If you are an online store owner you must be dealing with a lot of stuff and wondering how to do a successful e-mail marketing campaign. This blog is right for you!
Even after so many decades, email marketing is still the most chosen marketing campaign for many marketers and business owners whether local or multinational because of its effectiveness.
In the research done by Mailchimp (“Email Marketing Benchmarks & Industry Statistics”) for the key performance indicator (KPI) of 2023, the average Open Rate for an E-commerce business was 29.81% with a 1.73% click-through rate (CTR) and 0.19 % unsubscription rate.
What is email marketing?
Email marketing is the channel of digital marketing where you promote your brand through emails. It is one of the oldest marketing mediums still holding a dominant position in reaching out to audiences.
It is observed there are growing trends in email marketing in the world, particularly in India. According to the LinkedIn survey (“Inbox Power: Unleashing the Potential of Email Marketing in India”), there are 1.5 billion active email users in India creating a new opportunity to attract targeted audiences.
The digital world is evolving continuously and so is email marketing. New technologies do get introduced and updated frequently to meet the new demands of marketing so it’s up to us how we can make the best of this.
How can email marketing be used for online stores?
If we talk about online stores, in a survey by Statista (“Email Marketing Benchmarks & Industry Statistics”) the primary motto of email marketing campaigns was to create awareness and promotion with an average of 16% votes. Other reasons to use email marketing are to generate more sales, increase customer retention, increase user engagement and increase conversions.
The Different Benefits of Email Marketing
- Creating brand awareness and promotion
- Building customer relations
- High rate of ROI
- lead generation and conversion
- Budget-friendly
- Able to reach the targeted audience
Now that we know what email marketing is, its trends and its benefits let’s see what the strategies are to build a successful campaign
Email marketing campaign strategy in step-by-step
Preplanning for email campaigns
- Build a robust email contact list
The email contact list is the pre-requirement to start an email campaign. Your email contact list should be “you already have” or “with new subscribers”. As e-mail is a personal thing no one will like an email from an unknown source as it will be considered spam and apart from that it won’t be beneficial to you because the open rate will be low. To build a contact list you can,
- Whenever someone visits your website give them pop-ups to create an account.
- For new customers try to give them “New Customer Sign Up Offers”
- A confirmation email for the new sign-up
- Beyond building Contact work for “Contact Segmentation”
Your work doesn’t stop on building a robust contact list, and work beyond Contact segmentation. It is a process where you segregate the email list into categories based on various factors:
- Demography: Age, Gender, Preferences, etc
- Past Purchase History and Event Session
Contact Segmentation will make your work even easier so that you can focus on delivering emails that have high chances of Click-through rate, Open Rate and Conversion Rate. we simply don’t want to focus on spending random landing pages with no chance of conversion
- Update your email list regularly
One of the most important steps that most online store owners ignore is updating the email list and removing spammy, duplicate emails, updated emails and inactive email subscriber
- Landing Page
As mentioned above landing pages should be different for each customer based on their contact segmentation with clear Call-to-action and Unique Selling Points of that particular product, and other similar product recommendations to increase the engagement rate.
Setting up an email marketing campaign
- Investing in the right software and tools
Without the right email marketing tool, it will become difficult to organise an email marketing campaign. Thinking wise while the correct tool based on your business requirements is the basic and crucial step. Things you must consider before deciding to invest in email marketing tools are:
- Email automation
- A/B testing
- Email templates and design
- Online integration with other platforms
- Customizable Personalized E-mails
- Analysis and Tracking of the Campaign Result
- Monitor the user behaviour
You can’t simply send emails to any customer where the product is not even related to them. Monitor and understand your customers’ touchpoints, past events, the user behaviour and accordingly send emails about the relevant product that has a high possibility of clicks.
- E-mail automation
E-mail automation is the process of setting the emails written to send automatically at a given set of times. You can automate the life cycle emails like welcome emails, thank you emails, etc. In addition, you can set the designated emails based on the contact segregation.
- A/B testing
Before sending an e-mail make sure to run an A/B testing and the success rate of the strategy you planned before implementing it on a large scale.
Email Marketing Planning
- An attention-grabbing subject line
Every day, we receive a large number of emails in our inboxes. To stand out from the crowd and prevent our emails from being abandoned, we need to approach things differently. The subject line is the first thing that people see, and it can often determine whether or not they read the email. To increase the chances of our emails being read, we need to create a captivating, clear, concise, and urgent call to action with a unique subject line. This will encourage more people to click on our emails and engage with the content inside.
- A convincing Email Copy
The E-mail body is the main thing that the audience reads. Don’t just copy-paste the same matter in every different email body. Give some personal touch to every unique email copy with small paragraphs, use of emoticons, the voice of the sentences and most importantly the readability of the email.
