There are many ways to generate sales for your e-commerce store.
Email marketing has for a long time remains the most reliable and profitable way to acquire customers on the web. A design and marketing agency like Digiboost uses it. An entertainment and news media company like BuzzFeed uses it.
E-commerce email marketing can be very challenging if you’re just starting out.
But if you know a few things, you should be able to start doing it today.
This article will reveal everything you need to know to begin using email marketing to acquire customers.
Email marketing is a form of direct marketing where you communicate with prospects and customers through email. There are many E-commerce tools which you can use to do this.
Right here, you’ll learn the specific steps that will triple your e-commerce sales within a short period of time.
After reading this article, you should be able to create an effective email campaign on your own.
Let’s get started.
Step 1: Build your email list
You need real people on your email list.
Email marketing won’t work for you if you have zero or few subscribers.
The question you should ask yourself now is, “how do I get people to subscribe to my list?”
There are several ways to get people to join your email list.
If your site has been existing for some time now and making sales, then you probably have a few buyers.
But if your e-commerce site is new, there are some tactics you can use to collect prospects’ email addresses.
Collect emails with pop-ups
Pop-ups are my favorite way of collecting emails.
OmniKick is one of the advanced tools that let you create highly-converting pop-ups on your site.
You’ll need to entice your site’s visitors with something valuable before they can give you their names and emails through pop-ups.
It could be an attractive discount.
For example, Kate Spade offers 15% discount plus free shipping to any customer who subscribes to their email newsletter.
This pop-up gives visitors a compelling reason to drop their emails.
Most ecommerce stores use pop-ups to collect visitors’ emails.
They ask for web users to leave their emails in return for something.
This could be a special offer or benefit. For example, a luxury yacht charter company like Top Yacht Charters could provide a free ebook on choosing the best places to charter yachts.
The time you show pop-ups is also crucial.
If your pop-up appears immediately your site loads, it would be annoying to web users.
And if you wait too long before showing your pop-up, visitors might leave without seeing your pop-up.
Many e-commerce stores show their pop-ups between 45 – 60 seconds.
Who are your ideal customers and what do they want?
For example, Derek Halpern’s ideal customers are entrepreneurs and marketers.
Through the pop-up on his website, he offers them an ebook on how to get 5,000 subscribers and turn them into customers.
The offer is connected to their goals.
A fashion store may offer a 10% discount or free shipping.
The Taylor Stitch Store make their pop-up fill their entire page. No way you won’t see it.
They offer 20% off your first purchase if you give them your email address.
Be careful when using pop-ups.
Always ensure that your pop-up messages and offers are related to the page.
If the pop-up isn’t relevant to the page, it annoys visitors. It disrupts their shopping experience on your website.
OmniKick allows you to select specific pages you want to display pop-ups.
Inside the GrowthFunnel Editor dashboard, you’ll find “Display Rules.”
Right there, you can choose which page (or pages) you want your pop-up to display.
Skincare store, the Glossier collects emails using slide-in pop-ups.
If these sites are collecting emails with pop-ups, it’s because they work.
Collect emails by offering content upgrades
You don’t need a big email list to succeed in e-commerce email marketing.
What you need is an email list that responds to your messages.
Building a responsive email list is the key to success.
You could have 20,000 subscribers on your list. They aren’t useful if none or few read your messages.
You’ll have a higher chance of success if you have 2,000 subscribers and 50% open your emails.
Offering content upgrades on successful blog posts is the best way to amass responsive subscribers.
I always recommend that e-commerce brands invest in content marketing.
The average conversion rate is 2.9% for sites that do content marketing, compared to 0.5%, which is the average of sites that don’t do it.
If you have an active blog on your e-commerce site, some posts will receive more visitors than others.
Offer content upgrades on these successful posts to collect emails on your website.
For example, if you’ve written a post about tax savings on your site, you could offer a PDF like “The Top 8 Tax Savings Every Small Business Owner Needs To Know About” as the content upgrade.
Small business owners will find this useful.
Browse through Facebook groups in your market. Create content upgrades on discussions people are having.
Check best-selling books on Amazon in your niche. Writing high-quality ebooks related to those topics and give them away.
Videos are another excellent content upgrade format you can offer visitors.
Turn your text content into a step-by-step video guide where people can see what you’re doing.
You need a screen capture software to record your every move on your computer.
For just $18 per year, you can start recording practical videos with Screencast-O-Matic.
I recommend Camtasia if you’re planning to do a lot of videos on your site.
You can also use your smartphone’s camera to record yourself speaking.
Offer the video as a content upgrade.
Web users will have a deeper connection with you when they can see the face behind the site.
Now is the time to start producing videos because, by 2018, 79% of the internet traffic will be video.
Online course or email training is another type of content upgrade you can offer prospects.
Teachable is a platform you can use to create and deliver online courses. Over 22,000 instructors use it.
You can use email marketing services like ConvertKit and MailChimp to provide training through email.
Expert interviews are another type of content upgrade you can use to collect emails on your website.
Interview a popular author, blogger, speaker, radio host, or influencer.
It could be an audio or a video interview.
You can also host a webinar and use it as a content upgrade.
Visitors will have to sign up with their emails to join the webinar.
Collect emails through ads
There are two things you can achieve with ads.
