Top eCommerce Email Marketing Strategy for your 2023 Campaigns

Is outbound email marketing in the throes of death?

A truthful and straightforward answer is a big fat NO. Outbound email marketing has retained its position as a tried and tested go-to-market and even evolved– embracing the best practices of the new era.

In the world of B2B, eCommerce email marketing strategy is a critical element of a successful business plan. Well-tailored and implemented, it can help your company generate more quality leads, close more deals, and as a result, gain more revenue.

Outbound email marketing strategy is a tool that every business should have in its arsenal. Before getting into the nitty-gritty details on top email marketing strategy, let's first understand its importance and why.

What is an eCommerce email marketing strategy?

eCommerce email marketing strategy is a potent way to communicate with customers about products or services they might be interested in. Email marketing aims to get people to respond to offers by clicking links in emails, taking them to websites where they buy products or request services from an online store.

Email marketing is the most cost-effective way to promote your brand, build relationships with potential clients, and drive sales. It's also an excellent way to keep in touch with current customers.

The potency of eCommerce email marketing lies in its aptness to create personal connections between you and your audience. You can use this connection to send targeted messages relevant to each recipient.

According to HubSpot, 80% of consumers trust recommendations over paid ads when making purchases. Through this data, it's easy to see why email marketing is so powerful to eCommerce businesses. When you make a recommendation through email, you're able to connect with your target market more than other forms of advertising.

Why is eCommerce email marketing important in the eCommerce business?

You can reach customers in real-time.

According to a study,54 % of emails are accessed through mobile devices. This means that you can reach customers wherever they are at ease by providing timely updates and information about your business, products, and services.

This kind of communication helps you maintain a relationship with your customer base. It also builds trust and loyalty among your existing and future customers.

Easy to measure 

You can easily track results with email marketing tools. This way, you can monitor which campaigns work best and which ones don't. 

Email marketing tools can also track delivery rates, bounce rates, subscriptions, open rates, and click-throughs with all this information. 

It helps businesses grow their customer base.

eCommerce email marketing strategy will allow you to reach out to prospective buyers who haven't made up their minds if you don't already have a solid list of contacts. By sending personalized emails, you can increase the chances of getting a response.

You can also use email marketing to remind existing customers about promotions, discounts, and events. This tactic allows you to stay top of mind with your audience, which increases the likelihood of repeat visits and increased conversions.

Drives traffic to your website.

When someone reads your email, there is a good chance that they will click on the link inside the message, and you can convert website visitors into paying customers once they visit your site.

Email marketing boosts conversion rates.

According to Google, email marketing campaigns receive roughly 30% higher open rates than social media posts. That means if you send out 100 emails, you could expect around 30 clicks. 

This means that if you were to spend $100 on Facebook advertising, you would only need to spend $30 on email marketing to achieve similar results.

Email marketing attracts new customers.

Because email marketing doesn't require users to download any software, it reaches a broader audience than other types of digital marketing. In addition, because it's free for both sender and receiver, it has a low barrier to entry.

It's cost-efficient.

You were looking forward to this. Right? 

Email marketing is the most affordable way to market your business online. You won't pay anything upfront, but you will be charged once your campaign is complete.

Because it is relatively inexpensive, you can afford to send multiple messages without worrying about losing money. At sites like mail chimp, you can start an email marketing campaign for as little as $10 per month.

Although it does offer a good ROI, email marketing is still one of the best ways for online retailers to promote their business online.

Increases brand awareness.

You might think social media is the only way to get people aware of your company. But in reality, email marketing is just as effective. When someone receives an email from your company, they are more likely to remember you.

Most people use email nowadays. 

If you aren't using email marketing, you're missing out on a huge opportunity to connect with your audience. According to research by MailChimp, over 90% of adults use email every day. Hubspot survey found that 92 % of consumers prefer receiving promotional offers via email. This alone should convince you to give email marketing a try.

What are the different types of email marketing campaigns?

Promotional Emails

Promotional emails are emails you send to your customers or prospects to promote your products and services.

 They're usually triggered by an action taken on your website, such as signing up for a newsletter or downloading a white paper.

