Your ability to build an email list is one of the most valuable aspects of running an independent webstore.
This data is exclusive to you and not available anywhere else online. It gives you an advantage over your competitors and helps you establish value and connections with your customers. It plays a crucial role in enhancing customer lifetime value and accurately forecasting the future direction of your business.
The significance of the strategies utilized with your email list is similar to the importance of your conversations and interactions with customers on social media, calls, or forums. This is because you aim to establish a relationship, share information, and offer opportunities and touch points that are exclusive to those on the email list.
These individuals are very important persons.
Since they have already made a purchase with your brand, it can be observed from industry benchmarks that approximately 21% of individuals will open your email and out of those, 2.56% will click through to your website. Furthermore, it is noted that 33% of recipients open emails based solely on the subject line and 55% of emails are accessed through a mobile device.
Your brand should not be satisfied with benchmark standards, but rather aim to surpass them. The following email marketing best practices will assist you in achieving this goal.
1. Start with a welcome series
To create a positive impression with new subscribers, it is recommended to set up a welcome email series. This series allows you to narrate your brand’s journey, showcase your top products, and potentially provide a discount to encourage purchases.
A welcome series is a significant contributor to engagement, as evidenced by its impressive average open rate of 68.59 percent and average click-through rate of 16.05 percent. Incorporating a welcome series into your broader email marketing campaign can greatly enhance its effectiveness.
Why is it necessary to rephrase the text below step by step, while ensuring the same meaning is maintained? Adding new information or removing information should not be done. What is the purpose of this exercise?
The primary point is that a welcome series includes multiple emails. Ideally, sending two or three emails is ideal as anything more may be perceived as “spammy” and may deter new subscribers.
By sending two emails, you are given the opportunity to greet the customer and urge them to establish a connection. On the other hand, by sending three emails, you not only have the chance to fulfill the previous two actions, but also to develop a more intimate understanding of the customer.
When determining whether to select two or three emails, it is important to ensure that each email contains several crucial components. The first email of introduction should:
- thank the subscriber
- welcome them to the brand
- let them know what to look forward to in future emails
Include any promises made during sign-up, such as discounts, and follow a step-by-step thought process.
- give subscribers a further way to connect through mobile apps or social media
- focus on the value you or your products can provide to their lives
- tell them why they should purchase
2. Be sure to include a clear call to action
What is it that you want your subscribers to do?
Your customers should have clear instructions on what to do, such as reading your latest blog post, watching a promotional video, or purchasing your newest product. A call to action, also known as a CTA, is a prompt that is presented to users through a newsletter, website, or video. Typically, the prompt appears as a button or hyperlink to assist users in accomplishing their objective.
Unbounce states that the inclusion of a single clear CTA in emails increases clicks by 371 percent and sales by 1617 percent. To ensure effective CTAs, it is recommended to keep them clear and concise. To create a compelling call-to-action for your email marketing campaigns, follow these steps:
- Knowing the end goal.
- Using action-oriented words.
- Addressing your audience in the first person.
- Keeping your messaging short and snappy.
- Adopting a conversational tone.
Regularly A/B test your calls to action to determine which elements your users respond to best. This involves testing variations of your most frequently used calls to action, such as verbs, button shape and color, length, and word order.
By changing the phrase “Start your free 30-day trial” to “Start my free 30-day trial,” Unbounce observed a 90 percent increase in their click-through rate.
3. Use personalization to segment your list
When was the most recent occasion that you received an email that was specifically customized for you?
If you’re similar to most individuals, there was a higher likelihood that the email would motivate you to take action. In reality, personalized promotional emails increase transaction rates and revenue by six times compared to non-personalized emails.
There are three categories of personalized marketing: contextual, demographic, and behavioral.
- Contextual personalization utilizes where a customer is in their journey. For example, just beginning to research the topic or being ready to make a buying decision.
- Demographic personalization utilizes demographic information such as age, gender, location, and household income level to inform recommendations.
