Email marketing is an incredibly powerful tool that enables you to retain customers and increase their lifetime value. Developing an executing an email marketing strategy is one way to unlock a new phase of growth for your ecommerce business, so, let’s discuss the best ways to create an effective email campaign.
Tip 1: Building a Strong Subscriber List
A robust subscriber base can serve as a valuable asset, enabling you to engage with your target audience and nurture long-term customer relationships. Implementing effective strategies to expand your subscriber base is key to achieving this goal.
One strategy is to optimize your opt-in forms and landing pages.
Ensure these forms are strategically placed on your website. Most ecommerce businesses opt for pop-ups, but ensure that these do not disrupt the browsing experience.
When creating the forms, make them easy to fill out and have them clearly communicate the value of subscribing to your newsletter or updates.
Also, consider offering compelling lead magnets and incentives. While a generic 10% discount may be commonplace, think outside the box and create offers that truly resonate with your customers.
Another effective tactic is to leverage social media integration and contests. Integrate subscription opportunities seamlessly into your social media channels, allowing users to subscribe directly from their preferred platforms.
Tip 2: Personalization and Segmentation
To harness the power of personalization in email marketing, it’s essential to implement effective strategies for segmentation and leverage the wealth of customer data available. There are a few ways to add segmentation and personalization:
1. Collecting relevant customer data:
Gathering comprehensive customer data goes beyond basic information and demographics (i.e. name, gender, etc). It involves understanding their browsing behavior, past interactions, preferences, and purchase history. This data provides valuable insights into their preferences, allowing you to create targeted segments for more personalized email campaigns.
2. Dynamic content and product recommendations:
Utilizing dynamic content allows you to customize email content based on each subscriber’s unique characteristics. When leveraging this strategy, you can deliver personalized product recommendations that align with their previous purchases and interests. This level of personalization significantly enhances customer engagement and drives conversions.
For example, one of our clients who heavily targets a male audience, we segmented the audience to only women. We sent them an email and highlighted the most purchased products for women. The email included the color options that would be most interesting for them using their purchase/view history. These emails have brought some revenue with each send because it’s getting them interested in the next product.
3. Behavior-triggered emails:
Automating behavior-triggered emails is an effective way to provide timely and relevant content to your subscribers. Examples include sending abandoned cart reminders, post-purchase follow-ups (how-to use product, etc), or personalized offers based on specific actions or behaviors. These emails demonstrate your attentiveness and enhance the personalized experience, fostering stronger customer relationships.
Tip 3: Compelling and Engaging Content
Compelling email content plays a crucial role in capturing the attention of your subscribers and driving desired actions. You’ll need to consider a few elements when it comes to engaging emails.
A subject line is very important. It’s the first thing your subscribers see, so it’s essential to make it attention-grabbing and compelling. Use intriguing language, personalization, or a sense of urgency to entice recipients to open your emails and discover what’s inside. This is your “first impression,” so consider it carefully.
✔️ Craft concise and persuasive copy
Once they open the email, you’ll want them to connect with the content. So, craft concise and persuasive copy that communicates your message clearly and effectively. Use language that your audience will connect with and highlight the benefits they’ll gain from your products or services. Make your content easy to skim while maintaining a persuasive tone that encourages action.
✔️ Use visuals to make your emails stand out
Incorporate eye-catching images, infographics, or even GIFs to highlight important points and make your emails visually appealing.
If you have videos, include a “play” button on the image, leading subscribers to a video that’s housed on your landing page and adding an interactive touch to your emails. Keep in mind your image-to-text ratio, and don’t go overboard.
✔️ Have a clear call to action
All of this will go to waste, though, if you don’t have a clear call to action (CTA). Make your call to action concise, clear, and action-oriented. Be mindful to keep your CTAs to a minimum. Too many calls-to-action can divert your customer’s attention from taking the action you want them to take.
Tip 4: Mobile Optimization
Mobile devices have become the go-to for email consumption. With a significant percentage of users accessing emails on their smartphones and tablets, optimizing your emails for mobile has never been more crucial.
Responsive design is key to ensuring a seamless experience for mobile users. By using responsive templates and layouts, you can adapt your email content to fit different screen sizes and resolutions. This approach guarantees that your message comes across clearly and that your call to action remains easily accessible, regardless of the device being used.
To further optimize your emails for mobile users, focus on delivering clear and concise content. Keep in mind that smaller screens require concise messaging that gets straight to the point.
Tip 5: Testing, Analytics, and Continuous Improvement
When it comes to email marketing best practices, data-driven decision-making is paramount. Testing and analytics provide valuable insights that enable you to improve your email campaigns continuously.
Implementing A/B testing allows you to experiment with different subject lines, content variations, and design elements to identify what resonates best with your audience. After analyzing the results, you can make data-backed decisions that lead to higher engagement and conversion rates.
One of our clients needed us to determine why people sign up for emails. So we looked at the collections that received the most sales and started segmenting audiences interested in those items. We saw bridal gifts, baby and kids items, holidays/seasonal, corporate gifts, and home decor were popular. We segmented these audiences based on categories that they viewed in these areas. Then we sent campaigns highlighting different products and messages to those audiences based on their interests. This helped improve click rates to drive more people to the website to make purchases.
Email is one of those channels that can be easily neglected. Putting together effective email campaigns starts with gathering data about your customers and testing out different messages. Your business can learn more about what resonates with your different segments by sending emails more consistently and measuring each email’s impact. Over the next three months, you will start to see revenue growing.
Laurel is a member of the executive team at Stryde. She’s been doing digital marketing for businesses for 10 years. Two years ago, she started set up her own ecommerce business selling baby gowns and knows the struggles of a small business owner. She loves talking about digital marketing, content, SEO, and conversion rate optimization.
