There are various marketing channels that you can use to market your brand such as content marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, search engine marketing, PPC and network marketing. However, successful brand owners are aware that ecommerce email marketing is a very profitable channel of marketing to secure high-ticket leads.
Table of contents:
- What is Ecommerce Email Marketing?
- Why Should You Do Ecommerce Email Marketing?
- 5 Ecommerce Email Marketing Strategies to Increase Revenue
- 5 Best Practices for Ecommerce Email Marketing in 2024
Let’s quickly look into “What is ecommerce email marketing?” and why ecommerce websites should do email marketing.
What is Ecommerce Email Marketing?
Ecommerce email marketing is a form of digital marketing which uses email as the mode of communication to send marketing messages to existing and potential customers. Brands can implement this strategy to either sell, educate, build brand awareness, increase brand loyalty or do them all with the help of ecommerce email marketing.
The marketing strategy here can be as simple as sending weekly email blasts and newsletters or creating a series of email flows starting from sign-up emails, to abandon cart emails and back-in-stock emails.
However, the ultimate goal is to increase customer engagement which translates to an increase in conversions for the brands, aka revenue growth.
Why Should You Do Ecommerce Email Marketing?
As an ecommerce brand, you’re probably already aware of the various digital marketing channels to market and sell your products.
However, unlike other marketing channels like content marketing, PPC and social media where you compete with various other brands online to rank first for a customer search query, ecommerce email marketing gives you direct access to the customer’s inbox to make your sales pitch.
You should do email marketing since it provides you with a direct and personalised channel of communication with your audience, allowing you to send tailored messages, promotions, and updates based on customer journeys and preferences.
Ecommerce email marketing is also cost-effective as it eliminates the need for printing, postage, or advertising fees. Likewise, you can also build brand loyalty by sharing timely updates with your customers and increasing their lifetime value.
5 Ecommerce Email Marketing Strategies to Increase Revenue
1. Implement and Automate the Welcome Email Series
A welcome email is the equivalent of a virtual handshake with your audience. When a customer signs up to your mailing list, sending them an immediate welcome email acts as a confirmation that the process is successfully completed.
The average open rate of a welcome email is approximately 68.59% according to a study published by Neil Patel, and this should give you a good start to engage with your audience before moving to your larger ecommerce email marketing campaigns.
Aim for 2-3 emails as part of your welcome series. Introduce your brand, highlight your best offerings and try getting customer responses by the 3rd email to understand your audience better, and to personalise their email experience with your brand in the future.
To automate your ecommerce email marketing welcome email series, start by finalising your ideal email marketing platform for ecommerce like Hubspot, Mailchimp or Klaviyo. Then, develop a simple workflow that outlines the sequence of emails within your welcome series that triggers with the first sign-up.
Send an immediate email when a customer subscribes to your mailing list. Follow it up 2 days later with more information about your brand and unique selling points. Your final email as part of the welcome series can be sent 3 days after the previous email. You can share customer testimonials, reviews, or user-generated content here. Highlight previous positive experiences to reassure new subscribers of the value and quality your brand delivers.
2. Achieve high open rates and engagement with Personalisation
Leverage customer data to create hyper-personalised campaigns that resonate with your audience’s individual preferences. According to a report by Campaign Monitor, personalised emails have an open rate that’s 29% higher and a click-through rate (CTR) that’s 41% higher than non-personalised messages.
To begin with, you can try including the customer’s first email in the subject line and email body. Here’s the personalisation token for the first name from a few popular email marketing platforms to get you started:
- Hubspot First Name Personalisation Token
{{ contact.firstname }} - Mailchimp First Name Personalisation Token
*|FNAME|* - Klaviyo First Name Personalisation Token
{{ first_name }}
3. Re-engage With Potential Customers Using Abandoned Cart Emails
Cart abandonment is a common challenge, with potential customers leaving the purchase journey midway. Especially in the digital era where customers have multiple options at just a click away, prompt action will help you drastically recover these sales.
The ideal abandoned cart email series timeline is to:
- Send the first email 1 hour after the customer leaves the cart or website
- Send the second abandoned cart email the next day
- The third email is to be sent 3 days after the second email or reminder
Re-engaging with your potential customers over abandoned cart emails, including points to address their common concerns, offering incentives and discounts, or just creating a sense of urgency increases the chance of your customers completing the sale.
4. Hook and Deliver Should Be Your Go-To Strategy in Ecommerce Email Marketing
Increase your email open rate amidst a customer’s crowded inbox with a catchy hook in the subject line about your product/service or their problem.
