I bet we can agree that it seems like we can never get caught up with emails. Our inbox is flooded with random people or businesses trying to gain our attention. As we skim past every subject line and choose which emails to open, which ones to actually read, and which ones to simply delete, we quickly determine the ones worth our time. If we do it, your potential customers do, too. Your ecommerce email marketing strategies need to be focused on what’s going to attract your consumers to open, click, and buy your products. Here, we outline the efforts you should prioritize to increase ecommerce sales via email.
1. Connect Your Ecommerce Store
Whether you need to create a plan or revise the one you have, an effective ecommerce marketing agency can help increase revenues while you tackle the rest of your business. The first step to doing this is integrating your ecommerce store to your email marketing platform correctly. The data you need to increase future sales will then automatically populate. You’ll begin capturing customer purchase history, following their path to your website, and learning more about prospects & leads such as demographics, geographic location, and interests. But before you start seeing an impact on your ROI, you need to learn what to actually do with the information you now have.
2. Segment Your Email Lists
Sending emails to your potential or current customers is a great way to continue the communication between the two of you, but it doesn’t mean they are interested in what you have to say. By segmenting your lists, you can distribute emails directed towards that particular customer, greatly increasing your response rate (and lower your costs). Here are some common customer segments for ecommerce emails.
Types of Customer Segments:
- Potential Customers – Those who’ve shown interest, but never purchased should get an email to ensure you both stay connected.
- Abandoned Cart Customers – When a potential customer fails to complete a transaction while they’re in your shopping cart or checkout process, send them emails to remind and entice them to come back.
- Recent Customers – If they recently purchased an item, you now have an idea of what they like. Send them a follow-up email with other similar products.
- First-time Customers – These new customers might enjoy a “thank you” email to feel more welcomed and appreciated.
- Repeat Customers – They have purchased more than once already. Make sure they stay your repeat customers by sending them a special offer or coupon.
- Lapsed Customers – Lapsed customers haven’t purchased anything in months. Become top-of-mind again by sending them a deal on the last product they purchased.
- Seasonal Customers – Say some customers only buy during certain months of the year. When this month rolls around, be the first name they see. Send them an email with images of what they usually buy.
3. Test your Content
Simply because you sent out an email, doesn’t mean you will actually get every customer to open it. We know this. Find out what makes them more inclined to open and interact with your email. A/B testing is the perfect way to do so. This is when you change one variable of an email and see which one performs better. You can test the sender’s name, subject line, send time, copy inside the email, and imagery (videos, gifs, etc.). Does a more blunt, factual approach work for your customers or do they enjoy more humor? Whichever email generates the most sales is your winner!
4. Rely on Automated Emails
In a study completed by eMarketer, it was found that B2C marketers who leverage automation have seen conversion rates as high as 50%. Automated emails are reminders and follow-ups of a recent consumer interaction. One of the most important automated emails is an abandoned shopping cart reminder. Hubspot also reports that an email notification about an abandoned shopping cart receives a 40.5% open rate. You know they’re interested, so tell them they need it and don’t let them forget.
5. Integrate with Other Ecommerce Efforts
Your ecommerce email marketing strategy needs to align with your larger ecommerce efforts. For example, is your current site optimized as an ecommerce website? Have you considered integrating user experience research into your design to increase ecommerce conversions? Do you practice ecommerce SEO best practices? And perhaps most importantly, if plan to run expensive ecommerce PPC ads, are your landing pages consistent with your ad copy? If not, you could be building (quite expensively) a house of cards atop a shaky foundation. Make sure your email plan aligns with your overall ecommerce strategy and goals.
6. Track Success... and What You’ve Earned
Whether you’re sending an individual email or an entire email campaign, it’s important to analyze the results. How do the open rates and click percentages compare to industry averages (sample of industries provided below - click on the graphic for all industries)?.png?width=678&name=Screenshot%20(2).png)
Source: Campaign Monitor
Besides open, click, and bounce rates, how many unsubscribed from receiving your emails? How much in sales did it generate? What was its average dollar sale compared to your other emails? Is there a lifetime value calculation to be included, or are most transactions from one-time purchasers? You need to find out why a certain email performed better (or worse) than another. Constant analysis allows for constant improvement. Don't put off your ecommerce email marketing efforts any longer.
