Why is email marketing important for ecommerce?

Making email marketing part of your ecommerce strategy

Much as daily business emails help you communicate with colleagues and clients, email marketing is an easy way to stay in touch with new and existing customers. It's true, there are lots of marketing platforms and tools out there from TikTok and Reddit to paid Facebook ads. That doesn't mean to say email marketing doesn't have its place; on the contrary in fact, it's still very much alive and kicking.

Take a look at the stats...

The latest email marketing statistics show that an email campaign can reach a massive 79 - 90% of the people it is sent to? Open rate is usually 30% and it doesn't stop there, 4.24% go on to make a purchase. Compare that to only 2.49% from those making a manual search, then making a purchase or 0.59% buying due to social marketing and it's clear to see that email marketing continues to work its magic and encourage customers to move in the right direction (your check out).

Encourage customers with emails...they're cheaper than you might think.

Thankfully, email marketing is pretty affordable especially when you consider the return on investment (ROI). Research has shown that the average cost per email can cost as little as 1p per email from a list of potential customers (or loyal customers if targeting with new products, promotions or services). These are indeed reassuring figures when planning your email campaigns and associated budgets.

Your email. Your brand. Your way...

Along with enticing customers to make a purchase many ecommerce businesses can see the value email marketing actually adds to their brand. By keeping your email campaigns relevant to the audience and by adding your brand's look and feel into the mix, you can easily strengthen customer relations through brand familiarity and inclusion. Just remember; don't spam. Too many emails or emails with irrelevant content can often lead to recipients unsubscribing - not a desirable result in anyones marketing strategy. Getting customer engagement right takes balance - sending the right content to the right audience.

By making your email marketing more personal you're actually more likely to get the results you're after for your ecommerce store - that's what it's all about right. A study (by SmartHQ) found that, '72% of consumers said they would only engage with personalised emails.' There are various email marketing tools; such as 'MailChimp' which can help you add that personal touch when reaching out - automatically popping recipients names, titles and company names into messages.

It's a YES from me

When a customer signs up to your email list, surprise, surprise it tends to mean that they actually want to hear from you. That's great news when trying to generate more sales and increasing website visitors. Are you aware that email marketing is a preferred form of contact for a whopping 61% of customers? What's more, 90% say that they wanted to receive emails from a brand they do business with.

So, it's highly likely that you have a captive audience. All you need to do is to get your message across and decide on what your ideal call to action should be. What do you want to achieve from your email marketing campaigns and how do you want people to take action? Do you want new customers to sign up to regular promotions? Perhaps you want boost sales with a seasonal giveaway? Or maybe steering people to your online store is what your ecommerce business is in need of? Remember to shape your content accordingly, for example ads work best for new customers whilst existing customers tend to respond to updates and deals on regular purchases/services.

Socialising isn't always a good thing

Reaching out via social media has its benefits especially as you cast your brand's net far and wide. Having said that, the benefits of email marketing are based on firmer foundations. Let me explain...Have you considered what happens when you put your brand in the hands of someone else's sandbox? Or, what the results are when algorithms change? Unlike emails, where you are using your own data, from your own list of subscribers, social is crammed with uncertainty. Yes you can target a desired demographic but unlike emailing, it's not a set demographic and is nestled in a minefield of changeable factors.

Email marketing measures up

Whichever form of marketing you opt for, your ROI (Return on Investment) is paramount. Thankfully emailing marketing is simple to measure in terms of open rate, click through rate and conversion rate - all of which determining the effectiveness of design, copy, message and offering. Remember, there is also bounce, spam complaint and unsubscribe rates in place to indicate how your emails and indeed your business are being received.

The good thing is that this data can be fed into your future email marketing strategy in your bid to attract new customers and retail loyal clients. Moving forward with your email marketing strategies you can look at areas of improvement such as:

• Low open rate - time to look at your subject lines.
• Low conversion rate - perhaps a landing page is the way to go for converting clicks into sales.
• High unsubscribe rate - ok, how often are you emailing? Maybe you're overdoing it. People don't appreciate being bombarded.