- Behavioral personalization is the use of past purchases or website behavior (e.g., abandoned carts). Consider this email from Etsy that advertises products based on past purchases:
By combining categories, such as past purchases and new location-based recommendations, you can create intersections, depending on the size of your email list. As you make your segmentation more specific, the marketing campaigns will become more personalized, resulting in a higher chance of success.
4. Automate what you can
Campaign Monitor discovered that non-automated emails generate 320 percent less revenue compared to automated emails. As a result, incorporating automated email campaigns into your overall marketing strategy can greatly enhance its effectiveness.
Automated emails for e-commerce, ranging from welcome series to cart abandonment, transactional emails, and re-engagement campaigns, have the potential to enhance your email marketing strategy. It is common for reliable email marketing software to provide guidance on automating your emails.
Klaviyo provides a range of blog posts, including those discussing automation flows to consider. Additionally, they offer an automation user guide to assist with setting up your flows effectively.
5. Evaluate and review your list of subscribers.
Your email marketing relies on your email subscriber list, which comprises all the individuals who have previously signed up to receive your newsletter.
If you have been engaged in email marketing for a considerable period, there will come a time when you need to tidy up your contact list. It is improbable that all the individuals who registered for your spring sale a few years ago, for instance, are presently regularly opening and engaging with your email communications.
Having fewer subscribers who are highly engaged is preferable to having many subscribers who never open your emails.
You can take the following steps to address the situation: First, establish a group of individuals who have not opened any of your emails in the previous six months. Then, send them a series of re-activation or re-engagement emails with a compelling subject line and an attractive offer. Another option is to directly inquire whether they wish to remain as subscribers or choose to unsubscribe. If they continue to not open the emails, it is advisable to remove them from the subscriber list.
Take the time to assess and analyze the data related to your interaction or involvement.
In order to enhance your ecommerce email marketing outcomes, it is crucial to analyze the engagement metrics of your past email campaigns and assess the ones that performed exceptionally well (as well as the ones that performed poorly).
To begin, examine your open rate and click-through rate. If your open rates are satisfactory but the click-through rates are lacking, question whether you are sending emails that are pertinent to your audience. If your open rates are unsatisfactory, it is probable that the subject lines require enhancement.
There are some additional reasons your campaigns could be performing poorly.
- The offer was not attractive enough
- You’re not upselling effectively
- You’re sending emails at the wrong time
- You use the wrong messaging for this segment
If you are not already doing so, begin by adding a tracking code to your email marketing campaigns. This will be particularly useful if you already use Google Analytics, as the tracking code will allow you to determine which campaigns are most successful in attracting customers and generating high conversion rates for your email marketing in ecommerce.
7. Expand the number of subscribers on your list.
It is important to add new subscribers to your email list, but do not overlook the significance of quality. Ensure that you have a strategy to effectively attract potential buyers who will convert, rather than solely prioritizing the growth of a subscriber list for the purpose of raising awareness.
Below are some fresh ideas that you can follow step by step to expand your email list and encourage purchases with attractive incentives:
- Create exclusive content marketing from your top blog articles. For example, offer an ebook or guide that readers can only download once they’ve subscribed.
- Offer a loyalty program. Invite potential customers to subscribe to your rewards/loyalty program. Set up a landing page outlining the main benefits and ask your users to create an account and opt-in to your emails.
- Launch a giveaway. Give people the chance to win a prize by subscribing to your email newsletters. Make sure the prize is relevant (e.g. a new product you’re promoting) to attract people with purchase intent.
Key elements should be A/B tested.
Utilizing A/B split testing enables you to gain insight into the most effective strategies for your email marketing ecommerce campaigns. It allows you to test various elements, such as the timing of sending and subject line, as well as the positioning and color of your CTA button.
When conducting A/B tests using email marketing tools, you just need to determine the test group size (e.g., 5% of subscribers for each test version). The victorious version will then be automatically sent to the remaining 90 percent of subscribers.
To ensure accurate results, it is important to acknowledge the unique characteristics of each customer segment and avoid generalizing findings from one test to the entire database. To gain precise insights into what is effective and what is not, it is recommended to consistently practice A/B testing. Additionally, it is essential to conduct tests and optimize emails specifically for distinct email service providers like Gmail and Outlook.
