

An Introduction to Lifecycle Email - zeeshanm
https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/lifecycle_emails_3

======
laurencei
As I read this - I felt like I've read it before.

Then I realised it is just a duplicate of
[https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/lifecycle...](https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/lifecycle_emails_1).

Its almost the exact same content - just a slightly newer version with 2-3
small typo changes, and is a couple of years old

~~~
jasonkester
The reason is that it's not a blog entry. It's the "read in a browser" version
of Patrick's amazing email course.

Lots of people signed up for it when it was new, and even though Patrick
specifically asked that it not be submitted here, every mail was. Now we get
the occasional repost from people who are just now working their way through
the course.

That it is occasionally updated and has no date stamp should therefore not
come as a surprise.

------
MortenK
A tip if you already use lifecycle programs: Set up your marketing automation
tool to automatically unsubscribe your recipients from the program, if they
are not opening the first 2-3 emails (thereby showing a lack of interest in
the specific program). This allows you to keep a higher percentage of email
permissions, which you can use for less frequent communication.

Otherwise a large part of the uninterested segment will end up revoking their
email permission, i.e. Unsubscribing from your permission base entirely.

~~~
danmaz74
On the other hand, measuring email opens is far from perfect - the user can
have images off - and you could unsubscribe users who are actually reading
your stuff.

~~~
MortenK
That's very true, you'd be unsubscribing some false positives. Usually this is
marginal though, and it's a tradeoff worth taking except if your recipient
group have an abnormally high use of image off. Also, you can decrease the
percentage by hosting content on a landing page since in most tools, a click
will also register an open.

------
fenomas
I tried the "WPEngine speed report" link described in this, and got back a
slightly humorous result:

    
    
      > What If WP Engine Were Your WordPress Hosting Company?
      > 0% faster total page-load time!
      > Using the techniques detailed below, moving your blog to 
      > WP Engine would shave 0.0 seconds off your page-load time..
    

Not meaning to belittle the service, which I'm sure is excellent, but there's
a lesson there about preparing automatic reports...

~~~
hawkice
For any WPEngine employees reading: I now trust you almost completely on the
subject of website speed.

This is the perfect opposite of e.g. the A/B testing company that will show a
statistically significant improvement from no change at all -- if I see that
you aren't overstating the case, I care about the results and trust they are
valid.

~~~
fenomas
Actually it looked more like a possible bug. WPEngine's report gave me an "F"
grade on 4 of its 6 result categories (my site is just wordpress out of the
box), plus it reported a great many metrics to many significant digits, so
it'd be odd if everything came out precisely equal to their offering. (There
was no detail on where the "0%" came from, though.)

~~~
tnpuig
Actually a few things can cause that state.

1\. You could be on us already so we'd say "Hey, can't be faster than us, on
us" 2\. The speed test API could have gotten wonky and not returned a result.
3\. Could be a bug

I'll check on if any of those are true and thanks for the heads up.

------
gojomo
I don't quite get the supposed-earnings math on the "$200-an-email" example.
Sure, you get cash up front - but at the cost of one month's fees (the prepay
discount).

Whether that's a win would seem to depend on other variables never discussed,
for example what your cost of cash is from other sources, and whether the
year-prepay has other benefits (like preventing mid-year lapses due to payment
problems or customer second thoughts).

~~~
patio11
The answers to these questions, and why they're not addressed at length there,
is:

1) The typical SaaS company has no meaningful ability to raise capital at
cheaper terms than pre-pays offer. If you could get a bank loan for 5% a year,
then you actually have to do math here, but you can't get a bank loan for 5% a
year as a SaaS company. It's virtually impossible. Not only can _my business_
not get a bank loan, _large, successful_ SaaS companies find it difficult to
raise meaningful amounts of money on the terms that e.g. a restaurant would
get if they pledged the real estate as collateral.

If you speak to more specialized lenders, you can get them to loan you money
based on your existing revenue, but the cost is typically > 10% on an APR
basis. If you speak to less-specialized alternative small business lenders,
you can easily end up in the 30% region. (OnDeck, for example.) Or you could
do merchant cash advantages, which are up their with payday loans, except
company-sized.

2) A rule-of-thumb for churn rates on month-to-month SaaS is +/\- 5% before
you start really working on it, 3% after you've done significant work on that,
and 2% if you're among the most successful in the industry. This implies that
you expect to lose between ~22% and ~46% of customers in the first 12 months.
The yearly discount costs you ~8% and locks in those first 12 months of
revenue. Assuming people willing to accept that deal are not a-prior _wildly_
better customers than the median customer at the best month-to-month SaaS
companies, it's net-beneficial virtually every time.

