In a world of influencers and artificial intelligence, email marketing leaves you in a unique position to connect with your customers on an individual basis for your ecommerce website.
Ecommerce marketing drives awareness and actions toward consumers purchasing products and services on the internet. While marketers can use social media, search ads, and content marketing to attract customers, email marketing still remains one of the most effective methods.
Why?
Ecommerce emails have the potential to be incredibly powerful and, when leveraged correctly, you can benefit immense rewards. You have the ability to include hyper-personalization, automated features based on the customer’s activity, and, in general, reach an audience who actually wants to hear from you.
Read on to discover some ecommerce email tips and examples so you can create a killer campaign that converts customers and boosts your bottom line.
Why are ecommerce emails important?
Running an online business is difficult. Between tough competition and the ever-changing search engine algorithm, it’s imperative that you create a strategy that builds meaningful relationships with your customers.
In fact, 61% of consumers actually prefer brands to contact them through email, which has the potential of a 122% ROI.
While there are a lot of tactics you can implement to improve your campaigns, the purpose is to build a deeper connection that creates customer loyalty. Ecommerce email marketing is centered around discovering their pain points and delivering personalized solutions.
With a successful email marketing strategy that focuses on the customer, you have the potential to:
- Develop promotions that sell more products
- Nurture loyal customers for repeat business
- Segment your data to generate more strategic sales
Read on for a few tips on how to get your ecommerce emails started.
5 tips to improve your ecommerce email campaigns
With the right elements, your email will stand out in the inbox to earn more clicks and conversions.
Subject line
The subject line is arguably the most important part of an email campaign. It serves as the first, or the last, impression your subscriber has of your message and should entice your subscribers to explore your email more. The best subject lines are relevant, pique curiosity, and include personalization.
Take these examples into consideration:
- Personal: John, thanks for attending
- Urgent: Today only: 45% off everything!
- List: 5 must-haves for the chic woman
- Local: Where to eat in Chicago
Preheader
Sometimes overlooked by marketers, the preheader appears next to the subject line and helps summarize what the email includes. Think about it as an extension of your subject line that allows you to prompt additional curiosity and emotions to earn the subscriber’s attention.
Source: Gmail
Check out this example from Bonefish grill. Not only is the subject line catchy, but the preheader actually tells customers what’s included in the deal.
Mobile-optimized
In this fast-paced, multi-screen world, 53% of emails are now being opened on mobile devices and it continues to grow as the most popular way subscribers interact with promotional emails. While the challenge of verifying how your email appears across all email clients is still crucial, you also need to verify that you’re using a mobile-responsive design. Mobile-ready emails ensure that, no matter where your subscriber opens your email—iPhone, Gmail, Outlook, Android, or anywhere else, it still looks great.
Images and copy
Visuals help convey your overall message. However, you need to ensure your email still makes sense if images are disabled, as many email clients like Outlook disable images automatically. For example, instead of relying on a large image for your design, utilize HTML for the title and use the image as the background so the subscriber can still see the headline. You also want to utilize body text, image alt text, and a CTA button that details what you want your customers to do.
Source: Campaign Monitor
If you’re unsure, you can send a test email with images disabled to see how exactly your email will appear without graphics.
Personalization and segmentation
No great ecommerce email campaign is without utilizing personalization and segmentation to custom tailor your content for your customers. Email gives you the opportunity to address your customers as individuals by utilizing their first name in the subject line, addressing geographic locations in the copy, and even sending emails based on their past purchase history. In fact, personalized emails result in 6 times higher transaction rates.
Source: Campaign Monitor
Resy, a restaurant booking service, nailed this email by offering subscribers pizza suggestions based on their location and past booking behaviors.
The best ecommerce emails to boost sales
Now that you understand a few ecommerce email best practices, it’s time to discover the best types of messaging you can send to increase your conversions and earn more customers.
Re-engagement email
Since it costs 5 times more to gain a new customer than to keep an existing one, you’ll want to send out a re-engagement email to any customers who haven’t purchased from you recently to win them back. Once you identify who’s inactive, reach out to them with honesty to tell them why you miss their loyalty and what sort of value you can offer moving forward. You can also utilize a discount code or even run a contest to pique their interest.
Source: Really Good emails
Flywheel takes a different approach by asking their inactive subscribers to take a feedback survey so the company can understand why they stopped engaging in the first place. To sweeten the deal, filling out the survey could result in a cool t-shirt.
Review email
With 95% of consumers reading reviews before making a purchase, including them on your site can influence your customer’s decisions and increase sales. In fact, reviews can increase conversions by 270%. With statistics like that, sending a review request after a customer purchases from your store is crucial. When requesting an email, consider these points:
- Offer an incentive—like a discount on a future purchase or free shipping—to help motivate your customers to follow through on the review
- Set up an automated campaign so customers receive the email a few days after receiving their purchases without having to lift a finger on your end
- Utilize a strong CTA button to increase click-through rates and guide your customer to the right place
Source: Really Good Emails
Promotional email
The key to ecommerce emails is not only creating engaging content but being consistent so your customers stay up to date with your product. Sending regular promotional emails is a great way to drive your customers back to your website to make repeat purchases. These emails can include tips and tricks on how to use your products, user-generated content from other customers, or new arrivals that just hit the shelves.
To be successful, you need to ensure that different customer segments receive emails that are relevant to them with dynamic content. For example, if you’re an ecommerce clothing boutique, men and women should receive emails that display products they’d most likely purchase.
Source: Really Good Emails
Abandoned cart email
A common issue ecommerce businesses face is the abandoned cart, with 69.57% of online shopping carts being left before making a purchase. How can you combat this? Send an abandoned cart email a few hours after your customer leaves an item in the cart to stay at the forefront of your customer’s mind and remind them what they left behind. Don’t forget to:
- Include an offer to incentivize your customer to complete the transaction
- Design a concise CTA like “Check out now” to drive clicks
- Send the email within the first 24 hours while the product is fresh in your customer’s minds
Source: Really Good Emails
Wrap up
Ecommerce email marketing is highly effective for informing your subscribers of your product line and keeping them actively engaged. If you’re an ecommerce marketer, consider sending the email campaigns listed above to capitalize on giving your customers a great user experience and convert them into repeat customers. When developing your emails, consider:
- Creating a captivating subject line and preheader text to pique interest
- Utilizing strong imagery and copy to display your message clearly
- Developing a mobile-optimized email that’s visible across all platforms
Now that you understand how to create impactful ecommerce emails, it’s time to start creating your own. Try a free demo with Campaign Monitor today to learn how.