Keep the pace by following up on the subject line and presenting your offer. Use eye-catching and interactive email designs. Incorporate GIFs, graphs, and other elements to capture attention quickly.
Don’t clickbait! Provide actual actionable information. Say you have a blog about increasing website speed, share 1 actionable tip from the blog for the subscriber to implement and see quick results. Include a call to action (CTA) like ‘Read More’ now, and it will get a better conversion rate.
5. Highly Segment Your Audience to Get Ahead of the Crowd
Invest in advanced segmentation strategies. Utilise demographic, behavioural, and past purchase information to create highly targeted segments. This ensures that each subscriber receives content tailored to their preferences and stage in the customer journey, leading to increased relevance and higher conversion rates.
By regularly sharing content that connects with your audience, you will increase the credibility of your brand and brand loyalty.
Bonus Strategy: Leverage A/B Testing to the Fullest
By implementing A/B testing in your email marketing strategy, you will be able to understand the preferences of your audience better. You can test everything from messaging to colour and call-to-actions.
A good place to start is with A/B testing your subject lines and preview tests. Test a series of similar emails before deciding what works best for your brand. By implementing the winning strategy in your future emails, you will get better conversions and added advantage during sales, events, etc.
Remember to test one aspect at a time for better and clearer results. For instance, check the click rate difference between the text ‘Read More’ and ‘Read Now’ CTA, before hoping to find what colour buttons are performing better. You get the gist of it!
5 Best Practices for Ecommerce Email Marketing in 2024
Sending a set of automated emails is quite easy. However, to reap the benefits of a fully functional email marketing campaign strategy, adhering to basic ecommerce email marketing best practices is necessary. Let’s quickly look into 5 best practices that you can implement right away for better customer engagement:
1. Don’t Buy Email Lists:
Buying email lists might seem like a shortcut to a large subscriber base, but it often leads to negative consequences. Since most purchased lists are not targeted, the audience from these lists is not interested in your specific products or services. This will result in high bounce rates, low engagement, and damage to the sender’s reputation. Although building your email list authentically from 0 might seem daunting, it is worth the while. Almost all organic sign-ups are subscribers who are genuinely interested in what you offer thereby allowing you to communicate and connect with them. This will help you build a better brand reputation and loyalty among customers.
2. Set Up Double Opt-Ins for Subscribers:
Double opt-ins add an extra layer of confirmation to the subscription process. After a user signs up, they receive a confirmation email with a link to verify their subscription. This ensures that subscribers genuinely want to receive your emails, reducing the likelihood of spam complaints and improving the quality of your email list.
It’s a valuable step in maintaining a clean and engaged subscriber base. This also prevents fake sign-ups and helps ensure you’re compliant with anti-spam regulations and laws like GDPR.
3. Optimise Emails, Especially for Mobiles:
With the increasing use of smartphones, optimising emails for mobile devices is crucial. Since most email campaigns are designed on desktops and bigger devices, you might miss out on responsiveness.
By simply using the mobile view to check how the email would look on mobile devices, you’re increasing the effectiveness of your campaign tremendously. Responsive design ensures that your emails look good and are easy to read on various screen sizes.
Consider mobile-friendly layouts, concise subject lines, and compelling visuals. Test your emails on different devices and email clients to guarantee a seamless and visually appealing experience for mobile users, who constitute a significant portion of your audience.
4. Run Health Checks of the Email List for Peak Performance:
Regularly perform health checks on your email list to maintain its quality and effectiveness. Remove inactive subscribers, update bounced or undeliverable email addresses, and address any spam complaints promptly.
A clean email list not only improves deliverability but also ensures that your marketing efforts are reaching a genuinely interested audience, increasing the likelihood of engagement and conversions.
5. Keep Emails Brief, Allow to Skim Through Content:
In today’s era of information overload, keeping emails brief and easily scannable is crucial. Craft compelling subject lines and use clear, concise language in your content.
Break up text into short paragraphs and use bullet points or numbered lists to facilitate quick scanning. Ensure that your main message is easy to understand and retain in mind at a glance. This approach caters to the preferences of busy subscribers and increases the likelihood of them absorbing key information and taking desired actions.
Conclusion:
Although marketing trends tend to change, the core marketing concepts are evergreen. Incorporating these strategies and best practices into your ecommerce email marketing efforts will lead to a more personalised, engaging, and revenue-driven approach.
Remember to modify and adapt these recommendations to best suit your brand’s unique characteristics and analyse performance data at set intervals to optimise your ecommerce email marketing campaigns for sustained success.