According to a study conducted by Custora in 2013, launching an online Marketing strategy represents about 7% of the transactions that take place in an online store, which makes it the second most effective marketing channel, after Search Engine Optimized Searches (15.8%).

Email Marketing which has existed for almost 21 years is one of the most effective online marketing strategies, we had not had the opportunity to segment customers and customize an Email Marketing campaign as we can currently do. With the new behavioral actions of email marketing and the ability to segment each client in a precise and thorough manner, it is no surprise that email marketing continues to grow, as well as its effectiveness.

In this post, we share strategies that you can implement in your marketing campaign to increase revenue from your online store.

Many of the tips in this article require some integration between your shopping cart and the list of emails you have, segmented or not. In my opinion, they are not elements that “you must have”, but they are essential in online marketing and generate favorable results for your brand.

What is the best email marketing software for electronic commerce?

There is no general consensus or single solution when it comes to email marketing software. It depends on the budget, the requirements, the characteristics and the preferences of each client since one plays an important role in determining what will work best for your business.

That said, there are some email marketing tools that can work better than others, and when it comes to marketing in electronic commerce, you should investigate and investigate beyond traditional tools and move to automatic marketing services designed to be implemented only in the electronic commerce

In this post, we will also clarify and explain why some features such as the automation of campaigns are so valuable for marketing in electronic commerce. If you still do not choose the correct email marketing tool or you are using one that does not work as you wish, I recommend you keep looking.

With that covered, let’s begin.

TIP 1: Encourage your customers to leave reviews of the product they acquired

There are a number of case studies in which the positive impact of a comment stands out. After running a promotion through an email marketing campaign for 90,000 products, Argos found that those who had reviews generated a higher conversion rate (10% +) than those who did not have them.

Figleaves also noticed a similar improvement, reporting a 12.5% increase in the conversion rate in those products that had some review by the client, compared to those that did not. Interestingly, they also noticed an 83.35% increase in product conversions with more than 20 reviews.

Although these numbers speak for themselves, getting product reviews sounds easier than it is. One of the best strategies to promote this practice is to offer incentives via email, something similar to what Boden does.

This strategy works best when you set up a personalized and automated email that programs to send a few days after the customer has received your purchase.

Surely you will want to experiment with the programming of these emails, along with the incentives offered, to get the maximum number of comments. This brings us straight to our next tip: Tests A / B

TIP 2: Use A / B tests to optimize your conversion rates

If you are still not convinced of the value of the A / B tests, take into account that when the team of Barack Obama conducted this test during the election, they found that a subject line generated $ 403,600 in donations, while another exceeded expectations and allowed to raise $ 2, 540, 866.

In general, terms, when we speak of A / B tests, we refer to the creation of multiple variations of any subject line or of not so great changes in the content of the message. This is to identify which one has the highest conversion rate.

In an ideal world, A / B tests must be present in every email you send. In reality, this can take a lot of time, so you’ll have to find out which emails will have the most impact on your results, especially if on previous occasions they have generated the highest participation.

For online stores, an obvious example will be to experiment with different additional sales or gross sales in each email, as well as A / B testing in some seasonal campaigns.

TIP 3: Implement emails from abandoned shopping carts to identify errors and improve the purchase process and their conversion rates

Improving shopping carts and the payment process that has been generated but not completed is something that will normally require your attention, especially when it comes to conversion rates. After all, if someone has added an item to your shopping cart, it is a potential customer.

So, how can you use your email marketing campaign to reduce shopping cart abandonment?

If you are using software that allows you to automate tasks, you can easily configure a rule that detects when a person visits your store, adds a product to your shopping cart or when it arrived at the payment page, but does not terminate the process and therefore does not complete the purchase.

When this criterion is met, you can send that customer an email (of course, always and you have it) asking why the purchase was not completed.

That not only works very well for technical problems; It is also a way to know the impressions of your customers and then improve your sales channels.

TIP 4: Reward your loyal customers

For most online stores, there is an 80/20 relationship between customers and total revenues. That is, a large part of the income is normally driven by a relatively small number of loyal customers.

Howard’s Storage World found that by segmenting your customers into five different options, based on the level of commitment and brand loyalty, and rewarding them with incentives according to each category, they were able to increase their short-term revenue by £250,000.