- An Attractive email design
With the written content, visuals are equally important. A captivating beautiful email design that is adjustable in the context of different device screens is recommendable. In today’s world there is no single work that can’t be done through mobile and e-mails are no different thing. But as we know mobile screens are different than desktop if you focus solely on desktop-oriented designs you will be at a great loss as you might lose a great chunk of your audience. Let’s think practically, suppose your customer opens an email on his mobile device and is not able to find the action button it will lead to a bounce rate.
- Image of the product
Images are the prime players that not only give the visual appeal but also impact the decision to buy the product or not. Giving a high-quality image with customer reviews can build trust in the eyes of the people and high chances in the purchasing procedure.
- Keep the Email Subscription box easy to fill
Try to keep things less complicated and ask for information that is of utmost importance. Asking too many questions regarding information can make the procedure lengthy and fuzzy and people might avoid or leave in the middle of the procedure.
Customer relation-building Strategy
- A Welcome Email
Suppose as a customer you added a subscription to a store, and you need to know whether the process is completed or not. You will feel anxious and angry at the same time. A welcome e-mail assures the customer that your is completed successfully In addition it helps to build a customer relationship with the new subscriber.
- Work on personalised email
Would you like it if somebody called you “hey” without even bothering to know your name? As I mentioned emails shouldn’t be solely focused on selling products but also on building customer relations. Instead of “Dear Subscriber” or “Dear Customer” work to build personalised emails like “Dear Your Customer Name”
- Birthday Email
Make your customers feel special and that they matter for you. Sent a Birthday Wishing E-mail from the information available in the database.
- Winning Back Customer Email
E-mails are not only about driving new traffic but also about gaining the by-gone traffic or the people who are about to deactivate their accounts in your store. Try convincing them to be part of the journey and solve any discrepancies if any.
- A Thank You E-Mail
A Thank You email will help to create a good impression and confirmation that the procedure is completed successfully.
High Conversional, Promotional and Awareness-creating email campaigns
To generate more profits and boost sales the first thing is that our products must be discovered by the audiences. They must be aware of the new products available with us, special offers, discount coupons, etc. To successfully promote our product with a high conversion rate following steps can be taken
- Create the urgency for the purchase
For example, “Limited time offers validate till midnight of the day”
- Give a personalised touch in the email
For example: “Special Offers Only for You. Grab Now!”
- New launch/ New Stock
Create awareness about the new launch, back-in-stock, and new stock so that the audience will visit and have a higher chance of placing an order.
- Seasonal Sales/Festive Offers
Take advantage of Seasonal and festive periods as they can lead to more sales.
- Upsell and cross-sell email
Upsell Emails are emails sent to your customers based on their past purchase history to show them the upgraded version of that product.
Cross-sell Emails are emails showing complimentary products similar to their interest.
Working on upsell and cross-sell email marketing strategies you can give personalised recommendations to the customers by boosting their loyalty and driving more profits for your business.
- Show other customers real-time reviews
Customer feedback is the third-party vote for the products and your services. Giving customer reviews, and the number of customers buying that product will increase the conversion rate.
- Transparency on shipment condition
Be transparent about your shipment conditions in the email template. Shipment conditions are also considered by the people before purchasing it. Also do mention the delivery conditions as well like “installation”, “return policy” “home delivery condition” etc.
For example, “Free shipment on order above 500 Rs”
Transactional Email
- Order confirmation
After a customer completes a purchase, it’s important to send them an order confirmation email that assures them that their order has been confirmed and is being processed. This helps to reduce any anxiety they may have about the purchase and builds trust that their money is safe. Additionally, by providing an order confirmation, the chances of receiving complaints are reduced.
- Shipment Procedure
An email confirming the shipment procedure like the expected date of arrival and from which delivery partner the order will be delivered with shipment tracking must be organised for transparency. Also try to mail the customer if there are any delays in the delivery, order cancellation and Money refund as well.
- Feedback Email
Feedback e-mail confirms whether the delivery procedure was smooth without any complaints. It will be a useful tactic for your Online Reputation Management as you can get real-time feedback from the customers and understand where you have to work.
Place an apology email if any contingencies are noticed.
Increasing Engagement Email
- Notifying the Cart Abundant E-mail
In many cases, a customer browses for the product and adds it to the cart. An email reminding them about the product they selected in the cart can help them realise the product they have forgotten. Notify them by mentioning the ongoing sale of that product.
- Reward for loyal Customers
Customer Loyalty and Retentional Email marketing is a type where you maintain a relationship with existing customers. Rewarding makes you feel special and can increase the chances of returning to your store. Emails describing the rewards like “discounted coupons”, “20% off on the next order” “Cash Back” etc can help create a successful email marketing campaign.
Analysis and tracking of the campaign result
Any marketing campaign must be analysed thoroughly by understanding the outcomes of the different marketing strategies you have worked on. See whether the campaign was successful, what next step must be taken, what were the impressions of the clicks, what was the bounce rate, which customer deleted the email without opening it and what was the open rate of the emails and compare the result with your past campaign result to analyse the success rate.
Conclusion
We hope this guide was helpful for you. Make sure to follow the tips mentioned and take the email marketing campaign to a new height with more revenue and profits.
