All we know that communication channels such as social media posts and video chat have risen to dominance over the years. But guess what? Email marketing still works better than these new channels. And, when used right, it delivers a higher return on investment – for every $1 spent on email marketing, the average return is $42.
Email marketing represents a significant factor in building brand recognition and interest in the market. It provides the strategies needed to develop a project proposal for both clients and colleagues. According to statistics, 80% of SMBs still rely on email as their primary customer acquisition and retention channel.
Whether you’ve already established your presence in the eCommerce industry or are taking your first steps, an email marketing strategy can help you generate relevant leads and subsequent revenue.
However, launching a marketing strategy and maintaining its momentum over time can be tricky without the right prep work. So let’s discuss how you can build an effective email marketing strategy for your eCommerce business.
The Advantages of Building an Email Marketing Strategy for eCommerce
A solid email marketing strategy can provide you with a long-term communication channel with your followers. It can help you to achieve the marketing objectives:
-
- Build credibility
- Increase brand awareness
- Turn customers into brand advocates
- Reduce cart abandonment rate
- Drive more traffic to the website
- Boost sales
- Optimize marketing budget
When you have a clear plan of what emails to send (and how often to send them), you can maximize your marketing efforts and steer your eCommerce business to success.
Let’s discuss in detail the steps you should take to build a remarkable email marketing strategy from scratch.
Outline Your Marketing Plan
An email marketing plan is a key part of your marketing approach. For this reason, the first step you should take is to outline your marketing plan:
- Specify what marketing goals you want to achieve. Think about how you can use email campaigns to get one step closer to these goals.
- Set a marketing budget for your eCommerce business. Think about what part of the budget should be devoted to email marketing.
- Assign a person responsible for email marketing campaigns. Who will create email marketing content: you, someone from your marketing team, or freelance expert?
- Make sure you know everything there is to know about email spam filters.
.
Settle for Reliable Tools
Moving on, choose a few tools that will allow you to track your marketing efforts.
Since you work in eCommerce, you should use Google Analytics. This tool will help you get a feel for whether email marketing drives enough traffic to your website. Also, it will allow you to understand the behaviour of your prospective and current customers.
To create effective campaigns, you should use email marketing services like MailChimp. These services will allow you to design attractive email newsletters, set the delivery date, get reports, and many more.
If you already use Google Analytics, MailChimp, as well as tools like Google Search Console, Facebook Business Manager, Instagram Ads, LinkedIn Ads, and SEMrush, take advantage of Dash This. This tool will gather your marketing data across all channels and present it in one well-organized report. Dash This will simplify your work and provide you with more insights.
Launch One Campaign at a Time
If you want to win at eCommerce, you should create one email marketing campaign at a time. This is the only right way to test your marketing ideas and see what works for your business.
Why it’s a bad idea to launch multiple campaigns simultaneously?
Firstly, if you have no experience in email marketing, it will be difficult for you to manage more than one campaign effectively.
Secondly, it will be challenging to track the results that come from each campaign.
Thirdly, if you send too many emails in a short period, that may irritate (or confuse) your customers. If shoppers receive too many different emails from you, the chances are that they will mark your emails as spam.
Focus on Subject Line & Opening
When it comes to email marketing, good subject lines and openings play an important role.
If the subject line of your email is not catchy enough, it’s highly likely that the recipient will delete your email before opening it. It may surprise you, but up to 20% of emails sent by eCommerce brands remain unread and land in a trash bin.
To boost email marketing efforts, you should personalize and customize every subject line. Here are a few ideas for you:
- Use the customer’s name. Make the recipient feel special and valued.
- Add the company’s name or name of someone who works for your company to enhance the customer experience.
- Make sure that you and your customers speak “the same language”. Feel free to use slang or emojis if it appeals to your target audience.
- Use an urgent tone. Get your customers to want to open your email right here and right now.
Implement Calls to Action
Another essential element of effective email is a well-written call to action.
If you want your customers not only to open your email but also to buy your products or visit your website, you need to get into the customer’s mindset. You need to find the right words to entice them to complete the action. In some cases, you can use standard call-to-action phrases like “buy now” and “shop now”. But if you want your brand to stand out, you should come up with a unique, specific call to action.
Image source: Email from DSW
Social Proof & Testimonials Matter
If you work in eCommerce for a while, you know how important social proof and testimonials are. Modern customers do not trust what brands say about their products. But they do believe what real customers say.
So if you want your email marketing campaign to succeed, add testimonials to your email. It will help you to win the trust of your target audience and increase sales. Feel free to use quotes of your customers, “before and after” photos, or any other relevant content.
Include Limited-Time Offers
Do you use FOMO (fear of missing out) marketing to boost your sales? It’s a great marketing technique that can help you to sell more products within a short period of time.
If you write that your products are available in limited quantities or that your special offer expires soon, you will invoke fear of missing out on your customers. Your recipients will think that if they do not take any actions right now, they will lose a great opportunity. The fear will get people to act irrationally – the chances they will purchase your products even if they do not need them.
Understand the Buyer’s Journey
To convince your customers to complete a specific action, for instance, order a new product, you need to send more than one email. You need to align email marketing to all three stages of the buyer’s journey:
- Awareness stage – Let your customers know that you launch a new product.
- Consideration stage – Discuss the benefits of this new product.
- Decision stage – Convince your customers that the best time to buy your product is right now.
When crafting your email marketing strategy, think about what follow-up emails you can send to your customers. Structure your email series for the buyer’s journey, and you will double your sales.
Final words
Taking on board the strategies here will help you to build a solid email marketing strategy for your eCommerce business. Try to understand your customers, pay attention to details, use advanced marketing tools – and you will achieve great success.
See a subject we haven’t covered? Contact Us and let us know what you would like us to write about.
Hey, maybe you could write it for us!
Leave a Reply