Running an eCommerce business isn’t easy, but having an email marketing strategy in place can help you a great deal.
Even though email has been around for a while, it is still one of the most powerful tools for building relationships with your customers and generating sales. In fact, email marketing accounts for nearly 25% of sales, making it one of the most effective marketing channels available.
But getting email marketing right can be challenging. There are so many things to do and you can easily get overwhelmed.
Luckily, you don’t need to come up with eCommerce email ideas on your own. We’ve compiled a list of 8 eCommerce email marketing tips that will help your eCommerce business grow.
Rely on Automation
Before you begin creating and sending out emails, make sure you’re well prepared. Using an email automation tool is the best thing you can do to keep your email marketing strategy consistent and scalable without sacrificing personalization and relationships.
Good email automation tools allow you to set up automated email campaigns and do things like:
- Turn your regular Gmail or Google Apps account into a powerful mail merge platform
- Send welcome emails to new subscribers
- Send abandoned cart emails
- Check-in with subscribers that haven’t engaged in a while
- Notify customers when a certain item that’s in their cart is on sale
- Promote webinars or events
- Send out anniversary or birthday emails.
Email automation will take boring, repetitive tasks allowing you to focus on other more important tasks, like responding to customer questions. It can help customers learn more about your eCommerce business, remind them of why they bought from you in the first place, and encourage them to come back.
Start with Welcome Emails
Besides providing a warm welcome to new subscribers, welcome emails also provide them with relevant content when they are psychologically ready for you. When somebody visits your eCommerce site and submits their email, it means they’re interested in your product or service.
So, the best time to reach out to your new email subscribers is immediately after they have signed up. Welcome emails have more than 85% higher open rates than other types of email and generate up to 310% more revenue per email than other emails.
Consider sending a welcome email series consisting of at least three emails to help new subscribers find out a little more about you. This is a great way to promote yourself, set expectations about your relationships, and even segment your subscribers to improve your future communication.
Make Sure Your Emails are Well-Designed
All the emails you’re sending out need to be well-designed and responsive. But this doesn’t mean that every email needs to contain videos or images. Emails containing only text can also do well if they are interesting!
In order to make your emails visually appealing, besides visuals, you can also use bullets and headings to break up bigger blocks of text and make them easier to read.
In addition, ensure that your emails look good on mobile and that they are easy to understand. When composing your emails, begin with a hook to ensure that your copy encourages the reader to read the email until the end.
Finally, it’s best to add only one CTA in each email in order to prevent it from looking cluttered and avoid confusion.
Personalize Your Emails
Personalization can significantly improve clicks, open rates, and engagement while at the same time decreasing spam reports, unsubscribes, and bounces.
Sending out emails with content that is tailored specifically to every audience segment is an excellent way to keep your email subscribers satisfied. And, as you might have already figured out, satisfied subscribers tend to buy more.
Begin by segmenting your email list depending on standard demographics like gender, age, education, and income. Then, rely on psychographics to go into things like their interests, values, and personality. This way, you’ll be able to create a complete picture of your subscribers and figure out what’s the best way to communicate with them.
Offer Exclusive Discounts
In the world of eCommerce, email discounts and promotions are a must when looking to boost sales quickly.
However, they can be somewhat tricky and require you to walk a fine line. You don’t want to come across as too spammy or shake the brand loyalty of your current customers.
When creating these special offer emails, keep in mind that your prospects are at different stages of the buyer’s journey. While new subscribers might need some more info before they decide to buy from you, a discount code could work better on prospects who are already on your list. Make sure to provide the right incentives, and you will not only make them loyal customers but also brand advocates!
Send Abandoned Cart Emails
Did you know that over 70% of shoppers abandon their shopping carts? Luckily, this doesn’t mean that these sales are lost for good.
Cart abandonment emails are triggered emails that are sent out after a cart is abandoned with an aim to motivate the customer to recover his cart. Each cart abandonment email can contain different messages, like the cart content, discounts, or personalized product recommendations.
Make sure your messages are personalized according to the customer purchase history and the abandoned cart content, and generated in real-time, in order to make sure you’re sending the right message to the right customer at the right time.
Send Notifications Emails
Right after the welcome emails, notifications get the highest open-rate compared to all other email types. Notification emails stand out in a user’s inbox because the content in the notification is tied directly to what is happening on their account.
When a certain product is out of stock, allow shoppers to sign up to be notified when that item gets available again. You should also allow shoppers to set up wish lists so you can set up email automation and send them updates about those products from time to time.
Grow Your Email List
So, you’re doing everything by the book and still, your email list seems to decline? Not to worry, this is perfectly normal. In fact, email lists tend to decline by more than 20% a year! That’s why it’s important to keep growing your email list by constantly adding new subscribers.
Consider putting opt-ins to various places like your headers, footers, website sidebar, etc. You can also ask customers to subscribe during check out as they have already made a decision to buy from you, which means they value your products.
Final Thoughts
These 8 tips should be enough to help you make the most out of your email campaigns and see your sales increase.
Remember, providing value is key in cutting through the noise and reaching customers in ways that will persuade them to keep opening your emails.