Do you appreciate it when someone takes a moment to send a text and ask about you? Maybe they haven’t heard from you for a while? Well, your customers feel the same way. In business, extending some personalized attention to your customers is as necessary to maintaining relationships as it is in your personal life. If you’re looking for ways to increase customer engagement and revenue (and who isn’t?) eCommerce email marketing can help.
Of course, “personalized attention” doesn’t mean getting too personal. Instead, it’s acknowledging the history you share with your customers and its value to your business. And with a nod to their buying preferences, you foster continuity and brand recognition.
In this competitive market, you’ll need to consider every advantage. We’ve listed six eCommerce email marketing ideas to increase traffic to your site, offer better customer service, and help grow your business.
How Do I Start an Ecommerce Email Marketing?
Now that you’re wondering how eCommerce email marketing can work for you, you’ll be happy to read that getting it done won’t break the bank. Though there is a little more to eCommerce email marketing than popping out emails, it’s not that hard to crack—just dedicate some time and effort to the project.
The following are the seven most effective eCommerce email marketing tactics:
- The Welcome email
- Abandoned cart email
- Promotional email
- Automated email
- Replenishment email
- Grow your email list
- Mobile friendly email marketing
While some of these marketing strategies look self-explanatory, we’ll discuss how each approach can contribute to your marketing success.
The Welcome email
The first email you ever received was a welcome email. Whenever it might have been that you signed on with your online service provider, you received a welcome email. And you probably still have it.
It’s just good customer service. A welcome email acknowledges your customer and serves as a subscriber thank-you note. Send the welcome email as soon as a customer signs up to your eCommerce site. Personalize it with your theme, add a few words or images for appeal, and include contact information, customer service commitment, etc. Sometimes a business offers specials, introductory discounts, or a sign-up bonus to get the relationship started. Mention it in your welcome email. What do you want a potential customer to know about your business?
Source: Slack impresses its users with its welcome email.
A welcome email gives you an excuse to reach out and make contact. And welcome email response rates are high, with a higher open rate than any other email. Statistically, online surveys indicate that welcome emails drive nearly 320% more revenue than other promotional emails sent out by a business.
Gather information about your customers’ likes and dislikes. What brought them to your site? Customers can share their preferences in a poll, providing actionable insights for improved customer service and product line improvements.
Abandoned Cart email
Cart abandonment is triggered when a visitor surfs your site, adds products to a shopping cart, and leaves the site without completing the order. It happens all the time and for multiple reasons. A visitor might have switched tabs to compare prices with your competition, or a call or text message distracted them from completing the process.
An abandoned cart email can be a helpful reminder, sometimes even a call-to-action. It should go out to your customer within an hour of the cart abandonment, with a follow-up email in another 24-48 hours.
You might be surprised by the success rate of this practice. According to eCommerce marketing statistics, almost 45% of abandoned cart emails are opened, out of which 21% of customers click through the email links. This redirecting has led nearly 50% of customers to complete the checkout process, increasing sales by 63%.
Source: American giant reminds its customers to complete ordering the Hoodie dress.
How cool is this? Rather than preparing elaborate campaigns to bring new customers to your site, optimizing the purchasing power of your existing customers with this eCommerce email marketing tactic is a smart move.
New marketing campaigns are needed to boost your business, but remember the tried-and-true marketing secret—keep your current customers happy.
Promotional email
Promotional opportunities can drive a marketing plan. To stay viable in these competitive times, a business needs to stay creative and try new techniques to set itself apart from the crowd. Promotional campaigns are clickbait to anyone coming across your emails or website advertisements.
If your marketing plan relies on promotions to increase sales, promotional emails to your subscribers’ list deserve some attention. Personalize emails by adding names, favorite products, or how much they saved by purchasing through promotions. Include some interesting content, something meaningful to the reader.
Announcing promotional opportunities can be a win-win for you and your customers. Consider upcoming holidays (or special occasions like Valentine’s Day), announce promotions for business milestone anniversaries, or subscriber’s birthdays. Look for a big increase in traffic to your site and another boost in sales.
Source: David’sTea sending out promotional emails for their 10th anniversary.
Automated emails
Ecommerce email marketing requires personalization to be most effective, but as your customer base grows, manually customizing customer emails is no longer feasible. Automated emails will make all the difference. There are many affordable eCommerce email marketing software on the market that you can use to customize, schedule, and select particular target groups for mailings.