One, run ads that sell your product.
Two, create ads that collect emails of potential buyers.
Ads that sell your product are a good idea. You’ll start generating sales immediately and collect emails as you do.
As long as it’s profitable, you can continue to fund your advertising campaign.
But there’s a problem with this approach.
You can’t use it to sell expensive items. The approach is only effective for selling low-cost items.
Because it takes people time and numerous visits before they buy costly products.
They research, ask friends, and read customer reviews before they are ready to buy.
So, get people to subscribe to your email list first. If you sell consulting services, you need to collect emails. For example, a Maryland law firm that specializes in estate planning, elder law and special needs planning like Elville and Associates may create a free e-book or newsletters for potential clients to give them their emails.
That way, they can send them messages that help them build relationships that lead to sales.
Facebook ads are effective for list building.
Mary Fernandez of the Persuasion Nation used Facebook ads to get 532 subscribers in 43 days. On average, each subscriber cost her $0.43.
Erika Volk used Facebook ads to acquire 1,892 email subscribers for her fitness e-commerce business.
On average, each subscriber cost $0.26.
If you create the right Facebook ads and target the right audience who wants your product, you should begin getting high-quality subscribers from day one.
The best way to generate subscribers through Facebook is to create ads that retarget people who have visited your site and read your content.
Set up your email marketing campaign
If you follow the instructions above, you should start collecting emails.
Now that you have subscribers in your email list, it’s time to start developing a relationship with them.
You need to engage with people before they can buy your products.
How do you do that?
Send “welcome emails” where you ask for the sale
After someone has confirmed the link to join your email list, the first message you send them should be a “welcome email.”
A welcome email thanks them for becoming subscribers and tells them what to expect from you in future messages.
Most consumers expect to read welcome emails when they subscribe.
Most welcome messages are emails that welcome, thank or confirm subscriptions.
Because many new subscribers read welcome messages, they present an opportunity to sell.
Welcome emails see more than 3x transactions and revenue per email than regular promotional messages.
Whether you sell products or web-based services, you can use welcome emails to gauge customers interest.
Start nurturing the relationship and promoting your product from the very first email message.
I’m not saying you should push hard for the sale in your first email.
Welcome the subscriber in a friendly way, but don’t forget to introduce your product or service to them too.
For example, I love how Tubby Todd uses their welcome email to make you feel welcomed but also mentioned their products.
Bonobos is using their welcome email to offer 20% discount to new subscribers.
These brands are asking for the sale in their welcome emails.
Send cart abandonment emails
Cart abandonment emails are set up once. They continue to run when customers abandon their carts in your e-commerce store.
These emails are sent to people who added items to their shopping baskets and didn’t purchase for some reasons.
Consumers abandon their carts a lot online.
According to a study by Baynard, 69.23% of shopping carts are abandoned on average. That’s seven out of every ten carts.
Abandoned cart emails are reminders. They ask prospects to complete their purchases.
You’ll have to send multiple emails reminding shoppers.
Maybe one a day for five days.
Shoppers who receive multiple abandoned shopping cart emails are 2.4 times more likely to complete the purchase than those who receive one email.
You may add a little benefit to entice customers to buy.
For example, Levi’s is offering a 25% discount on an abandoned cart.
According to Ezra Firestone, a partner at BOOM! by Cindy Joseph:
“In the last 12 months on our store, our abandoned cart email automation sequence has been the most profitable automated email series on a $/recipient basis.”
Their automated abandoned cart email series generated $2.56 and $2.99 per recipient respectively.
The below email alone brought in $19.6k in revenue for the brand over 30 days.
If you want to boost your revenue from abandoned carts, consider adding a coupon or offering free shipping to encourage shoppers to act.
Segment your email list
Email marketing segmentation means seeing your subscribers in groups.
Your email list consists of different kinds of people with different behaviors and interests.
Don’t treat all your subscribers as the same.
Split them into different groups.
Why do you need to do that?
For example, insurance companies offer different services.
One of them is motor vehicle insurance.
There’s no need for them to send you an email message about car insurance if you don’t own a car.
Without email segmentation, they can’t know if you own a car or not.
Each group in your email list deserves messages that are relevant to them.
A company like Go Smart Solar can segment its email subscribers based on the service they are interested in. A potential client who is interested in residential solar will only want to see that. This company won’t be interested in reading emails related to commercial solar.
The more relevant the message, the more customers will want to buy from you.
Email segmentation helps you personalize your messages.
Segmenting your email campaigns generate a much higher profit compared to spray-and-pray email campaigns.
It increases your average customer value.
An online fashion store can increase its average customer value by segmenting on gender.
Showing men’s items to men and women’s item to women will boost the effectiveness of their emails.
If they combine that with customers’ size and style preferences, they’ll generate even more sales.
Some customers like casual wears. Some buy more business outfits.
For example, sending me an email of a business wear means I’m unlikely to buy.
I wear more casual outfits and rarely buy business outfits.
Segmenting your emails will tell you that.
When you send me casual outfits, I’m more likely to be interested in your emails.
You’ll be leaving a lot of money on the table if you don’t segment your emails.
Sign up for GrowthFunnel today to start collecting emails on your website.
Don’t forget that GrowthFunnel also helps you personalize your site’s messages to visitors.
