The Most Effective eCommerce Email Marketing Strategies

The Most Effective eCommerce Email Marketing Strategies. You may boast high website traffic, low bounce rates, and excellent conversion rates. All these indicators mark the success of your efforts, but does it ensure your business will grow? Not necessarily, because you need to retain customers and sustain communication with them. And that is where you should look into email marketing.

 

Are you afraid of social media popularity growing by leaps and bounds? Do not let this fact misguide you and abandon email marketing. No matter what skeptiсs say, small and large businesses benefit from sending messages to their clients.

 

What should a powerful eCommerce email marketing strategy include in 2022 and beyond? Companies look for better ways to reach their customers by using automation tools, personalising messages, and offering various incentives to buy. This piece dwells on the tips to grow your customer base, conversions, and business with the help of email marketing.

 

10 Ideas to Thrive in the eCommerce Email Marketing Strategy

 

The message should convince the customer to return to the store. You can achieve it with calls to action, discounts, and a sense of urgency. It will be an easier task if you build strong relationships with customers. For example, if you provide valuable content in exchange for a subscription. You will increase repeat purchases by doubling website traffic.

 

How do you direct visitors to order completion? They should have the best user experience without any friction in navigation or delays in page load. That is why it is high time you analyse your website and the CMS you operate. Is your version not outdated?

 

For example, it happened to Magento CMS, which stopped supporting its previous M1 product. The M1 store will lack the functionality to compete with others. It jeopardises customer data, not to mention other arguments why migrate to Magento 2.

 

1. Welcome Emails to Set the Tone for Further Communication.

 

A welcome email is the first send-out from the onboarding series. These emails are crucial for laying the foundation for your further communication strategy. If you evoke the customers’ interest and leave the needed impression, they will be more likely to open subsequent messages and convert.

 

What are the ways to become an email subscriber? A person may leave the details on the website pop-up or after purchasing something from the store. So now you have their addresses. They expect to hear from you, which is why you should drop off a welcome email immediately after subscribing.

 

A customer is waiting for a response, so it will be easier to convince them to read it and take the desired action. Look at how the Riley online store welcomes its subscribers. It provides a EUR 25 discount if you spend more than EUR 150 on the first purchase.

 

 

2. Promotional Emails to Raise Awareness.

 

An effective eCommerce email marketing strategy includes promotional messages. These are letters to spread the word about your offers, deals, new arrivals, giveaways, etc. They encourage impulse buying and bring traffic to the website. Because is it not tempting to purchase when the desired product is at a lower price or the newly arrived item will match your style? You can skyrocket the open rate and engagement of promotional emails with the following strategies:

 

• highlighting the value of the promoted product for readers;
• personalising the “from” field. Instead of using the company name, write your or a teammate’s name to sound more humanlike;
• stating the offer in the subject line;
• placing a call to action that is easy to spot;
• limiting time to complete the order;
• captivating the audience with authentic visuals.

 

The Superdry promotional email combines several principles of an effective campaign. The most conspicuous part is the time-sensitive 50% off offer ending tonight. Look at the timer in the body. The company also adds several photos, stresses its sustainability aims, and enumerates bonuses to persuade readers to buy (free delivery, free returns, instalments).

 

3. Back-in-Stock Announcements.

 

Imagine finding a product you longed for, but you observe a “The item is not available” notification. It is annoying. For business, a product being out of stock is flattering. It means the sales are active to the degree you don’t have time to replenish the warehouse.

 

However, you cannot leave prospects frustrated for long. They will most likely go to your competitors and buy a similar product unless you sell something exclusive. Or if it is a loyal customer willing to wait.

 

You would not write “Check back later” on a website, would you? Leverage back-in-stock announcements in the eCommerce email marketing strategy. Allow visitors to sign up on the website or add products to the wishlist and get notifications on the product status. It will ensure customers know about the product and come back to the store.

 

The Huckberry team compiled such a message (look at the screenshot). The item is back in stock, but it may sell out soon. So they stress your need to hurry to buy it now.

 

4. Incentives for Repeat Purchasers, eCommerce Email Marketing Strategies.

 

How do you boost your eCommerce email marketing strategy? Create a customer loyalty program to retain clients. It is a reward for actions in a store through discounts and other special offers. While you may focus on acquiring new customers, do not forget to trigger those familiar with your brand and who trust you.

 

Figures show that customer retention is cheaper and more effective than acquisition. Existing clients will return to you and order in 60-70% of cases. New ones have only 5% to 20% chances of converting, costing you seven times more.

 

How do you entice repeat customers to come back? Determine how much they need to spend per order or how many purchases they make to receive a discount, cashback, gift, or access to limited products. Want to make it more fascinating? Employ gamification to keep clients interested and transform earning bonuses into a competition.

 

The Pet Supermarket describes its loyalty program in the newsletter below. It’s a EUR 5 reward for every EUR 100 spent, no payment for the seventh wash, and a special 10% discount for seniors and military personnel.

 

5. Referral Programs to Expand a Customer Base.

 

What can speed up a purchase decision? It is a recommendation from a friend. A referral email or a “refer a friend” email is another tip for an eCommerce email marketing strategy. It is a newsletter to encourage your existing clients to tell their friends about your company. Not for free.

