7 takeaways of Nike’s email journey from welcome to post-purchase.

It is no doubt that Nike is one of the most well-known brands out there so you can’t leave without any takeaways if you analyze the email journey of this successful athletic brand on the planet. This post will analyse the email sequence with my personal takeaways from each of the emails.

Nike’s Welcome Email

Nike’s welcome email is like no other. Most welcome emails just come with a friendly greeting after you sign up but Nike strikes early on with the first onboarding email.

They laid down the next steps from the first email by inviting you to join NikePlus from the first email which is a gamified member platform with member-exclusive perks all clearly mentioned in the email to expand on providing your product value to subscribers. Is your business sending welcome emails? Using an welcome email like is a great way to set expectations on what kind of offers & services is expected from your brand. Check welcome email templates here.

Takeaway No#1 is to engage with customers early on when the brand is on top of their mind.

Join NikePlus Reminder Email

Well I get an email from Nike exclusively to join the Nike plus membership that was mentioned in the first email. Subscribers don’t usually understand the product’s value in the first instance that is when a nurturing email comes in and the below email is a great example of that.

Nike not only wants you to try more of it’s product so that new subscribers can be more dedicated to the product but it is also inviting you to be part of a community.

Takeaway No#2 is big brands like Nike drives loyalty through community so building community around product should be top of the priority list

Welcome to NikePlus Email

So my curious mind wanted to learn about learning Nike’s email journey I signed up for the NikePlus membership. With this email Nike has just proved that every single detail matter when it comes to email marketing.

The photos being used is quickly helping subscribers to associate Nike’s brand and product with activity, teamwork & friendship. Also Nike left no leaf unturned to show how the product is being used in the image which is similar to what Peloton does in their email too.(Check Peloton’s email analysis here)

Takeaway No#3 People are not sold on what you do, but they are sold on why you do it.

Nike’s Abandoned Cart Email

Getting more curious on what the abandoned reminder would look like I put a pair of sneakers in my cart and then didn’t proceed with the checkout. I received abandoned cart email from Nike couple of days later as opposed to most companies, sending abandoned email just an hour later.

Not only did Nike remind me of the product that is still sitting in the cart they also make recommended items just in case I no longer have interest to the product which I intended to buy or keep the buying process going so that any subscriber doesn’t stop with buying only one items.

Nike also ease the pressure of customer from a variety of shoes to choose from by providing expert advice & 30-day free return which just sets an example of a promising customer experience.

Takeaway No #4 make an email which meets all the requirements of an effective sales page by reminding of the product, overcome all possible objection and recommending items if the current selection is of no interest.

Nike’s Weekly Email

There’s a lot of debate on the internet around how many emails should be send by businesses per week. There is no specific answer to this. Nike however have different email journey for different customer activity. For e.g. When a customer sign up to Nike but does not purchase any product they receive up to 6 emails in 9 days keeping a gap of 2 days in between.

Nike’s email just like the last one give you plenty of different products to choose from with the hope of something that will interest me and will lead to their website. Then they remind of the two most popular service (expert advice & 30-day free returns) removing all the chances of coming up with excuses for customers not to go ahead and purchase.

Takeaway No # 5 Overwhelm your customers with a range of items to choose to keep the buying thought process going.

Nike’s Restock Email

What if someone goes to your website, finds a product that they love, and attempt to purchase but the product is out of stock. Happens to all ecommerce store and Nike is of no exception.

Nike prompts the visitor to enter their email address (which is a way to collect leads) in order to provide a restock notification. When we opted-in to one of these notifications I received the below email.

This email is around reminding the customer that the item they were interested in is back in stock. They even include a “Shop” link that leads directly to that product’s page. Most of the back-in-stock emails will stop with the call to action button but Nike leaves no opportunity to also list few other products just to make sure even if they have no interest in the restocked product anymore there are other product to look at.

Takeaway No # 6 Take every opportunity to prompt customers to explore range of your products.

Nike’s Customer Service Feedback Email

No matter how successful or thriving your company, collecting feedback from the target market should never be missed. The feedback provided by customer whether good or bad provides direction to the business to double down on the good ones and rectify the mistakes.

After contacting customer service regarding the recent order, I received this email from Nike

This email may look simple but it has got everything you need to get responses from people. First of all, they state out the purpose of getting this feedback with the line “Your feedback helps us get better at what we do, every day.”

Secondly they state out the time it requires to provide the feedback. If you are not collecting feedback from your customers you are leaving a lot of opportunity to learn on the table. You can get email templates from this platform to collect feedback from your own customers for learning and potential to iterate.

Takeaway No # 7 collecting feedback is one of the most important thing because if you are not getting feedback you are not learning about your customers

Nike’s Post-Purchase Emails

The curious mind is not going to go home without knowing what it looks like when I purchase Nike products i.e. running shoes. It included all the standard things like date of arrival, order number and the ability to track a package.

At the end of the email they also included “TOP PICKS FOR YOU” section because people open email receipt more often than any other emails so it’s a no-brainer to up-sell or promote product with the open rate of this email being so high.

If you have read all the way through this then you are awesome. If you are inspired by Nike’s email marketing and want to set one for yourself then check out Skripts which can help you come up with great email marketing content in minutes.