~~~
dennisgorelik
That explains why switching to annual plain is beneficial. It does not explain
$200 gain per email.

20% of $200 - quite possible. That translates to $40/email, which is still
quite significant.

But still not $200.

~~~
gojomo
I see how "$200" works strictly as a cash-in-door number – though at the
expense of later profits.

Toy setup matching the post's parameters:

    
    
      STARTING SITUATION:
      10 customers at $200/month
      = $2,000 cash this month and next 11 months
      over 12 months = $24,000 expected revenue
    
      BUT INSTEAD:
      send 10 emails, 1 customer prepays $2200 (instead of $200) 
      = $4,000 cash this month
      then $1800/month next 11 months
      over 12 months = $23,800 revenue
    

So, _this month_ , the 10 emails brought in $2,000 extra cash – hence,
"$200-per-email".

But of course it's just pulling revenue forward (borrowing from customers).
And, it's at a rather steep effective interest rate: over 17% per year.

So while it's cash-flow positive, it's only profitable if there's some
combination of (1) productive places to invest that money; and (2) improved
mid-year retention of the prepaid customers – that together return more than
the ~17% cost.

~~~
hawkice
It actually leaves you with more money, due to churn being reduced to 0 for
that customer for a year. Assuming a somewhat idealized 5% churn, you'll get
numbers floating in this ballpark:

No Yearly Discount Offer: Month 1: $2,000 Month 2: $1,900 Month 3: $1,805
Month 4: $1,714 Month 5: $1,629 Month 6: $1,547 Month 7: $1,470 Month 8:
$1,396 Month 9: $1,326 Month 10: $1,260 Month 11: $1,197 Month 12: $1,137
Total: $18,385

Yearly Discount Offer Month 1: $1,800 Month 2: $1,710 Month 3: $1,624 Month 4:
$1,543 Month 5: $1,466 Month 6: $1,392 Month 7: $1,323 Month 8: $1,257 Month
9: $1,194 Month 10: $1,134 Month 11: $1,077 Month 12: $1,023 Total: $18,747

This works for churn = 2% and churn = 3% as well, but the difference is
smaller (still favors the yearly discount, though). If you have a churn of 1%,
then the yearly discount costs you money, but you still get the cash
immediately, which is so useful I'd do still do it.

EDIT: It should be noted that the churn rate you care about here is the churn
rate of people who would be willing to make a year-long precommit (more loyal
customers in general), but I don't see them as being 1% churn level, as
'patio11 alluded to above.

------
barry-cotter
>five hours of video tutorials by your's truly

yours

------
username223
It's like one of those daytime TV commercials for a new kind of blender, but
he's selling his own kind of email hucksterism. Ugh.

~~~
napoleond
HN users have traditionally been very interested in sharing their experiences
in the software business (among, obviously, many other interests). If that
doesn't interest you, that's quite alright, but it's not "hucksterism".

Also, 'patio11 is one of HN's most valued contributors (as evidenced by his
position on the leaderboard). That doesn't mean that he should be exempted
from any criticism, but I think in any healthy community it would at least
merit a level of respect that your comment lacks.

~~~
username223
> Also, 'patio11 is one of HN's most valued contributors...

I'm guessing "kalzumeus.com" and/or "zeeshanm" is "'patio11", but I'm not
plugged into the community enough to recognize this august citizen. The
article reads like a sleazy, low-grade sales pitch, so I don't see why it
deserves any particular respect.

~~~
napoleond
Welcome to HN! I don't know 'zeeshanm. kalzumeus.com is 'patio11's domain.

This is a great way to get a feel for the site and its members:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/lists](https://news.ycombinator.com/lists)

You're not being down voted because of "groupthink", by the way. You're being
down voted because you haven't said anything of substance.

