Email marketing is one of the most utilized strategies in the ecommerce industry. While many think of email as something too old-school in today’s highly high-tech and digital age, there is no doubt that email marketing campaigns offer exceptional ROI when it is done right.
Data shows approximately 4 billion active email users daily and over 306 billion emails are sent and received daily. Considering this, it is safe to say that email is one of the most popular and commonly used communication and messaging mediums. Regarding marketing, most users believe that email is the most personal channel to receive information, messages, and communications from a brand. Email campaigns such as product features, welcome emails, and mobile-optimized designs receive significantly higher click-through rates than others.
Curious as to how email marketing can work in your ecommerce business? Here’s a brief overview of the different campaigns you can conduct using email communications.
Benefits Of Using Email Marketing
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There is a lot to gain and not much to lose in email marketing. According to recent reports, email’s ROI is roughly $36 for every dollar spent. This is significantly higher than other marketing strategies such as search engine optimization (SEO) which is at $22:$1 and pay-per-click (PPC) which is at $2 per dollar spent.
That in itself should be able to convince you to at least consider email marketing as part of your digital marketing plan. But to further persuade you, here are some of the notable benefits of using email for marketing.
- Allows marketers to create personalized content for specific users.
- A great avenue to collect customer feedback and surveys.
- Directly influence customers’ purchase decisions.
- Offers the ability to send timely campaigns and reach specific customers at the right time.
- Presents more valuable and relevant information to target customers.
The Buyer’s Journey
Before we dive into the different email marketing campaigns, digital marketers need to understand the concept of the buyer’s journey first as it influences how an email marketing campaign is conducted.
The buyer’s journey refers to the process an individual takes when purchasing a product or service. It involves three stages – awareness, consideration, and decision. Email marketing focuses primarily on a buyer’s awareness stage and aims to push to the next stage of consideration.
A potential buyer’s awareness of brands, digital goods, products, or services dictates the type of content used in an email marketing campaign. The six levels of buyer awareness are:
- Unaware: The target audience is fully unaware of the service and needs engaging and entertaining content to create a good and lasting first impression.
- Problem-aware: The target audience faces a problem or challenge and needs hope for a solution. The ideal content would show how your products or services will address their pain points.
- Solution-aware: Buyers at this level of awareness are knowledgeable about your product or service but need clarification on how it can help and how it is better than competitors.
- Product-aware: Buyers who are product-aware simply need assurance that they are making the right choice to continue to purchase from your company.
- Most aware: Audiences at this level of awareness are well acquainted with who you are as a brand and what you have to offer. They either have shown great interest in your digital products, goods, and services or have previously bought from you before. At this stage, most aware buyers need a new reason to buy from you again. The content you provide should be encouraging such as offering limited discount vouchers or free-shipping coupons that will entice them to take advantage of the offer.
- Disengaged: Disengaged audiences are fully aware but have lost connection with your brand. Given that they know your brand and your products, the content’s goals should be to establish and reconnect through relevant, valuable, and relatable messages.
5 Must-Have Email Marketing Campaigns
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Welcome Email Series
Welcome emails are arguably the most common and fundamental campaign in email marketing strategies. A brand typically uses it to introduce itself to leads who have shown interest in what you have to offer by subscribing to your email newsletter.
Welcome emails are designed for new members of your email list for them to get to know your brand more and for you to know them better. This type of email campaign is crucial as it serves as the first point of contact, thus needing to create a good first impression and a strong and lasting relationship.
Tips for Welcome Email Series:
- Entice your audience to subscribe to your newsletter by offering discounts, vouchers, and other promo codes.
- Send welcome emails immediately to keep your brand fresh and on top of their minds.
- Add CTAs to direct them to your ecommerce website blogs or social media profiles to establish a better connection and boost brand familiarity.
Standard Promotional Campaigns
Standard promotional campaigns are also common in the email marketing strategy. Much like any other advertising effort, standard promotional emails aim to encourage buyers by featuring products and offering tempting promos such as discounts, limited sales, and the like.
Tips for Standard Promotional Campaigns:
- Create a sense of urgency to push your audience to take immediate action.
- Offer subscriber-limited promos and vouchers as a reward for subscribing to your brand’s newsletter.
- Apply an email series repetitively reminding subscribers of the upcoming sale as it draws nearer and nearer.
Cart Abandonment Campaigns
Abandoned carts are a common phenomenon in the electronic commerce industry. Given that it’s significantly easier to find products and add them to a cart in an online store, leaving them there is also as trouble-free.
Cart abandonment email campaigns are triggered by a buyer’s action which in this case, leaving a product in their cart and not completing a checkout. This type of email campaign aims to remind buyers of their incomplete purchases and encourage them to finish them.
Tips for Cart Abandonment Campaigns
- Use eye-catching and attention-grabbing subject lines.
- Encourage purchases by offering time-sensitive discounts and promos.
- Create a sense of urgency by telling customers that supply is running low or a current discount offer is about to expire.
Post-Purchase Campaigns
While a digital marketer’s goal is to lead a targeted audience toward a purchase, that doesn’t mean their work is done once a customer successfully buys from their company.
Post-purchase email campaigns are not as popular as welcome emails but they are extremely effective in establishing good customer relationships. This email campaign is triggered by a customer completing a purchase and includes content to show appreciation for the transaction.
Post-purchase campaigns are great means to show that the brand values its customers and still cares about their experience even after completing a purchase. It is also a tool that can be utilized to establish continuous communication and interaction with customers.
Tips for Post-Purchase Campaigns
- Use post-purchase email campaigns to ask for product reviews and customer feedback.
- Offer relevant content related to their purchase such as care and maintenance tips, as well as proper use and application.
Re-Engagement Campaigns
Customer re-engagement is also an important part of any marketing strategy. To reconnect with customers who have fallen behind and are out of date, your re-engagement email campaign should show them they are still valuable members of your community.
Use your re-engagement emails to prompt disengaged customers to get back on by visiting your ecommerce website and checking out your newest products while offering too-good-too-pass discounts and vouchers.
Tips for Re-Engagement Campaigns
- Use your re-engagement emails to gauge a customer’s likelihood of coming back. Otherwise, offer them the option to unsubscribe from your email newsletter.
- Don’t sound too demanding and authoritative. It can push disengaged customers further away. Instead, give low-friction offers that will pull people back in.
- Review the customer’s purchase history and suggest relevant content and recommendations based on that.
Bottomline
Email marketing can be a powerful marketing tool if applied properly. An essential part of any email marketing campaign is to identify target audiences and determine their level of awareness and position in the buyer’s journey.
Digital marketers can use email messages to reach various target audiences. They can use email to introduce their brand to new followers, interact with the current community, encourage customers to complete a purchase, and even reconnect with long-lost customers. s
Want to know more about different digital marketing strategies in ecommerce? Sidekicks is an on-demand virtual company, and we’re eager to help visionaries and entrepreneurs like you. Get a free ebook and learn more about how we can help you by signing up for our newsletter. We also offer a free 30-minute consultation if you prefer something more personal.
