Focus on email marketing: Introduction

Email marketing is an essential tool when it comes to engaging your customers and increasing conversions. Click-through-rates are higher than for online advertising at 3.16% on average, according to SmartInsights. But there are more reasons why email should be part of your marketing strategy.

In this article we will:

1. Explain what email marketing is
2. List the reasons why you should do it
3. Talk about how you set up a campaign
4. List the times when emails can be sent

What is email marketing?

Email marketing is the popular business practice of sending emails to customers and potential customers with the hope of selling them a product or service. Email marketing can be used in a number of different ways with emails sent at different junctions in a shoppers buying journey. It is a proven way of establishing loyalty and brand awareness among your target audience.

Why should you be using email marketing?

Ecommerce businesses are perfectly suited to email marketing as the links included in an email can bring a customer directly to your business and point of sale.

“Because we are an eCommerce business with no physical presence, email marketing is the single best channel we have for establishing a lasting relationship with our customers,” says Graeme Horne, Marketing Director, hungryhouse.co.uk

“We are able to communicate in a relaxed and conversational manner, giving the brand a face, voice and personality. We use it to keep customers up to date as well as making them feel involved with us and part of our journey.

“The proof of email marketing’s importance can be seen in the results. Customers who receive our emails are 14.7% more likely to place a repeat order. These email recipients also place more orders on average than those who do not.”

The reasons to involve email marketing into your strategy are numerous.

They boost sales

Increasing sales is the motivation behind most of the actions you will take as an ecommerce merchant and email marketing is one of the ways you can achieve this. Effective targeting, measurability and the instantaneous nature of emails all help to make them a great way to boost sales.

It’s cost effective

Compared with the price of online and regular marketing, email campaigns can be very cost effective. Print and online marketing campaigns can run into the thousands, emails cost a fraction of that and can often be more effective.

You can track performance

Using email for marketing means you can have access to the data which will help you to see exactly how your campaigns are performing and make changes where needed. You’ll be able to see what times most emails are opened, which ones encouraged the most clicks, which content was most successful etc.

They can act as a customer service channel

As well as a sales tool for you, your marketing emails can double up as customer service channels by letting customers know you are thinking of them and by offering them a way to get in touch if they need to.

You can schedule mail

Running a business is hectic and some days are busier than others. With email marketing you can often schedule emails to go out months or weeks in advance so you don’t have to worry about them on a regular basis.

How do you set up a campaign?

There are a number of companies which offer an email marketing service. Unless you have the development skills to create email software in-house, it is best to go with one of these companies as they are tried, tested and specialists in their field.

They will generally help you to create a template that suits your brand, advise you on when to send emails, give you access to analytics, allow you to conduct A/B testing, check for spamable content and much more.

If you are just starting out and don’t want to stump up too much initial investment, some services offer a free plan with limited monthly emails so you can trial it and see how it goes.

When can you send emails?

As you look further and further into email marketing you will see that there are many opportunities for you to increase conversions among your email lists. You can include links to certain products or parts of your site on each of these emails to maximise exposure and therefore conversions.

Here are just a few examples of when you should look to send emails:

1. A welcome email to new registrations – tell them what’s new and what you specialise in.
2. Confirmation email – give links to related products or other items they had looked at and not bought.
3. Abandoned cart email – remind people of products they had in their cart and left without buying
4. Delivery follow up email – make sure they have received their item and show them related items again.
5. Wish list email – if you have a wish list function, remind people what they have on it and update them when items are in stock.
6. New products – when you get new products in, tell your customers about them through email.