What is the purpose of marketing?
It’s not a rhetorical question. We actually want to know. What is the purpose of creating promotional marketing material? It takes quite a bit of time, effort, and analysis, so it must serve an important purpose?
Is it to convert people into customers, to produce sales? Is it to increase awareness of your brand or product? Is it to engage in the dialogue surrounding the problem your product fundamentally solves?
Yes, marketing can achieve each of these goals.
Marketing is about forming and maintaining a relationship with your customer in the simplest terms. It is communication, and like in any other relationship, the style, strategy, and tone behind any communication can make or break it.
Human beings respond to how they’re spoken to. Marketing is a conversation between two human beings. Our principal goal as marketers is to speak to a customer and create goodwill, build trust, and maintain loyalty. We really just want people to say, “Oh, that brand? I love that brand.”
Here at Quagrowth, that’s the goal behind every email we send. It’s to communicate in a way that fosters and fortifies a relationship. And yes, if we do it right, that can and often does lead to a sale.
Today, we’re going to be talking about some email templates for eCommerce businesses that all ladder up the principles of relationship management. Keep reading for ways you can reach both new and existing customers via email.
What Can Email Do for Ecommerce Businesses?
If you’re new to email marketing campaigns, like email newsletters or promotional emails, you might be curious as to their efficacy. We can’t blame you. Email marketing might seem like nothing more than a one-way ticket to the spam folder for the average consumer.
On that front, you may be surprised. Email marketing is one of the most effective tools we have — and we have the data to back it up.
It Works
According to HubSpot, for every dollar spent on email marketing, $42 is earned back.
Can you think of any other marketing strategy that can achieve that efficacy rate?
Email marketing is the bread and butter of online communication strategies for a reason. It just works. For every bounced email, unopened email, and blocked email, there are plenty of emails working exactly as they should for eCommerce brands.
That’s not to say that we shouldn’t try to mitigate bouncing emails and spam folders — and there are ways — that’s just to say that the notion around email marketing being akin to junk simply isn’t reflected in the data.
Email marketing works.
It Reaches Far and Wide
If you’ve been around the block in digital marketing, you know that social media platforms come and go. Buzzy products tend to have a short shelf-life.
Email has been around since the internet’s early days and is likely to live on in some shape or form forever. There are more than four billion daily email users, meaning plenty of potential new customers are out there. With the right strategies and partners, you can reach many of them.
It Easily Allows for Segmentation and Personalization
There is no other platform that allows for segmentation of the audience and message as well as email. Social media has some tools for segmentation, but compared to email, they look fairly rudimentary.
Email segmentation pays off, too. Marketers who used segmented campaigns have claimed as much as a 760% increase in revenue.
Why? Because people want messages to be personalized to them. In fact, by now, they expect it.
These are just three ways email marketing can help support eCommerce businesses tangibly and sustainably.
Ecommerce Email Templates
With that said, we’ll break down some of the most common eCommerce email templates, including tips for how to optimize your emails to adhere to best practices.
Welcome Emails
Welcome emails are the most basic form of relationship building for email marketers. In short, they’re the email that sends to new subscribers of a brand’s mailing list.
There are a number of reasons why they may do so. Most retail brands include messages like, “Sign up for our email to get notified of sales,” or “Add your email to get early access to our products.” These simple messages go a long way in helping to grow email lists.
Welcome emails are a way to introduce yourself as an online store. Ostensibly, they serve as a confirmation of a user’s addition to the email list. Done well, they can represent a handshake — a unique introduction to the brand that’s memorable and potentially productive.
Here are a few tips for how to approach the welcome email:
- Keep it short and sweet. You don’t need to go on and on. Welcome them to the insider club, thank them for joining, and let them know why you’re glad they’re there.
- Inject some of your brand’s personality. Simple doesn’t need to mean boring. This is a great opportunity to show how your brand is different from your competitors.
- Offer them something worthwhile. Show off the value of being a part of your email list by including a promotion from the get-go.
All that said, don’t treat the welcome email like a throwaway. Studies show that more than 8 out of 10 people will open a welcome email, making it one of the most effective types of email templates available.
Abandoned Cart or Browse Emails
One of the great advantages of email marketing is your access to data. Don’t waste it! If people are browsing on your site or adding products to their cart and then leaving it without making a purchase, you’ve just been handed a great opportunity for an email.
We call these shopping cart abandonment emails, and they really serve as a small reminder that the customer left something behind that they were interested in.
You have probably received one of these emails before. Do they work? They sure do. 44.1% of abandoned cart emails get opened, and almost a third of clicks on abandoned cart emails will lead to a recovered sale.
- Include an image of the abandoned product. Jogging the customer’s visual memory will help bring them back in.
- Make an offer. Include free shipping to help bring the customer further down the funnel.
For one reason or another, many customers get lost along the way when making a purchase. Email is one of the best tools we have to get them across the finish line.
Sale Emails
One of the most classic forms of email marketing is the sale email, alerting customers of a seasonal drop, a holiday event, or a just-because sale.
Sales are one of the biggest draws for email lists in the first place. More often than not, it’s why your recipient joined the list in the first place — all the more reason to do it right.
- Be timely. Customers expect sales around holidays like Black Friday and Memorial Day Weekend. You can even let them know that a sale is coming weeks in advance.
- Create urgency. Once the sale is live, emphasize that it’s a limited-time offer.
- Sweeten the deal. As the sale comes to a close, throw in an additional percentage off or free shipping to bring in the stragglers who haven’t converted yet.
Sales can often be some of the most stressful times in an email marketer’s quarter, but with a solid strategy, they can go far.
Confirmation Emails
The job is not done when a customer makes a purchase. In fact, that’s only the beginning of a new cycle that should all be working towards retaining them as a customer in the future.
That starts with the order confirmation email, which lets them know that you’ve received their order and are working on it.
These are key. Post-purchase emails see a 217 percent higher open rate, over 500 percent higher click rate, and 90 percent higher revenue per recipient than your average email campaign, according to Klaviyo.
- Be clear and transparent on order status. People are anxious to know when their package is arriving. Provide details when you can in the shipping confirmation.
- Include a promotion on their next purchase. There’s no need to wait around.
- Follow up on their order once it’s arrived. Make sure that everything was as expected and open your company up to feedback. Reviews are crucial.
You can utilize these four email examples to up your email marketing strategy, increase your conversion rate, and support customer re-engagement. Our best advice in each case is to stay open to learning and iterating. Data insights will always point you in the right direction, even if it’s surprising.
How Can Email Automation Help?
What’s great about email marketing is that all of the above can be done using automated technology that understands the best moment to send an email to maximize open rates and conversions.
That’s what we do, here at Quagrowth. Get in touch to see what we can do for your eCommerce business.
Sources:
The Ultimate List of Email Marketing Stats for 2022 | Hubspot
The Art And Science Of Killer Abandoned Cart Emails | Dynamic Yield
7 Post-Purchase Email Resources To Increase Customer Retention | Klaviyo
