Email Marketing, if you strip everything else from your digital marketing strategy, can be the real winner in terms of sales and revenue for your ecommerce business.
I've seen it.
It’s also not as daunting as it might seem if you’ve never done it before for your brand.
Today, we're focusing on launching: how to start your email marketing strategy from scratch, and how to take the very first step. You're ready for the full strategy? Here's the next step.
There's something really important to get before even getting started: the real advantage that email marketing hits is that it's marketing to a captive audience: a set of existing or potential customers (hopefully, you’ll segment them as such) who are aware of your brand, who’ve signed up to hear more from you, and those who’ve expressed interest in your niche, your products, services, or the brand itself.
These are people who voted with their inboxes.
It's marketing gold. ☀️
It’s a captive audience that wants to learn more from you.
As against any random target audience on Google Ads or Facebook Ads who aren’t aware of what your brand is about, what it stands for, and as to how your products and/or services can help them.
If you’d like to learn how to start an email marketing strategy for eCommerce (and if you haven’t done it already), here’s how to do it.
What does it means to start an ecommerce email marketing strategy?
In this article, we'll consider today's your first step - it's about launching an ecommerce email marketing strategy.
So, let's start with the basics: what's email marketing?
Ecommerce email marketing is about using emails to turn subscribers into customers.
And of course, customers into repeat buyers.
For this, you need to send several types of emails, you probably already received from brands, several times a day.
Offers, automated flows (welcome, abandoned cart, post-purchase) and regular campaigns.
Believe me when I say this (talking from experience here, after working with thousands of ecommerce companies): it's the highest-ROI channel most stores own, because you're talking to your audience.
And your audience is made of people who already subscribed to your email list: they're already taken the first step.
You might be asking: why should I bother? I have ads, traffic, I'll improve them and I'm going to be alright: I don't want to add another marketing channel.
Well, it's because email marketing (for ecommerce specifically) might be the one that drives the most business:
Now that I have your attention (hopefully), let's get started!
Make an Offer (What do I get? Why Should I Care?)
Given the number of competing e-commerce brands, striving to get customers all over the room, you’d be hard-pressed to convince customers to use your products and services.
You’d have to get their attention first, and that’s a start.
You do that with an offer.
To make offers effectively, you’d have to appeal to emotions or promise to solve their problems first.
You need to offer something, in exchange of a email address:
- The easiest way to do it is with information (and hence the power of content marketing). Give away a PDF checklist, a short user guide, a tip sheet, or a handy reckoner that relates to your business or your products in general.
- The second easiest way is to give out discount codes (coupons).
Making that offer is the foundation of your email marketing strategy.
On LinkedIn/X, you'll see hundreds of folks explaining how they improve their ecommerce store popups, etc.
That's exactly what's it's about: the best conversion rate you'll get on your "capture" popup (the offer to get an email address), the stronger your email marketing strategy will be.
Here's how the calculation works:
Do this first: offer a discount code or a 1-page PDF in exchange for the email. No offer, no list.
Start Sending Emails
For your email strategy to work, the primary requirement is to send emails out in the first place.
As for the frequency of emails, what the emails should contain, types of emails, and more - you can learn, tweak, change, improvise, experiment, and repeat all over again.
Pick a email sender: Shopify has its own, Klaviyo is the most popular nowadays (for a reason, it's very good), but there are hundreds that are great, for all prices.
Signup, get your account setup, connect to your store and get your first signups (to test this quickly, sign up yourself!).
Once it's done... tada!
You're ready to send emails: both automated ones and campaigns.
Send your first email to get started and make sure everything works (we have great tips on deliverability on this blog too).
As you grow, there's one thing to keep in mind: the critical aspect of email marketing is to keep leads nurtured, while staying in touch with older customers.
Do this: send your first email this week, even a simple welcome. The first step is the most important one!
Objectives Meet Email Types
There are several different types of emails you’d send, within the umbrella of email marketing.
- There are casual broadcast messages and there are sequenced (strategic) emails designed (and sent out in a sequence) to not only provide information but also help you sell products.
- There are automated one-time emails and maybe a whole sequence of emails. There are transactional emails (order updates, shipping updates) as well.
Each email type has use cases (and an appropriate way of using these).
These are all tools and techniques, within the sphere of email marketing, that you’d use depending on your objectives.
The key is to use them, depending on your objectives.
Do this: give each email one job — welcome, cart recovery, promo, transactional. One email, one goal.
Graduate to Email Automation
Ever tried sending out more than 10 emails using your personal email account? It’s tiresome.
Manual tasks must give way to automation at some point for operational efficiency, to save time, and to double-down on already scarce resources.
Consider email marketing for retargeting: If you’d receive 1000 visitors a day (and hence an average of 30,000 visitors per month) and assume that 10% of these visitors add products to their shopping carts. Let’s assume that all of those folks who abandoned shopping carts don’t ever visit again.
Retargeting with emails is an effective way to bring those potential customers back. But can you imagine the operational nightmare (not to mention back-breaking task it’d be to do this with a degree of automation).
Using email automation cuts across in different ways and aspects of your eCommerce business.
The point is this: Embrace and use automation.
The sooner the better.
Do this: automate the welcome and abandoned-cart flows first. They earn the most for the least effort.
Bring it together: Track and Tweak
Once you get going with your email marketing strategy, you’ll have data available to you that tells you stories. How many visitors turn into email subscribers?
How many email subscribers convert into customers? How many customers repeat their purchases, thanks to email marketing alone (and additionally, what are the other channels that you can attribute your sales and revenue to?).
The only you’d know what you’d have to know is thanks to tracking, analytics, and reports. Every single email marketing program gives you access to reports that go deep into detail on email delivery rates, email open rates, email link click-through rates, revenue attributed to these email campaigns, and more.
Learn. Implement. Tweak and experiment to improve on your email marketing strategy.
Do this: watch open rate, click rate and revenue per email. Keep what works, cut what doesn't, repeat.
If you’d like to learn what the usual industry benchmarks are, how other eCommerce brands execute their email marketing strategy, the contents of emails, email design, subject lines used for email campaigns, and more, get access to Panoramata.
FAQ
What is ecommerce email marketing?
Using email — offers, automated flows and campaigns — to convert subscribers into customers and customers into repeat buyers. It's the highest-ROI channel most stores own.
What's the easiest way to start email marketing for my online store?
Make an offer to collect emails (a discount or a useful PDF), pick an email tool, send a welcome flow, then add abandoned-cart and post-purchase emails before scaling to regular campaigns.
What types of emails should an ecommerce store send?
Welcome, abandoned cart, promotional/newsletter, post-purchase and win-back emails — a mix of automated flows and broadcast campaigns.
How often should I email my customers?
Start around once a week for campaigns, plus automated flows triggered by behavior. Watch unsubscribes and engagement, and adjust.
