Case Study: Sales Growth by $8,800
Email marketing strategy for a freelance marketplace
The client is a freelance marketplace. Freelancers can find projects on the website and the clients can find contractors.
Email marketing was needed to sell more paid subscription plans.
Welcome series for freelancers
One series has already achieved good results. It was a trigger newsletter for freelancers. After signing up they needed to get acquainted with the website, see all its options, and understand its value. After that, they were offered paid services.
This is what the communication plan looked like
Email #1. Fill out the profile
We’ve divided the users into two segments after signing up: those who have and haven’t filled out/in their profile. We’ve sent an email urging to fill it out to those, who didn’t:
1463
filled out profiles
1.6%
conversion from opened emails
to completed target actions
This email brought 1463 filled out profiles from 183,000 deliveries, conversion from opened emails to completed target actions is 1,6%.
Email #2. Take a look at these job vacancies
The next email must pull the freelancer into interacting with the website and show that they can find an employer there. If the user didn’t respond to any job vacancy, they will receive an email, nudging them to visit the vacancies section.
Email #3. Participate in a competition
A competition is a paid service for the employers. They’ve posted a project, announced its budget, and several freelancers can participate in it and then the budget will be spread between the participants depending on their success. Participation in the competition is free for the freelancers.
Email #4. Cooperation protection
Cooperation protection is a service where the website becomes a third party, de-escalating conflicts. It’s more for the employers, who can dispute payments in case of a freelancer failing to meet a project deadline or doing the job unscrupulously. On the other hand, a freelancer could insist on secure cooperation, then they would get a guaranteed payment for the job.
The idea behind this email was that the freelancer was already drawn into using the website. After the emails with job vacancies and competitions, the freelancers have probably begun interacting with the employers, so it is the best time to suggest the cooperation protection service to them.
Email #5. Subscribe to a free account / get a toehold in the catalogue
The previous steps helped us ramp up a new user and show them the service’s value. Now, when the acquaintance takes place and the user has begun interacting with the website, we suggest they buy a paid account if they don’t have one yet. If the user already has a paid account, we send them an offer to get a toehold in the catalogue to be at the top of the contractors’ search results.
Those who have paid accounts fall into another series — a series about further cooperation. In it, we tell about further development on the website by using a paid account and scrupulously fulfilling orders.
Suggesting to pay for the account helped us understand whether a freelancer was ready to pay for the website’s services or not. If they weren’t ready, we suggested an alternative — to post a service. A service posting served as a trigger to suggest its promotion (it is denoted on the scheme separately). It was an opportunity for us to sell something to those who were not ready to buy a paid account.
74%
open rate
9,4%
click rate
0,45%
open to payment conversion
This email had a high open rate — 74% and few clicks — 9,4%. The clients were probably confused by the prices for services. Open to payment conversion — 0,45%.
Reactivation email
To “wake up” the users that haven’t visited the website for a month, we set a reactivation email:
35%
open rate
23%
of them visited the website
This email showed a 35% open rate and 28% of those who opened the email visited the website. However, only 0,1% of the users posted services after receiving the email. This was no surprise as these freelancers have already lost their interest in the website.
Summing up
The described series was implemented in 3 months and it brought in $8,800 worth of sales growth.
3 months
to implement the strategy
$8.800
the monthly sales growth
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