What eCommerce Businesses Should Be Sending to Their Subscribers
As we said before in a previous FireLine issue, email is still king when it comes to online marketing. Although considered an old practice, email marketing produces one of the highest ROI’s with the lowest overall investment. If executed correctly, sending campaigns can be a great way to share relevant information, boost engagement and profits, and improve the shopping experience as a whole.
FireDrum provides robust subscriber management tools and advanced email features that will help nurture the relationship between each individual client. Communicating through email can help develop a credible and trustworthy relationship with your potential (or returning) customer, which in turn will shorten the sales cycle.
For eCommerce businesses, it is key that you send these following emails to maintain the trust and interest of each subscriber. These emails are proven to have high click-through, open and engagement rates.
Seasonal Email Campaigns
Sending a seasonal themed email campaign – that clearly displays your product and message – can prove very effective in the lead nurturing process. Sending these messages can also promote website visits and increased engagement if you’re appealing to their interests and curiosity.
We suggest sitting down with your marketing team and developing a sending schedule that will help effectively plan the launch of all digital campaigns throughout the year. Having a set schedule will allow you to focus on the content and message of your email rather than the launch date. For content and design, sit down and discuss recent emails you and your team have received. What stood out? What emails were immediately marked as spam or thrown into the trash? How can you improve those campaigns? Because of the nature and timing of these campaigns, important that you create a message (or offer), that your competition cannot provide.
Important Events to Include:
- Valentine’s Day
- President’s Day
- Veteran’s Day
- St. Patrick’s Day
- Easter
- Fourth of July
- Halloween
- Thanksgiving
- Black Friday
- Cyber Monday
- Christmas
- New Year’s Eve and New Year’s
- Chinese New Year’s
Creativity block? Explore our free, holiday-themed email newsletters. These templates are heavily tested to ensure mobile compatibility with every browser, and are designed to stand out!
Double Opt-In and Welcome Emails
To protect yourself from spam traps and faulty subscribers, we recommend setting up a two-step opt-in email sign up. This way, you are only capturing the most legitimate and interested subscribers. Your double opt-in can be as simple including a confirmation checkbox during signup, and sending a “click to confirm” email after they push subscribe.
Whether or not you decide to use a double opt-in sign-up, we still encourage our email marketers to create a solid welcome email program. Send your subscribers a series of “welcome” emails to inform them of your sending schedule, what your emails will contain and what you hope to see come out of your efforts. Laying out your expectations and email marketing goals beforehand will help create a solid foundation with your new subscribers. Individuals who find that they’re not interested in your services will unsubscribe – this is a good thing! This decreases your chances of being “marked as spam,” and gives you a clearer picture on who’s really engaged.
As you may have noticed, we haven’t mentioned anything about purchasing email lists. This is because we do not encourage buying email lists for promotional or personal reasons. People on these lists are not expecting your email and will most likely report you to spam. Or worse, these emails may be spam traps and end up affecting your sending reputation. Learn more about growing your email list organically through our blog “Purchased Email Lists: The Ugly Truth.”
“Thank You for Your Loyalty” Email
Let’s be real. Customers love two things: their new purchases and themselves (not in a bad way!) Knowing what your customers love will help you sell more products and nurture the relationship between you and your clients. An easy way to appeal to the things your customer’s love is a “thank you for your loyalty” email. Include a personalized message (speaking in the first person and using merge tags), and products they have purchased before. Be bold and ask if they’d like to purchase it again. Also include trending products, products similar to past purchases and new products they might be interested in.
But I don’t want to craft an email for each individual subscriber. You don’t have to! This is a perfect time to segment your lists. (i.e., Customers who purchased boots). Spend time on perfecting an email for each segmented list, not for each subscriber.
Abandoned Cart Emails
People abandon their shopping carts for a number of reasons (they’re distracted, not enough time to complete, unexpected delivery cost, long checkout process, and so forth). Your goal, as an email marketer, is the lure those people back in to finish their purchase. To attract doubtful customers with products, you must connect with them through products they’ve expressed interest in, and offer an irrefutable discount or deal to retain their sale. These abandon cart emails should look clean and organized – highlighting only items that your customer abandoned. Include customer reviews in these emails, and add the option of a “one click purchase” (if your website saves abandoned carts). Emails like these come in handy because of the friendly, attractive way you can incorporate these elements and increase sales.
