3 builders who never spoke to each other
Rewrite the automatic emails nobody ever reviews
Receipts, shipping notices and error messages are the mail customers definitely open, and they are usually the only email left untouched by anyone. Putting real effort into them, using the buyer's own name, telling them what their action achieved, and following up personally weeks later, turns plumbing into the most reliable touchpoint you have.
The method
- 01
Spend real effort on the unglamorous notification and onboarding emails. They are the first impression most customers get of you and the recurring point of contact, so treat each one as an invitation to connect.
- 02
Rewrite your transactional emails as entertainment rather than logistics: the shipping confirmation is a touchpoint every buyer definitely opens.
- 03
Send a follow-up message telling the customer what their action ended up achieving, because the final impression is what they remember and repeat.
- 04
Take the buyer's first name off the payment record, tidy the capitalisation, and reuse it in the receipt, the account email and the logged-in greeting, with a warm generic when it is missing.
- 05
Set a thirty day delay after purchase, then send a plain text follow-up out of your own mailbox so it carries no automation branding and sits in your sent items ready to reply to.
What it returned
- 1998
Derek Sivers replaced CD Baby's stock order-shipped notice in 1998 with an absurd 20-minute rewrite, which Sivers credits with thousands of new customers
Swedish blood banks text donors once their blood has been used
The Show Them automation pulls the name from Lemon Squeezy and defaults to Friend.
Built in Zapier and delivered through Gmail for Show Them buyers.
Sources
- CD Baby's confirmation emailHarry Dry · Marketing Examples · CD Baby's confirmation email · undated
- Nine marketing examples that tap into cognitive biasesHarry Dry · Marketing Examples · Nine marketing examples that tap into cognitive biases · undated
- How I custom-built my online course (tech stack, onboarding, costs, screenshots) - Rob HopeRob Hope · robhope.com · Automation: Zapier · 2025-05-29
- Tipping Over – The Bootstrapped FounderArvid Kahl · thebootstrappedfounder.com · 2024-07-12
the second source
Three plays a week, for the phase you are in
No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.
More in email
- Move the audience you rent onto a list you own7 unconnected
- Hold the schedule you promised to hold5 unconnected
- Decide whether cold email is worth what it signals5 unconnected · contested
- Settle who the publication is for before growing it5 unconnected
- Open the list before the product is real4 unconnected
- Send each subscriber the thing they told you they want4 unconnected