Wellness brand email marketing: education plus a reason to buy

Why do wellness buyers need more convincing?

Wellness is a considered purchase. People are buying something for their sleep, their stress, their body or their home, and they've usually tried something before that didn't work. They read the ingredients, the reviews and the fine print.

That's why wellness brands lean so hard on education. It builds trust, answers objections and gives people a reason to believe you. All good. The trap is stopping there.

What happens when wellness emails are all education?

They look healthy and don't sell. At one wellness brand, a month of all-educational campaigns with no offer took campaign revenue from $3,146 to $110. People read. Some clicked. Almost nobody bought, because nobody asked them to.

Content warms people up, but somebody has to ask for the sale. So pair every educational email with a reason to buy. Here's the shape I'd use:

1. Teach one thing. One idea, short. "Why your evening routine matters more than your morning one."
2. Connect it to the product. Plainly, without overclaiming. Where does your product fit in what you just taught?
3. Give one reason to buy now. A new product, a restock, a bundle, a free shipping threshold, early access for customers, or a subscribe perk.
4. One button. One destination, so the click goes somewhere that sells.

Every email doesn't need a discount. It needs a reason. For more on balancing the two, see content emails vs promotional emails.

Why should welcome email #1 get most of your effort?

Because it earns most of the money. At one wellness brand, welcome email #1 made $2,160 from 50 deliveries in one month, about $43 every time it was sent. That's a small number of sends, so don't read it as a rate you'll hit, but it shows how much one well-built email can do for a considered purchase.

My pooled data from 4 consumable brands points the same way: welcome email #1 earned about $4.50 per person, and emails #2 to #5 about $0.10 each.

For a wellness brand, here's what I'd put in email #1:

• Who it's for, in one line. Help them decide fast whether this is for them.
• How to choose. If you sell more than one product, point them to the right starting place.
• Proof. Real reviews, ingredient sourcing, how it's made. Keep claims honest (more on that below).
• One reason to buy now, and one button.

In the Flow System I install, the welcome series is 6 emails over 7 days (days 0, 1, 2, 4, 6 and 7) and ends as soon as they buy. Email #1 carries most of the money, which is why the offer goes in it. The rest of the week builds trust before the offer expires on day 7: the brand and the category, the best first purchase, proof, then objections. That's education plus a reason to buy, built into the flow. More on structure in my welcome email series guide.

How do subscriptions change wellness email?

If you sell a subscription, the pre-charge reminder is probably your most important email. At one subscription wellness brand, the "your order is coming up" reminder made $47,321 in one month, 74% of all its flow revenue.

It also held the business up when acquisition dried up. In a month when store revenue fell 37% and new customers dropped from 1,657 to 223, email's share of revenue went from 41% to 53%. The customers already on the calendar kept buying.

Here's how I'd build that reminder:

• Send it a few days before the charge, so nobody gets billed by surprise.
• Make it easy to add a product, swap or skip. A skipped month beats a cancellation.
• Use it to teach. A short tip on getting more out of what they're about to receive keeps the routine going.

For keeping subscribers longer, see my guide to subscription churn emails.

What can a wellness brand say in an email?

Be careful with claims. I'm not a lawyer, and you should have one review anything that touches health. The FTC's Health Products Compliance Guidance says health benefit claims need "competent and reliable scientific evidence," and that claims are judged by the "net impression" of the whole piece, including images and product names. Testimonials count as claims too.

In practice, that means your education should explain how to use the product and what it's made of, not promise outcomes you can't back up. I cover this in more depth in my post on supplement email marketing.

Which flows should a wellness brand build first?

My Flow System has 8 core flows: welcome series, abandoned checkout, abandoned cart, browse abandonment, collection abandonment, site abandonment, post purchase thank you and customer winback, each with separate paths for customers and people who haven't bought yet. Every one carries an offer: people who haven't bought get the same offer as your welcome series, and customers get a slightly better one, a buy-more offer or a subscription. For wellness, here's where I'd put extra care:

• Welcome series, with most of the work in email #1.
• Browse abandonment and abandoned cart, answering the "will this work for me?" worry with honest proof and your return policy. In cart and checkout, the first email has no offer, the offer comes in through the sequence, and the final reminder carries it before it expires with the last email. People who haven't bought yet get the same offer as your welcome series, never a bigger one; customers get a slightly better offer, a buy-more offer or a subscription. I also show the subscription option inside these automations, which gives the brand more predictable monthly revenue.
• Post purchase thank you, split by order count and teaching the routine so people use it right and stick with it. The review invitation goes to every customer who reaches their third order, based on order count, not on how happy anyone seems.
• Subscription reminder or reorder reminder, on top of the core 8, if your product runs out.
• Customer winback: 5 emails from day 45 to day 60, the offer at email 4, and only engaged openers enter. In my pooled data, winback email #3 earned about 2x email #1.

What should a wellness brand measure?

Judge emails by clicks and revenue, not opens. Apple Mail inflates opens, and an educational email can have great engagement and still not sell.

• Revenue per recipient for education-only sends vs education plus a reason to buy.
• Revenue per delivery for welcome email #1.
• Subscription reminder revenue, and skips vs cancels.
• Email's share of total revenue, especially in slow months.

For the bigger picture, see my repeat purchase email strategy.

Where these numbers come from

The welcome and education numbers are from one wellness brand, and the subscription numbers are from one subscription wellness brand. Single-brand results depend on the product, the list and the starting point, so treat them as examples, not benchmarks. The per-person numbers come from a pooled look at 4 consumable brands, 2,897 campaigns and $17.7M in email revenue, which is a small sample and directional.

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WRITTEN BY Jack White

Founder of Bardown Digital, a Chicago-based Klaviyo email and retention agency for Shopify brands. He's worked with brands doing $500K to $100M a year, with $100M+ in email-attributed revenue across them.

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