Boost brand recognition

Another advantage to ecommerce email marketing is the way it helps to really get your brand out there - creating even more interest in your ecommerce store, your products/services and of course your business. Keep in mind that this is all about balance. As we've just mentioned, subscribers don't want to be saturated with sales, so your company news and latest updates are just as important. Don't forget, the main goal underpinning your ecommerce email marketing is to build trust and to strengthen relationships.

Get things on target...

Email marketing is a direct lead generating tool for ecommerce businesses. It goes without saying that different customers are obviously at varying stages in the buying cycle. Whichever stage they are at, emails can help in cross-selling or indeed selling more products, etc. Your email marketing strategy should include the creation of a targeted email list. Why? Well, buyers can be targeted at the research stage, compare stage or indeed the ready-to-buy stage. So, shaping your emails to suit is paramount if you're to reach the right customers at the right time.

Top Tip!

A good idea is to create buyer personas. That will help you to understand what kind of content is needed and at what step in your emails. Careful planning will definitely help with customer engagement, wherever they are in their buying journey.

If you want to run ecommerce email marketing campaigns effectively, make them as personalized and targeted as possible. How do you do that? Well, for example, if your potential customer is only at the research stage – simply introduce them to your brand and gently motivate them towards the need to make a purchase. Looking at the other end of the sales journey. If they're at the ready-to-buy stage, a discount or offer tend to work well towards securing that all-important sale.

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Ready to start your email marketing?

OK, so now you're ready to give email marketing a go; but where do you start?

Your email marketing strategy...

Right, let's look at things in simple terms. Your emails can be split into three basic categories which are: New (entering your client base), existing (active customers) and lapsed customers (declining/lost activity).

There are also three simple types of email which are:

Lifecycle Emails

The qualities of these type of email included:

• Automated messages which build customer engagement and relationships.
• Automation is based on customer behaviours e.g purchase type/times.
• Flexible email themes with 'lifecycle emails' are cart abandonment, welcome, milestones. (e.g. birthdays), thank you, feedback and win-back emails.

Check out the stats

Welcome emails (part of the Lifestyle Email family) have a whopping 84% open rate and a click through rate of 26%, plus they bring 8 times more revenue than other emails.

Win-back emails (again part of the Lifestyle Email family) can actually carry an open rate of 12% and as 2/3 of most client lists are inactive that's definitely worth a go especially considering that 3/4 of re-engaged subscribers will read more of your emails within 3 months.

Transactional Emails

• Once again these are automated messages. These can be personalised as they are initiated by your subscribers making transactions on your site.
• Various sorts of email are included here such as order confirmations, password resets and email address verifications.
• As these aren't marketing emails (they're purely customer service based), customers aren't required to opt in.

Broadcast Emails

• Easily tailored to your existing client list.
• These include, announcements, one-off campaigns, newsletters and sales.

One of the easiest types of email to start with are 'Lifecycle Emails' - your creative agency should be able to talk you through and plan where is best for you to begin.

In Summary

With no need for social media algorithms or search engine rankings, email marketing is a simple way for you to directly reach your customers.

But that's not all, there are other benefits too. Take a look:

• Increase brand awareness - customers who follow you obviously have a genuine interest in your brand, products and services.
• Easy targeting - tailoring your emails to a buyer's journey, for example focusing on research, compare of ready-to-buy stage.
• Easily measurable and just as simple to spot problem; then make improvements.
• Customising and personalising your emails is straightforward - so strengthening that customer connection is just as simple too.
• Subscribers are more likely to want to hear from you, making emails much more warmly received compared to other marketing channels.
• Using your own client list rather than another company's page/algorithm means that compared with social media advertising, email marketing is in your control.

Email Marketing Services

Hopefully we've given you the knowledge you'll need to consider whether ecommerce email marketing is for you. It's difficult to reason why it wouldn't be. If it is, you should now know where to start yours. It goes without saying however that despite having the knowhow, you may not have the time. Thankfully we do and we're here to help - from initial advice to a full email marketing strategy and distribution. Please don't hesitate to ask for details.

Call 0800 808 9980 or visit digitalmediateam.co.uk