Did you know that 53% of small business owners considered email their most effective marketing strategy in 2024? Ecommerce email marketing is a tried-and-true method for growing your business. When done correctly, an email marketing campaign can yield significant results without breaking the bank.
Whether you’re trying to boost sales, get more quality leads, or improve customer loyalty, email is an important tool in any digital marketing plan. But it isn’t easy. According to one estimate, there are over 361 billion emails sent globally every day. To keep your messages from immediately ending up in the trash – or worse, the spam filter – you’ll need to stand out and create emails your customers are excited to open.
Follow the steps below to create a winning ecommerce email marketing campaign:
1. Set Your Email Campaign Goals
What do you want your emails to accomplish? Before you create your campaign, you need a clear answer to this question. Your campaign’s goals will shape all aspects of your email marketing, from content to scheduling. Ecommerce emails can be used to:
- Increase web traffic
- Generate new leads
- Boost average cart value (ACV)
- Reach new potential customers
- Improve customer retention
- Boost brand awareness
Of course, you don’t have to stick to one goal. Many brands run successful email campaigns that begin by simply educating the audience to heighten brand awareness and loyalty. Later, this audience can be converted into leads or sales.
2. Understand the Different Types of Campaigns
Just like paid ads, social media, or other methods of digital marketing, email campaigns come in many different forms. Depending upon your goals, you may benefit more from certain types of email marketing campaigns than others.
Generally speaking, email campaigns can be broken down into two categories:
Educational Emails
Educational emails tell the audience about your product or service, your brand’s culture, and your industry at large. These campaigns build trust with your customer and help define you as an expert in your space. Educational emails can include newsletters, tips and guides, and “welcome” emails for first-time customers.
Transactional Emails
Once you’ve used educational emails to win over your audience, transactional emails drive them home. A transactional email is a direct call-to-action to entice the reader to make a purchase or fulfill another action, such as registering for a free consultation. Promotional emails, such as short-term sales or coupons, also fall under this category.
3. Do Your Research
Once you’ve determined your goals and the types of campaigns you want to execute for your ecommerce email marketing strategy, it’s time to do some research. The research step is crucial for email marketing. If you don’t understand your target audience, you won’t be able to craft emails that appeal to them.
Consider your target audience’s demographics, interests, shopping habits, and lifestyle. For example, let’s say your business caters to parents of young children. When are they most likely to be reading emails? Your campaign might achieve better results if you send your emails during school hours when parents aren’t busy looking after their little ones.
We also recommend researching your competitors. Visit their website and sign up for their marketing emails! Observe their email design, tone of voice, what types of emails they send, and frequency of special offers.
If your competitors send emails that are brightly colored and playful, you might consider matching their style – or experiment with doing the opposite, which can help your brand stand out.
4. Choose an Email Platform
Next, choose an email platform. This service provider will help you automate your marketing emails, track metrics, and scale your campaign. With the right email platform, you’ll save tremendous time and energy. Additionally, many platforms offer customizable design templates to suit specific campaign goals.
Popular email platforms include Mailchimp, Constant Contact, and Klaviyo. These platforms offer pricing tiers to suit different business needs, as well as pre-made web flows with AI integrations to enhance your email campaign performance.
5. Create Branded Templates
Whether you’re using a template from your email platform or designing your own from scratch, it’s recommended to create a strong brand presence. Use your brand’s logo, colors, fonts, and other assets that will set your emails apart.
Be sure to follow these email marketing best practices for design:
- Optimize for mobile
- Avoid visual clutter
- Use short sentences, lists, and bullet points instead of long paragraphs
- Include a clear CTA button
As you refine your templates, don’t forget to create variations. Create the same email with a different header, different text alignments, or different images. You may discover that one variation outperforms another. This brings us to step 6.
6. A/B Testing
The best ecommerce email marketing is always evolving. As your campaigns progress, you’ll need to refine the messaging and design to keep your audience engaged. But how do you know what works and what doesn’t? That’s where A/B testing comes in.
A/B testing, also called split testing, is a technique that compares two or more versions of the same marketing collateral to see which version performs best with real people. After all, the customer is always right. You may think Version A has a better design than Version B, but Version B could be the design that leads to more sales.
To do an A/B test, take the variations you created during your design process and segment your audience. Send a different email to each segment, then review the data and see which one received more activity. If you discover that your audience is more likely to open emails with no product photos, you can tailor your campaign accordingly.
7. Track Performance
Finally, make sure you track your campaign’s performance. Most email platforms offer a user-friendly analytics dashboard, which streamlines reporting in easy-to-digest forms. Common metrics to track include:
- Open Rate: The percentage of recipients who open your email.
- Click-Through Rate: The amount of people who open your email, then click links within the body of the email.
- Conversion Rate: The amount of sales, sign-ups, or other actions that your email triggers after people click.
- Unsubscribe Rate: The percentage of users who unsubscribe after receiving your email.
As these metrics fluctuate, you can adjust your campaign. For example, if your unsubscribe rate is high, it’s a sign that your emails need to be more engaging or add more value to the consumer. High conversion rates, on the other hand, show that your campaign is working successfully.
Craft Your Campaign with Mandzok’s Method
Still not sure where to get started with your ecommerce email marketing campaign? We’re here to help! At Mandzok Marketing, our team has been running successful email campaigns since the 1990’s. Learn more about our services.