The most loyal customer group you can give a gift card with a 34% refund rate, which represents £ 105,000 in total revenue, generated only by this campaign.

TIP 5: Reactivate your inactive customers

Interestingly, in the same study mentioned above, the results of inactive clients were equally as surprising as the most loyal customers.

This group, which had not had contact with the site of Howard’s Storage World in 12 months, represented an increase of about £ 108,000 in profits (£ 3,0000 more than that of loyal customers) and on average they spent 16% more than customers loyal

There are some good lessons to rescue from this case study. The first is that you must segment your customers by level of loyalty and present email marketing campaigns that are relevant to your level of activity in the store.

The second lesson is that surprisingly, it is sometimes more profitable to focus on reactivating clients, instead of encouraging existing ones.

If you want to go a step further, you can automate the whole process, based on rewards. For example, if a customer spends 25% more than the average purchase, you can add it to a list of rewards emails. On the other hand, if a customer has not purchased something in the last 12 months, you can create the “reactivation” category and create actions to encourage them to make another purchase.

TIP 6: Get ready for seasonal products & special sales with a newsletter calendar

Too often, marketers end up writing Valentine’s Day campaign on the night of February 13 or their Halloween campaign on October 30. Take into account the potential of these dates for you to be creative and start creating a system that always ensures you stay one step ahead of the competition.

One of the easiest ways to ensure that these dates do not take you by surprise is to create a calendar where you include the most significant dates for your business.

While many email marketing tools already have the calendar function included, I personally prefer to use Trello.

What convinced me to use Trello was that different team members can add suggestions and ideas to the campaigns that are being created. In addition, you can implement automatic reminders to assure you that you are working on the correct campaign.

TIP 7: Surprise your customers with free credit to spend in your store

Earlier this year Mark Macdonald shared an excellent case study about a company called Petflow, which sent customers a £ 4.25 credit mail that they could spend at the store for the next 24 hours after receiving the mail.

While the results of this campaign are unknown, I think it is fair to mention that it is an excellent piece of marketing. Instead of giving customers a 10-15% discount on their next purchase, they focus the credit on mentioning customers who have a time limit to spend free money at their store.

Taking into account that losing something is a very powerful motivator, it does not surprise us if this campaign did not cause big changes in the transactions. The next time you’re thinking of giving your customers a discount, consider offering them a credit amount to spend in your store.

TIP 8: Have your transaction emails count

Your transactional emails should inform the customer about the status of their order. This does not mean that they can not be used to involve the customer and achieve an increase in the sales of your products.

In a study conducted by Experian, they found that adding cross-selling recommendations and sales in shipping confirmation emails increased the transaction rate by 20%.

EasySMTP also found that adding links to your social media accounts in your emails increases the success of each one by up to 55%.

It goes without saying that transactional emails should not be useless notifications. With a little creativity and personalisation, you can turn them into powerful hooks that drive the commitment of the clients, creating purchases by repetition.

TIP 9: Birthday and Anniversary Campaigns

In a study conducted with 10,000 birthday and anniversary emails sent by 53 Experian Cheetahmail customers, they found that customizing emails with congratulations generated an increase of almost five times more than the transaction rate of standard mass mailings. Transaction fees for anniversary emails were almost six times higher than standard bulk shipments.

In the same study, Experian found that providing £ X amount of gift money provides higher transaction and profit rates when compared to other gifts based on a percentage or free shipping.

TIP 10: Take your email marketing strategy and take it beyond

In the coming years, we are likely to see many e-commerce companies combine their email marketing campaigns with social advertising.

In a study where a leading US vendor engaged 925,000 email subscribers with regular emails and coordinated ads on their social networks, they found that subscribers were 22% more likely to make purchases than those who only received a single email.

The potential of this strategy is amazing. Imagine buying a product and 5 minutes later find an ad on Facebook that recommends another additional and related product. When they return to their inbox they may have received an email with another additional sales product.

Conclusion

This is just a look at the possibilities of an email marketing strategy in electronic commerce.

Practically there are no limits when we talk about segmenting customers, directing their attention through multiple channels and customizing the communication of the company. The potential it has to increase revenues and sales should not be underestimated.

Hopefully, this post has helped you generate ideas that you can experiment with in your business. We await your comments.

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