Having amazing products and excellent service isn’t enough to guarantee the success of your ecommerce store. In order to consistently generate sales and rake in 6 or 7 figures in monthly revenue, it’s vital that you establish a good connection with your customers and build a relationship based on trust through your ecommerce email marketing efforts.
Unlike brick and mortar businesses, running an online store doesn’t give you the ability to talk to customers face-to-face. That said, you have an equally powerful alternative in the online environment. One that lets you communicate to customers directly, on a regular basis – email marketing.
A well-executed email marketing strategy is an invaluable asset for any ecommerce business. It can give your subscribers an incentive to purchase your products and bring in repeat business, which can drastically increase your sales.
That said, you can’t just start sending out emails without giving it any thought. To get great results with your email campaigns, you have to devise a good strategy. It needs to incorporate all the best practices, to successfully convince people to visit your store, and get them excited about your products.
Today, I want to share with you some of the most effective ecommerce email marketing strategies. After you finish reading this post, you’ll know exactly how to shoot your ecommerce sales through the roof.
Alright, let’s jump right in!
1. Personalize Your Emails
Nobody likes to receive a generic promotional email that puts the spotlight on products, while neglecting the customer. Personalized emails get a lot more engagement than generic emails that use a robotic company voice.
Most companies, online retailers, and email marketers are well aware of this fact. Hence, using the subscriber’s name in the first line of the email’s body has become a standard.
But, personalizing your ecommerce email marketing goes a lot further than simply addressing the subscriber by their name. Instead, what I’m referring to is actually tailoring the entire email to a specific customer. It should be based on their previous interactions with your emails and your online store.
There are a couple of ways to go about this:
Segment your audience based on gender: This one is simple, just ask them to select their gender on your opt-in form. Men likely won’t be interested in the new line of beauty products or women’s clothing, and vice versa. Send your readers only offers that are relevant to them.
Rely on their past purchases: If you’re sending emails to existing customers, it might be idea to tailor them based on what they bought from you in the past. They’ll probably be more interested in similar or complementary products, than the random ones featured in your newsletter.
Take advantage of browse abandonment: Email automation software allows you to use customers’ behavior on your website as triggers. For example, let’s say someone visits a particular category in your store, but never reaches the checkout page. This can be used as a trigger. You can then send an email featuring products from that specific category to reignite their interest.
2. Be Creative With Your Subject Lines
Subject lines are the lifeblood of your ecommerce email marketing strategy. They determine whether a person clicks on your email in the first place. So, you should spend just as much time on coming up with a great subject line, as you would on the rest of the email.
In order to grab the prospect’s attention, your subject line needs to stand out. You want them to notice your email as soon as they start scanning through their inbox.
However, you don’t want to go too far… Words and phrases that sound like clickbait will just turn people away. Similarly, words that don’t pass through the spam filters will greatly hurt your deliverability. So, refrain from stuff like FREE, ALL CAPS, excessive exclamation points, symbols, and words that create a fake hype.
A good subject line is short & simple, and provides just enough information to pique the reader’s interest, without revealing too much.
They should use relevant words to grab the reader’s attention by describing what the email is all about.
Another thing that can help you boost your email open rates is the preview text. This text is the features the opening sentences of your email, and appears to the right side of the subject line.
Most people overlook the importance of the preview text. However, optimizing it can have a huge boost on your open rates, by giving the reader a better idea of what your email is all about.
3. Take Advantage of Loyalty Programs
A great way to get customers back to your website and encourage sales is by rewarding the people that frequently interact with your emails and your store.
This is done through loyalty programs. Essentially, you can craft exclusive offers and send them out to subscribers that meet a certain criteria. Most email automation platforms provide a feature to send out an email to subscribers who have fulfilled a certain criteria. For example, either opened one of your emails or visited your store in the past 30 days.
Just make sure to mention in the email that this offer is exclusive.
Make it blatantly obvious that it’s only available to them as a loyal customer, subscriber, or an active member of your community.
This doesn’t have to be anything big. It can be a special 10% discount on the next purchase, free shipping, exclusive look at a new collection, etc.
4. Get Your Existing Customers to Refer Your Business to Friends
Most ecommerce stores do this, and you too! You can offer something like a special $15 voucher for both the subscriber and the person they refer.
The reason why this works so well is pretty obvious, in my opinion. One, everybody loves discounts. Two, word of mouth remains one of the most powerful ways to get new customers. People are generally more inclined to buy from a business their friends already trust.
It may seem that you’re cutting your profits by offering a referral discount… However, the value of a long-term customer you’re getting is much higher than the $15 or $20 one-time discount you’re providing. This is one of the most used lead generation strategies in ecommerce email marketing.
5. Hold Special Sales for Holidays and Important Dates
A great way to bring in a ton of extra sales is by creating special holiday-themed campaigns. People tend to spend a lot more during holiday seasons. Giving them an incentive to buy from your store during that time will drastically increase your revenue.
Also, once you start creating special promotions around holidays, it’s important to stay consistent, in order to meet customer expectations.
If you’re running a special campaign for Black Friday, you don’t want to skip Easter. If you do, you’re risking losing customers to someone who offers better deals during that period.
Quick tip: Send out holiday emails a day or two before the actual holiday. Announce the special sale and prepare the subscribers for the amazing deals you have in store for them.
6. Notify Customers When a Sold Out Items Become Available Again
It’s inevitable that you won’t always have every single item in stock at all times. But that doesn’t mean you have to lose out on a sale.
Instead, what you can do is allow them to add the item to their wishlist, and email them as soon as it becomes available.
Of course, you can also have similar products featured on that page. However, by giving them the option to stay notified regarding the products they actually want, you’re improving their experience and ensuring that they stay satisfied.
If they haven’t subscribed to your list yet, this is also another way you can get them in the loop.
7. Hold Flash Sales
Another way to get a good influx of sales over a certain period of time is by hosting flash sales. These are special, time-limited offers (usually lasting only 1 or 2 days) that rely on the sense of urgency to motivate the subscribers to buy your products.
They can be used to thin through the excess inventory, or put the spotlight on one of the products that aren’t selling as well as you had hoped.
Final Thoughts On Ecommerce Email Marketing
There you have it – these are my best ecommerce email marketing tips that will help you take full advantage of this powerful marketing channel to shoot your sales through the roof.
Want to learn more strategies and get valuable tips & tricks for optimizing your ecommerce store or want to start an ecommerce business, but don’t know how to set up your store?
Them I’m more than happy to give you a helping hand.
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About The Author
Your Millionaire Mentor
Shaqir Hussyin
Shaqir Hussyin is the founder and CEO of WealthAcademy.com & Funnels.com. Nicknamed the “Backpack Millionaire”, he’s invested $350,000 into his own education and training. Whilst traveling to 100+ countries, Shaqir has built over 10+ million dollar brands and attracted over 500,000+ subscribers.
His signature program is now available: Max Income System; 14 Simple Steps To Making Your First Income Online
Shaqir is also a highly sought-after speaker and direct response “Sales Funnels” global leader whose work has impacted over 100,000 businesses in 65 different countries. Connect with Shaqir on Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn & FB Group.