Transactional Emails

These are automated emails that you send after a transaction has been made. For example, transactional emails notify buyers about their order status if you have a web store. They include shipping confirmation, tracking numbers, digital receipts, post-sale personalization, etc., recommendations. All this assures you to keep your customers coming back for more.

Lead Generation Emails

This inbound marketing trick allows you to generate leads through email. This type of email is sent to prospects interested in what you do. It usually includes information about your products or services, special deals, discounts, and promotions. These emails are meant to encourage your customers to take action and become loyal followers.

Defining your buyer's persona will help you reach them better. The advantage of lead generation emails is that it timely sends targeted messages to your ideal customer base. They are automated, meaning that you don't need to spend time creating these emails yourself.

Email Newsletters

Many eCommerce stores use email newsletters as a foundation of email marketing programs. This is because it's a great way to educate eCommerce customers and prospects about what's happening within the company. 

Newsletters also nurture the existing relationship between you and your customers. It helps keep them up-to-date with the latest news, promotions, product updates, etc. such valuable information will make you retain customers and increase sales.

How to create a newsletter template for your eCommerce store?

A good email newsletter template includes:

A clear call to action (CTA). Make sure that your CTA is visible and easy to find.

An attention-grabbing image. Use only graphics that are relevant to your brand.

A well-written body copy. Include key points from your content in your body copy. Be sure not to forget to add relevant links to your website and social media pages.

A signature line that encourages recipients to share the email with others.

A clean design. Keep your layout simple and clutter-free.

A link to the unsubscribe option. include an unsubscribe link so that it can allow visitors to unsubscribe anytime they want 

A privacy policy. Many users won't read it, but you should still include one just in case.

Include spam filters if possible. This will ensure your emails aren't in spam folders.

What are the two types of email marketing campaigns?

There are two main types of email marketing campaigns: Inbound and Outbound. Both work well for different reasons. Let's look at both of these options in detail.

Inbound email marketing

An inbound email campaign is designed to attract visitors to your website. This type of email marketing typically includes calls-to-action (CTAs) like "Click here to learn more" or "Sign up now." These CTAs encourage visitors to click on the link and visit your site.

Inbound email campaigns are usually triggered based on user behavior. For instance, when someone visits your site but doesn't convert into a lead, you can email them asking why they didn't sign up.

This approach helps you understand why users aren't converting, and it gives you insight into their needs and wants. By improving conversion rates, you can increase your customer satisfaction and overall ROI.

When you implement an inbound email marketing strategy, you should build trust and credibility. So make sure your content should provide value to your readers and give them something useful.

You should always include a clear call to action (like a button) that encourages them to take action.

You can also use inbound email marketing to introduce new products or services. For instance, you could discount existing customers who purchase a specific product.

Outbound email campaigns

A typical outbound eCommerce email marketing strategy is triggered by sending an email to a list of subscribers. This type of email is often used for transactional purposes, such as announcing special offers or promoting events.

Outbound email lists are usually built using a combination of opt-in forms and data from third-party sources like social media platforms.

You can still use outbound email marketing to generate leads if you don't have access to an extensive contacts database. The key is to balance between quality and quantity.

For example, you might use outbound email marketing for a specific event to promote tickets. But you wouldn't use it for general sales emails because there isn't enough time to build a high-quality list.

The best way to get started with outbound email marketing is to create a landing page. Landing pages are web pages that contain CTAs that direct people to another webpage. They're great for generating traffic and leads.

Using outbound email marketing to promote your eCommerce businesses is a good idea. It's easy to reach a lot of people through one email blast.

The Secret Behind a Successful Email Campaign: A Step by Step Guide

A Well-Defined Goal

 Your email campaigns are either conversion-oriented or content-oriented. Conversion-oriented emails are more inclined towards achieving the desired ROI. In contrast, emails with content-oriented goals will drive the viewer to the desired action.

Build A Healthy Email Send List: 

Now that you have your goals for your email campaigns, make sure that you are sending them to the right audience.