Automated emails include notifications such as order confirmation, order shipped, stock returns, wishlist products on sale, abandoned cart updates, etc. And a great subject line will always help catch the attention of your subscribers and increase those click rates.
Whatever your approach, consistent timing is key. ECommerce email marketing software can set the timing between mailings, respond to trigger events, and keep your customers informed of pertinent details in a consistent and timely manner.
Keep your customers engaged and on track by consistently fulfilling their expectations.
Replenishment email
You are selling products that your customers might run out of at a point in time? Then here’s your key to the door of revenues and profits.
Make it easy for your customers; try optimizing your emails that help them re-order the same product with the click of a button. What’s more convincing than reminding and equally direct? The replenishment emails will remind most of your customers that they might need the product to be refilled in their daily life.
This email is a way to re-engage with idle customers. The chances of re-ordering your website are high because the customers have already used your product and wouldn’t try thinking twice.
Grow your email list
Your subscribers are direct leads deserving of your attention. So, how do you grow your email list? This process will require more website optimization to organize subscribers’ personal data into sorting criteria.
Source: Quickbooks try a creative approach to grow their email list among its visitors.
Optimize your website’s header, footer, About Us section, and Contact page to attract more subscribers. Find creative ways to encourage site visitors to opt-in on your email list.
Here are a few suggestions:
- Ask your customers to opt-in for promotional or new product updates at the checkout page. There is a good chance of success here as these customers are already interested in your product line.
- Add a checkbox to opt-in for reminder emails from your site on the payment page. These are customers looking for order confirmation and shipping updates; they’re interested in hearing from you.
Does anyone do that? I think most – if not everyone – start sending emails out right off the bat.
Mobile-Friendly Email Marketing
As of 2021, the number of mobile users reached 4676.12 billion. The number is enormous; hence ensuring that your email marketing techniques are mobile-friendly is mandatory. Now that you know about the types of emails to send to your subscribers, as discussed in the above topics, ensure every email marketing campaign you launch is optimized for different browsers and devices (especially mobiles).
There are many email marketing platforms available to help you in this regard. You can also try finding an eCommerce email marketing agency to get this done.
The following are a few tips you can follow to launch the best eCommerce email marketing:
- Take time to ensure all your eCommerce email marketing templates are easy to use on a mobile device.
- Test the call-to-action in your email marketing template. This is to ensure that your users don’t find any friction as they click on the links. Checking for the links to work correctly helps in optimizing conversions.
- If you are unsure about your eCommerce email marketing campaigns, start it with your colleagues and yourself. See how your email marketing templates work and proceed with your subscription list.
Though the mobile usage is higher, don’t give up on your target for desktop devices. It is best to optimize your email campaigns for different devices and screens.
Conclusion
ECommerce email marketing is a proven technique to stimulate sales and boost your business revenue. All the methods discussed above may sound promising to you, but are you worried about the ROI? Keep your eye on your profit margin, inventory levels, and market trends. Be sure to keep your promotional marketing plans in keeping with your long-term objectives. Check into eCommerce email marketing strategies today and take advantage of these creative opportunities to enhance your brand.
Frequently asked questions
Is email marketing effective for eCommerce?
Email marketing is a proven strategy to boost the eCommerce business. The strategy revolves around promoting and updating the existing and potential customers to bring more revenue to the business.
What is the optimum number of promotional emails to send out to customers per month?
Start by sending two emails a month. As your business grows and you have great content to keep your subscribers engaged you can send it two or three promotional emails a week.
Is it recommended to add a discount code to encourage a customer to complete their purchase?
Of course, you can. But shooting promotional emails every time a customer abandons the cart takes a hit on your brand value. Instead, try giving free delivery once in a while.
What is the best platform to use for email marketing?
The best, most effective, and accessible platform for email marketing is Gmail. In addition to all-rounder Gmail, you can also use the following platforms:
- Outlook: Best for multiple application integrations.
- Yahoo: Best for spam blocking capabilities.
- Zoho mail: The best option for home or small businesses.
- AOL: The best option for unlimited storage.
Related Blogs
5 Effective eCommerce KPIs You Need to Track for Your Business.
Top Ten eCommerce Content Marketing Tips for Budding Entrepreneurs.
10 Ways to Create an Effective Web Design for Your Small Businesses in 2022.