 

Provide various bonuses, cash rewards, free products, and other incentives to satisfy both the customer and its invited friend. This tactic makes it a win-win situation for everyone. A referral email should include a unique referral link or share button to click or copyright from the email newsletter. 

 

Why do referral emails work? They depend on word-of-mouth recommendations, which are more potent than faceless promotions. As a result, referral marketing will boost conversion rates and sales. This strategy finds its implementation in Pura Vida Bracelets. The online merchant gives a loyal customer EUR 10 for the referral and 50% off the first order.

 

6. Capitalize on Seasonal Promotions, eCommerce Email Marketing Strategies.

 

Holidays unite people who buy presents, food, candles, and decorations. All these celebrations spur money spending. How do you find opportunities to promote goods? Look into the calendar.

 

Transform each holiday into your sales campaign, from Thanksgiving and Christmas to St. Valentine’s and Father’s Day. It is what seasonal marketing is all about. Seasonal emails are the most engaging and relevant promotional messages because clients seek gift ideas, discounts, and exclusive bundles.

 

As a result, eight in ten shoppers rely on the internet, and one-third of buyers on promotions in their holiday purchases. Retail can significantly benefit from seasonal campaigns if you plan and choose the right strategy. Our Place uses email marketing to remind its subscribers about Mother’s Day. The letter’s purpose is to hurry up the customers to receive a gift for the holiday just in time.

 

7. Pay Attention to Email Design, eCommerce Email Marketing Strategies.

 

Subscribers will open your email from various devices, such as laptops, tablets, and smartphones. And considering the growing popularity of smartphone use, most of them will access their inbox from their mobiles.

 

In fact, you should think mobile-first in your eCommerce email marketing strategy. The newsletter should be readable from a small screen. It is a big no-no to force the readers to zoom, squinting into the limited screen space.

 

The same goes for buttons. They should be big enough to tap.

 

Compare the same Soko newsletter from the desktop and mobile. Buttons on the desktop fall into two smaller columns, which would be harder to read from a smartphone. As a result, the company composed a mobile-friendly version. The buttons fall vertically. They are larger and more visible.

 

8. Getting Personal with Tailored Content, eCommerce Email Marketing Strategies.

 

Personalization is an eCommerce email marketing strategy to tailor content to subscribers’ needs. It relies on the collected information about their age, gender, location, etc. Where do you get customer data? There are four possible sources:

 

1. adding extra fields to the email subscription form;
2. integrating an email marketing tool with the CRM, eCommerce platform, or accounting software;
3. incorporating third-party apps through APIs;
4. collecting website behavioral data.

 

Personalization varies with the difficulty of customizing a message. The easiest step is using variables in your email send-outs, where the system will insert the needed name. It may look like “Hello, {{recipient.first_name}}”. You may already have profitable results at this stage. For example, you reduce the chance for the letter to go to the “Spam” folder and appeal to the clients by expressing your attention.

 

More complex personalization activities include sharing relevant products in emails, such as the “You may also like” sections. Take a glance at the Forever 21 newsletter, containing the “What you love” product selection and the 20% discount.

 

9. Automation to Streamline Send-outs, eCommerce Email Marketing Strategies.

 

You cannot keep track of every visitor’s action. Did they add the item to the cart? Did they finish the order? All these activities happen every minute on the website. How do you eliminate tasks off your to-do list? Automate emails. Leverage email marketing tools to reach out to customers without your intervention.

 

However, draw a line between a drip campaign and automated email marketing. A drip campaign deals with scheduled emails. These are general messages that every customer receives regardless of their website actions. Drip campaign examples are promotional emails about a product launch, sales, and other occasions.

 

Unlike drip emails, automation is about sending tailored messages after reaching defined goals. These emails fit in with the customer’s place in the funnel. That is why they may potentially bring more conversions.

 

A case in point is cart abandonment when you drop off a reminder with a short-lived discount code. Check the oVertone message below. The company sends personalized content for the client and urges them to complete the order in 48 hours.

 

10. A/B Test Your eCommerce Email Marketing Strategy.

 

Finally, email A/B testing is one way to measure your marketing performance. Another name for A/B testing is split testing. It means you take one message and change only one element. It can be a CTA color, wording, subject line, content length, etc.

 

And you specify which group will receive the first option and who will get the other. The purpose is to determine the best converting version. For example, if you decide to tweak the subject line, the number of opens will show the most attractive one. What can more advanced A/B tests involve? It covers comparing different email templates (visuals, tone of voice) to see which one generates the most click-throughs.

 

Below is the MailerLite interface to set up split testing. You can choose what to test:

 

• email subject line to find the most engaging one;
• “from” name to see how recipients respond to various senders;
• email content to change a single element or use different versions. E.g., whether the plain text brings more visitors than the one with multiple images or videos.

 

Conclusion

 

In conclusion, is email marketing still alive? You can find the answer to this question in your inbox. I bet you have at least one letter from an online store, learning platform, or blog. And it is not surprising. Emails help you keep in touch with clients, forward order updates, promote new arrivals, etc.

 

Email marketing deals with delivering brand messages to prospects and customers via services, such as Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo! They serve various purposes, from promotion to education and building loyalty.

 

How can email marketing achieve its goals and prevent letters from going to the “Spam” folder? Send personalized messages, segment the audience, and instill a sense of urgency. Get more specific and assign different bonuses for actions. For example, a discount for referring to a friend, points for leaving a review, and free delivery for orders over some amount.