Convey The Right Message

Your email subject line and preheader are crucial in getting visitors to open your email. The first obstacle to getting your email opened is achieved if you can make it exciting and intriguing enough.

Back the content: 

27% of proactive email marketers feel that the more simple the plan is, the more beneficial it is for creation and usage. But on the other hand, 40% of marketers also want to incorporate complex, rich media to make emails compelling.

Locate a sweet spot between these two aspects and design an email that pushes individuality and supports the content.

Incorporate an action-oriented CTA

Two things to bear in mind if you want your CTA to convert. First, use first-person, and your CTA must be action-oriented. Second, make sure the button's color contrasts the background to help the CTA pop out in the email.

Deliver your emails at the right time

Email marketers who take timing seriously would vouch that it creates a huge difference when an email is sent at the right time.

You should analyze your leads' demographics and diligently consider the location, profession, and customer behavior. This will be a massive help in determining when is the right time to send your email.

Check the deliverability of your email.

 Double-check whether your email is optimized to view it on most devices. 46% of all emails opened are opened on mobiles. That is why you must deliver responsive emails accessible on mobile phones.

The use of all text for the images is a good practice. This assures that your email is delivered efficiently, even in low connectivity areas. 

Follow up, but not too much.

It is always ethical to let your customers know you care. But give them a break. Remember, when overdone, it can annoy the prospect, and there are high chances that you might land up in the spam filters.

Test and analyze your email campaigns

Auditing your email program and analyzing your email marketing campaign metrics will help you correct and avoid mistakes. It will enhance your email delivery and performance for future emails. 

As said earlier, it is impossible to succeed in business without an effective email marketing plan.

So, here we will discuss top eCommerce email Marketing strategies to help you grow your online business.

Let's start!

The top eCommerce email marketing strategies to improve your eCommerce business.

Use cart abandonment emails.

A study revealed that nearly 70% of shoppers abandon their carts before making their first purchase. So, if you are not using cart abandonment emails, you are missing out on a huge opportunity to convert new visitors into loyal customers.

A good Cart abandonment email campaign helps you remind your customers why they abandoned their shopping cart, thus encouraging them to complete their purchases.

Here are some examples of cart abandonment email

•  Remind them about discounts and promotions: Promote special offers and deals to increase sales.
• Provide a discount code: Send a coupon code via email to entice your visitors to buy now.
• Offer a gift: Give away something valuable like a free gift or a discount voucher.
• Ask them to check out again later: You can ask them to come back later when there is better availability.
•  Make them aware of shipping costs: Let them know about the delivery charges to avoid missing out on their favorite items.

Automate what you can

Automation is sending action-triggered emails to subscribers. Automating your email program will save a lot of resources and guarantee uniformity in send patterns. 

Marketers who worry that automated emails may sound across as impersonal, remember that you can constantly monitor your customer journey and leverage personalized and relevant content.

You can use a reputable email service provider to send automated emails.

For instance, you can set up auto-responders to welcome new subscribers, thank them for subscribing, and provide updates on your latest news and promotions.

These emails will be sent automatically whenever someone signs up for your newsletter.

Also, you can schedule these emails to go out at specific times. This makes sure that your subscribers receive your messages regularly.

Give unlimited offers

Statistics show that adding discounts and coupons increases conversion rates by 26% and 21%, respectively.

This means that if you add a coupon code to your emails, you can get more conversions.

Coupons are one of the best ways to attract new customers to your eCommerce business because they make your products look cheaper than other competitors.

If you want to give away a discount, you should consider offering a free trial.

Free trials allow you to test your product and see whether it meets your customer's needs. It also increases customer loyalty and encourages repeat customers.

Lastly, you can offer free shipping with a certain minimum order amount.

Segmentation 

Your offer must be highly customized. This means you have to create compelling and personalized messages to attract the interest of quality leads by identifying and providing solutions to their problems. What's more, you can even adjust your product or service to your client's needs.

Email marketing segmentation enables you to target different people with similar interests.

It allows you to create multiple campaigns based on the preferences of each group.

Create welcome emails for new subscribers

Many contacts are usually unready to do business with you. According to research, about 25% of leads are sales-ready, while 50% are qualified leads but not interested in buying at all. 

