount codes and more.

JustUno

Hailed by many brands as the most powerful free app in the marketplace, JustUno helps you to collect more emails so you can better segment, grow sales and increase lifetime loyalty.

Here are just a few of the things they offer:

Email Pop Ups: The simplest and most effective way to build your email list and generate sales opportunities.

Exit Pop Ups: Add exit intent pop ups to your site to capture emails before your visitor leaves.

Mobile Optimized Pop Ups (SEO Friendly): Engage and convert mobile traffic with mobile-specific pop ups. In compliance with Google’s recent mobile SEO policies.

Cart and Checkout Abandonment Offers: Prevent cart abandonment with targeted offers proven to convert shoppers into customers.

Banners, Bars and Slide-Ins: Use for email capture, sale notifications and effective website messaging.

Form Integrations: Add the emails you capture to any list from MailChimp, Bronto, Klaviyo, Hubspot, Constant Contact, Rejoiner and more. Plus, add any HTML form to your pop ups, banners, and slide-ins.

In Stock Reminder

With In Stock Reminder for BigCommerce, you can:

Add a customized subscriber box to any product page, which when completed, will inform customers by email when that item is back in stock.

Best Practice Checklist For Awesome Holiday Emails

Let’s recap!

Here are the top tips and best practices for building a holiday email marketing campaign that converts.

Use your brand to create loyal customers: Don’t buy a subscriber list

Make your email subscription opt-in easy for site visitors: An exit intent pop-up or subtle sign-up box are 2 options

Regularly monitoring your list for typos, invalid addresses and inactive members: The size of your email list ONLY matters if the people on it are ENGAGED with your brand. If they don’t pay attention to you, it does NOT matter. Those are just vanity metrics. Remove them.

Segment your list based on recommended criteria for your business goals: Change offers/images according to gender, age, location, etc. You can use SpringBot’s Analytics to do this easily.

Leverage purchasing behavior trends to drive more conversions: If they’ve bought A, offer them B. BigCommerce Insights can show you this data easily –– allowing you to export and create segmented upsell campaigns quickly.

Include trigger email campaigns into your email marketing plan: Remember, campaigns perform better than just one-off emails.

Is your subject line short, sweet and to the point: It should be. Remember to use friendly words and terms as though you are speaking to a friend or family member. This increases open rates.

Tell your customers what steps to take with a clear CTA: Make sure that button stands out and is relevant to your offering. You don’t have to use terms like “click here” –– the button makes that obvious. Get creative with your copywriting and use psychological triggers to convert more customers.

Create a sense of urgency in your holiday emails: Black Friday and Cyber Monday happen fast! And the shipping deadline for Christmas does too! Keep everyone updated on the amount of time they have left.

Added festive design elements to your Christmas emails: Use relevant images and words. Everyone knows it is the holidays. Don’t act like you don’t.

Is your photography top-notch and tailored to your target audience: It should be.

Test your email to ensure it is mobile friendly: Do this with your site, too!

Think about any relevant videos to include for increased engagement: These take just a few minutes to create. Seriously, go stand against a wall in your office and say a video “Hello and Happy Holidays!” to your customers. It’s worth it!

And after you send…. Don’t forget to measure your results! 

Final Word

Building your holiday email marketing campaign can be a lot of work, but it can also be a lot of fun. Like we said at the start, there is no more effective channel for converting customers (existing and potential) than email, so make the most of it.

Download Your Free Holiday Campaign Lookbook

Get a short and sweet visual roundup of everything you should be doing to make your campaigns stand out this year.

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Holiday Email Marketing Unpacked: 15 Examples, 9 Tools and a Checklist to Make 2017 Your Biggest Success Yet published first on http://ift.tt/2wGG0YJ