If you think email marketing is dead, then you may be surprised to discover that you've been misled.
The truth is, ecommerce email marketing is alive and kicking. Because emails are still a huge part of most people's lives.
But it's not your fault if you've been believing that email marketing is not as much as helpful or perhaps even dead. That's because most ecommerce brands rely on social media marketing to get customers. They're jumping on board with funny memes, trending hashtags, outrageous slang, etc.
The good news is that it's not too late to start getting better results with email marketing.
To this day, there are 4 billion daily email users and this number is expected to hit 4.6 billion by 2025.
And, the global e-mail marketing market is valued at about $7.5 billion and is projected to grow to nearly $17.9 billion by 2027
No doubt, email marketing is still one of the most effective methods to connect with your prospects and customers.
It's one marketing channel that guarantees ROI, and grows your business, making you ahead of the competition.
The importance of email marketing for ecommerce is undeniable!
Here Are The Reasons Why Ecommerce Email Marketing Is Crucial In Your Business...
1. It is one of those few channels that you can truly own.
With email, you have total control of your content.
What I mean is...
To whom, when, and how it's sent is totally up to you.
And no one will see your content except your target audience.
Next thing...
2. It’s cheap.
Given its effectiveness, email marketing is a cheap marketing solution.
You’ll pay less than a penny per email sent to your email list.
And I just said it, in terms of ROI, email marketing is higher than any other marketing channel.
And it continues to grow year after year.
The best part, it's free!
3. It is personal and customizable.
It helps you to touch base with your customers on a personal level.
And you can provide value through your content.
And essentially...
4. It enhances brand awareness.
It provides your customers with a way of knowing your brand.
If customers follow you, it shows their interest in your business.
Not yet convinced?
5. It enables targeted messaging.
Email marketing can also be a good instrument for lead generation.
Your customers are at different stages of the buying process.
So, by creating a targeted email list, you can reach out to buyers at researching stage, comparing stage, or ready-to-purchase stage.
Additionally, emails can help you in selling more items, such as upselling and cross-selling.
To run an email campaign effectively, you need to write as personalized and targeted messages as possible.
For instance, if your prospective customer is at the research stage, just get them acquainted with your brand and get them to feel they have a need of purchasing.
While on the ready-to-buy stage, offer a tempting discount they won't be able to refuse.
So it's a win, all because of good ecommerce email marketing.
So what do you need to do to utilize this?
The first thing you have to do is...
Choose The Best Email Marketing Software for Ecommerce
Not all email marketing service is the same.
While most of them offer a lot of the same basic features, there are differences.
Yet, it's important to study to determine which one works for you.
Most email marketing solutions have these:
- Pre-made templates that you can personalize to your needs.
- You can automate your email marketing campaigns without constant monitoring by using smart automation
- Audience-segmentation features for sending targeted emails based on customer profiles
- Website embeddable opt-in forms
- Email marketing analytics that shows how well a campaign is performing
The way these features are presented varies and can affect your decision to use them.
What's more?
There is a growing number of email platforms available out there like:
1. Klaviyo
Perfect for:
Klaviyo is perfect for business owners who are ready to invest their time and effort in email marketing initiatives.
If you're also a product-based owner, this might work for you because...
Features:
- Klaviyo is specifically designed for ecommerce. You can gather data from your store and segment automatically with its powerful segmentation tools
- It has a list of import and export features, personalization, signup forms, A/B split testing, Facebook ads integrations, etc.
- And, there is a seamless integration of email flows and automation among users. It's also easy to set up.
Next on my list
2. ActiveCampaign
Perfect for:
If you’re serious about marketing automation, this is for you.
Features:
- ActiveCampaign is an automation platform that helps businesses connect meaningfully with their customers because it gives enhanced customer experiences by automating sales, marketing, and support methods
- And also, big and small businesses have access to hundreds of built-in automation that combine email marketing, CRM, marketing automation, and machine learning for strong cross-channel orchestration, customization, and segmentation.
The third one is...
3. Mailchimp:
Perfect for:
New and established businesses
Features:
- Complete campaign transparency is possible with Mailchimp
- Also, they offer email tracking, custom reports, view success, click-through rates, and subscribers as well as un-subscribers management capability.
- Mailchimp lets you personalize templates and choose from a range of ready-made templates and campaigns.
Let's move on to the next...
4. Privy
Perfect for:
New and growing ecommerce brands who want to enhance their email marketing.
Features:
- Makes use of their Newsletter -If you are trying to hit your goal of say, $XX sale or if you are interested in running a special promotion.
- Also, this makes use of abandoned cart emails.
- Customer Winback emails - It's a great solution to remind customers to refill products like vitamins or your toiletries.
Last but not least...
5. Drip
Perfect for:
Great email marketing for small businesses and also medium-size ecommerce stores who want to grow their list and online sales.