What does it mean to you?

You need to nurture to drive leads to the buying stage. Welcome emails come into play here because they help build trust and credibility. You can use a welcome email to introduce yourself and your products/services. It has higher click-throughs than other types of emails, Making it an excellent way to kick start your email campaigns.

Have a clear call to action

According to Radicati's report, an average user receives over 100 emails per day.

So, it would be great if you made sure that all your emails contained a CTA (call to action) button.

The call to action (CTA) in your emails tells your readers what you want them to do next.

You can include CTAs like 'subscribe today,' 'buy now, 'get started,' or 'checkout now.'

A call to action helps you to convert your leads into customers. 

Create responsible and well-designed emails

One mistake that most e-commerce stores make is creating eCommerce email marketing that is not responsive.

Responsive design ensures that your emails look good on any device. Well designed commerce emails should be:

• Mobile friendly- this means that your emails should work on mobile phones and desktop computers.

• Easy to read – The font size should be large enough to ensure that your message is easy to read.

• Easy to navigate - Your emails should be simple to access and navigate through.

• Clean and professional - Make sure that your emails are clean and professional, so they don't come off as spammy.

Capture the attention of the readers -A captivating hook is essential for every email.

Use eye-catching images and videos to grab the reader's attention.

Use a strong email subject line. Your subject line is one of the first things that visitors notice.

Make sure that it grabs attention and encourages customers to open your email.

Test marketing campaigns

Internet and modern software allow businesses to efficiently work with large databases because they can segment leads by multiple criteria. Due to this, it is easy to target leads that are a good fit for your online businesses. This is a big point given the significant amount of wasted motion in marketing and sales.

Again, If you are not practicing split testing your emails, you are throwing money down the drain.

Email split testing is a great way to determine which emails perform better.

Split testing lets you compare two versions of the same email with different content and send only one version at a time.

Ask your engaged customers for reviews.

Engaged customers are much more likely to give you positive reviews than those who haven't bought anything.

So, ask your customers to review your products and services and post their experiences online. This will increase your brand reputation and generate sales.

According to research by Hubspot, 72% of consumers trust online reviews because it provides them with social proof."

Send Notifications

Sending notifications to your customers is a great eCommerce email marketing strategy to keep them updated about your eCommerce site. E.g., when something is out of stock or when there is a special offer going on. With the help of email automation, you can easily set up automated messages to notify your customers.

Notification emails also allow you to stay connected with your potential customers even if they aren't using your website.

But it doesn't mean sending daily emails. That would be bugging.

There's no point in sending daily emails if you're not doing something useful with them. Besides, If you send too many emails, people might feel overwhelmed and end up unsubscribing.

So try sending a newsletter once a month, and if you get a lot of engagement, you can send another one.

Use eCommerce email automation. 

As mentioned earlier, automation allows you to automate repetitive tasks like sending newsletters, follow-ups, etc.

You can use an email automation tool such as Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Sendlane, etc.

Mailchimp offers three types of automation tools:

Automated sequences- these let you create multiple emails based on certain triggers.

For example, you could have an arrangement that sends a welcome email to new subscribers, followed by a series of follow-up emails over a period of time.

Automated drip campaigns-these will let you schedule emails to be sent to your audience automatically.

For instance, if a client buys a product from you, you can send them a thank you message after a few days.

Automated segmentation-This helps you identify your target audience and send personalized emails to them.

Track results

Tracking results is essential for any marketing strategy because it gives you insights into what works and what doesn't work.

With the help of analytics software, you can track how well each campaign performed.

Analytics software lets you see how visitors interact with your site, where they come from, how long they spend on each page, etc.

There are various tools available for tracking results—Google Analytics, Omniture SiteCatalyst, etc.

Final Note

E-Commerce email marketing strategies are crucial as they help to build customer relationships.

They also provide you with valuable data to make informed decisions. Try combining other strategies with it to make sure you're reaching out to all your prospects.

So, go ahead and start implementing some of these strategies right away and if you need some help with setting up your first email marketing campaign, contact us today!