Are you familiar with email marketing? Do you know how it can help your business? Don't worry, in this article we'll show you where to start and how to explore the strategic use of email marketing in the e-commerce universe . Our goal is to help you grow and boost sales without falling into traps and mistakes.
Are you curious? Then stay with me!
Why invest in email marketing for e-commerce?
Email marketing has long been a staple of sales and marketing Barbados Email List strategies. In the early 2000s, a survey conducted by Jupiter Communications analyzed data on email marketing and found that it had emerged as a “ powerful force in the minds of marketers and consumers .”
Since then, according to Gustavo Assis, author of the book “ Email Marketing Guide”, email has been a high-performance tool in terms of click-through and conversion rates. Assis also states:
“ Important facts for this conclusion are: cost per consumer, production and creation costs, speed of execution, speed and accuracy in presenting results .”
From 2000 to the present day, we have made great progress in the technological sector and doubled the efficiency of email marketing. Despite some pitfalls along the way, its usability continues to yield good results.
This strategy is increasingly “hand in hand” with the online sales sector and it is no wonder. According to data presented by MediaPost, 72% of consumers prefer email as a channel to connect with companies and, currently, there are more than 4 billion email accounts worldwide.
Check out 4 reasons why you can't stop considering email marketing as a strategy for your e-commerce.
Helps nurture leads
According to Gustavo Assis, the best results with email marketing occur when used to retain customers. This is because email marketing is not only designed for your store's consumers.
It can be used to prospect undecided prospects and to enrich leads with informative and creative content. Lead nurturing helps your e-commerce with organic traffic and, consequently, generates visibility and authority for the brand.
Improve your relationship with your audience
Online store owners face much greater challenges when it comes to acquisition, so they study ways to use email marketing for retention. In other words, they use the channel to strengthen the “customer-brand” relationship. This affinity ensures that the customer does not forget about their e-commerce and encourages them to seek out the brand.
Facilitates the dissemination of new products and promotions
Sending emails helps promote a new product or service and attracts loyal and interested customers to your site. Email marketing is also essential when it comes to promoting new blog content or newsletters, for example. With this strategy, you can reach a large number of interested people without wasting time and money.
Enables customer loyalty after sales
After a sale, you can establish a direct and personalized relationship with the customer, sending news and related products that will complete the first purchase, for example.
As mentioned in the topics above, email marketing does not let the relationship between your e-commerce and the consumer “cool down” and allows free access, after all, if the consumer allowed the inclusion of their personal email to your company's list, it is because there is an interest in connecting.
For the after-sales scenario, email is an incredible communication vehicle when you need to win back the customer or ask for feedback.
Types of email marketing for e-commerce
A good email marketing strategy can reach different audiences, achieving good results with just coherence, curiosity and persuasion. The structure of the content is also important, so we have selected the 5 models most used by the online sales sector . Check them out:
- Welcome: There is no magic formula to charm customers, so it is important to be friendly. Brazilians are, by nature, friendly and love to feel special and welcomed.
Welcome email marketing is a great way to start this relationship. Thank the user for their interest and subscription and, when necessary, explain how you work with the flow and delivery of content.
Tell them what content they will receive, reaffirm the security of their registered data and how happy you are to have them with you. Do you know that saying, “ first impressions are lasting impressions? ” This is how it works in email marketing.
This type of email can generate more engagement than continuous emails. So, check your conversion rate. And remember, “ you never get a second chance to make a good first impression .”
- Shopping cart abandonment: every entrepreneur's nightmare. According to a study conducted by Ecommerce Radar, in 2017, around 82% of Brazilian consumers abandoned a purchase. Shopping cart abandonment rates are high when there are internal failures, lack of trust, and outdated methods of capturing and selling.
When used correctly, email marketing reminds the user of abandonment and provides direct and personalized communication to offer new recovery alternatives. Consider a friendly, confident layout that is ready to help the customer resolve any intervention.
When writing your abandoned cart recovery message , be creative and friendly. Use phrases like “Is this your product?” or “Did you forget something here?” in the subject line or preview text to remind the lead about the purchase they were about to complete.
After all, he may have simply gotten distracted while browsing and would have come back without any problems if your reminder was not intrusive.
- Promotional campaigns: be frequent, but not to the point of saturating the customer's inbox, as this can irritate them. For promotional campaigns, invest in describing the benefits, innovation and quality. When used correctly, email marketing can increase sales through the use of promotional campaigns.
For campaigns, the email needs an incredible and totally innovative template. It needs to sell an idea, so it needs a creative and interesting title. It is important that the user knows about the promotion in the email, but continues their journey on the website or blog, so don't forget to direct the reader to take action.
Cross-sell and Up-sell: with email marketing, you can explore cross-sell , for example. Offer exclusive products to the customer, such as products that complement the product purchased initially. For the up-sell strategy, email marketing can help the customer learn about a more updated and complete version of the product.
After-sales: winning over customers is an ongoing task. To achieve good results and mediate the relationship, use email marketing after the purchase journey. This reestablishes contact and strengthens the user's confidence in your brand. You can use it to ensure feedback and evaluation. “Hey, how are you? Tell me what you thought of the product” is an example.
Where to start with email marketing for e-commerce?
Know the target audience you want to reach
Before creating content, study your target audience, find your persona and segment your email list. Consider some issues such as: demographic region, consumption habits, gender, age and, when necessary, sociocultural vision.
Invest in content that correctly matches each group. For example, there are some behavioral and cultural differences that separate executives, lawyers, and young university students.
If your e-commerce sells products for cyclists and both the executive, the lawyer and the young university student like cycling, there is a great chance that all three will be loyal, but will have completely different behaviors and habits.
Create clear objectives for campaigns
After finding and segmenting your target audience, you need to set some goals, such as never sending emails to anyone who is not on your confirmed list, and making plans. What is the plan? Conversion, retention and loyalty, or informative?
The objective is essential to ensure the efficiency of email marketing and to find more answers than questions. Some companies send emails blindly, only with the intention of selling and with little regard for the customer's perspective.
Well-designed goals help to map the user's desires and the right time. The rule is simple: before the campaign, establish the goals!
Set the frequency of sending emails
Be present, but not to the point of overwhelming the user. Ideally, your e-commerce should conduct market research to find out the level of customer satisfaction. The frequency of sending messages depends on how willing, happy and accessible the customer is to receive them. Constantly sending messages with the idea that “more is better” is a mistake and can actually be harmful. Ideally, you should monitor cancellation rates and study the quality of the campaign.
Choose a good layout
A good layout is your business card. Some users are not very good readers and prefer visuals, so after getting to know your target audience, create creative content. Learn neuromarketing techniques to find the right font, images or GIFs. Good copy needs to go along with a good layout, so make sure all the content is in sync with each other.
Use mental triggers
To invest in good texts, I recommend using mental triggers as a structural part. There are several triggers and you can choose the one that best suits your campaign.
You can, for example, apply the triggers of affection and reciprocity when sending welcome emails; authority and social approval when the idea is to prospect clients; scarcity or significance triggers when launching a promotion and so on.
Triggers are proven by science and effective when closing a deal, after all you are dealing with a very relevant issue: the human subconscious.
To overcome the difficulties of a complex sale, it is necessary to develop a sales strategy, which must be standardized and constantly improved. You can also study a good e-commerce course in order to specialize in the area and understand the market in depth.
Deliver valuable content in every email
It is important that the text of your email marketing is short, valuable and coherent in its idea. Nothing is perfect, we live in the age of speed and “acceleration”, so invest in assertive email templates.