Features:
- A/B Testing- The A/B testing process involves sending variations of the same email to your subscribers and then examining engagement metrics to learn more about them.
- Auto-Responders - You can use this to welcome a new lead, introduce them to your brand or content. Maybe find out if they like a download and then help them make a decision.
- CAN-SPAM Compliance - With Drip, all accounts' sending patterns are automatically tracked, including spam complaints. They block an account whose spam complaint rate is high.
- List Management- Drip organizes your contacts and helps you send hyper-segmented, personalized emails.
- Mobile Optimized Emails- They make sure your emails must have a mobile-friendly design.
Now that you are already familiar with the most popular email platforms, I would like to move on to flows.
Flows make it convenient to start and grow relationships with your customers.
You can automate messages that will boost your business, while still maintaining the personalization and relevance necessary to build strong customer loyalty.
With flows, you can activate a message, or series of messages, If someone joins a list, or is added to a segment, or takes any other action.
For example: abandoning a cart or making a purchase.
Now, to explain more about flows, let me talk about how Klaviyo does it.
In Klaviyo, there are different types of flows you can use to enhance your email marketing.
You can start using the following...
Types of Flows:
1. Automated Flows
Automated flows are automated sequences of emails that are behavior-triggered.
Data that are synced to your Klaviyo account are used to trigger automated flows.
You can use flows to send timely emails or SMS to recipients.
Automated flows are what you need to connect and build trust with your customers.
It's less hassle and easy to set up.
For example:
- adding an item to your cart
- leaving a site without making a purchase.
These are just a couple of flows that you need to put in place if you want to be successful with email marketing,
Where should you start?
I recommend you start with the “Abandoned Checkout” flow.
Because this one is usually the number 1 revenue generator.
It’s activated when a user adds a product to his cart, goes to the checkout, then abandons the cart.
Now, this type of user is your hot lead!
Next up is...
2. Pre-Purchase Flows
- Welcome Series - These are a series of emails you automatically send to people upon signing up for your email list. The opt-in stage is when your prospects are excited to receive emails from you. And this is your chance to introduce yourself, and make people aware of how you can help.
- Abandoned cart flow - This flow is customizable based on items in the user's cart and whether they're already a customer or not.
- Site Abandonment- This is used when a prospect visits your site but does not view your product.
- Browse Abandonment- This is when your prospect views your products but doesn't add them to the cart.
- Abandoned Checkout- This is triggered when a prospect abandons checkout after entering their email address.
Now you have an idea about Pre-purchased flow, let's go to the next:
3. Post-Purchase Flows
- VIP - Here, you can see your most loyal customers. You can also create a segment of VIP customers. It is useful when running a rewards program or you want to know who your VIP customers are.
- Repeat Buyer - Repeat customers are also tracked. A customized post-purchase engagement will leave a lasting impression. It ensures they remember your brand when it's time to repurchase.
- First-Time Buyer - This is an opportunity to let your customer who is buying for the first time know about your business. You can also offer discounts so they come back to your store.
- Win-Back- A series of emails sent to previous customers who have not interacted with you for a specified period.
That's not all, you also need to know:
4. Campaigns
These are often a one-time send, that lets your clients know about a product launch, special sale, announcements, newsletters, etc.
These can be sent to your ecommerce email list of subscribers either instantly or scheduled at a specific date and time.
You can choose one from the template library or create a new template.
Klaviyo has a drag-and-drop editor that enhances your email automatically for mobile use.
You can easily create powerful emails on-brand in minutes with its easy-to-use features.
There's an option for you to A/B split test subject lines, content, preview text, etc. before sending campaign emails to your list of subscribers.
This way, you'll find out what your audience responds to the most.
At this point, you realize how these flows work.
But wait... there's more!
5. Email Capture
Establishing an effective email capture strategy is the first step to building your ecommerce email list and increasing your revenue through email marketing.
You should not only collect your buyers’ email addresses.
You should also try to retarget them for your campaigns.
How is it done?
With the use of pop-ups!
Yup! Those pop-ups appear and catch your attention when you’re browsing a website.
You'd probably say, it's annoying- yes I know!
But it works!
Pop-ups in the form of discounts or free resources are most effective when they offer value to customers.
So make it something your customers will be willing to provide in exchange for their email address.
Well, this is just the tip of what email marketing can do for us.
So, what are you waiting for?
Start Your Email Marketing Journey, It's Definitely A Marketing Channel You Should Use!
Email marketing is continuously expanding... year after year.
If you start now, you can reap the rewards in no time!
It should be an important part of your marketing strategy.
By the way...
Did you know that you can integrate Debutify's Newsletter Popup Add-On with your email automation?
Yep, that's correct! And not only that...
Debutify offers over 50+ Add-Ons to go with your ecommerce email marketing strategy.
Now is the perfect time to level up your email marketing game.
