If you read our recent blog post on increasing e-commerce revenue you will know we made the point that the quickest way to make more money online is not to find more customers but to sell more to your existing customers.
And how do you do that? Through email marketing.
Email marketing is by far the easiest and most cost-effective way to maintain relationships with existing customers and sales leads. If you’re doing it right, you’ll be keeping the channels of communication open with people you know are keen to buy from your or are at least interested in your services.
Every email presents an opportunity to put your wares in front of interested parties. Here’s how to maximise those opportunities…
1. Email regularly and consistently
Put crudely, the more emails you send, the more sales you make via email. Clearly there is a balance to be struck but, keep in mind, the ‘Unsubscribe’ button is always close by - if people aren’t clicking it, assume they like what they’re receiving.
Aim for at least one email a month to keep your business at the forefront of your subscribers’ minds and ensure you’re in front of them when they happen to be ready to buy.
2. Get seasonal
Do you always struggle to decide what this email is going to be about when confronted with a blank page? The great thing about e-commerce is that many sales are or can be associated with occasions.
By the time you’ve scheduled a couple of Christmas emails, a January sales email, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s and Father’s Day, Thanksgiving (if you’re selling in the States)… your email marketing plan is already starting to look busy.
3. Use your analytics data wisely
There is so much data available after every email campaign you send, so make sure you use it to inform your next campaign. What did people click on? Which content is converting into sales? Do people click more links at the top of the email than at the bottom?
You can adjust the content of your next email to improve performance.
4. Use Chimpified
For 90% of e-commerce customers, we recommend Shopify as the right platform for their online store. For about 99.99% of those, we recommend they install Chimpified (aka MailChimp for Shopify) immediately.
This free app immediately adds to your mailing list any customers who opt in, helps you target campaigns based on buying behaviour and automates the process to drive repeat business.
5. Make sure your brand shines through
As we’ve mentioned, email marketing allows you to maintain relationships with your customers… so make sure they’re seeing you in the best light.
The design and tone of voice of the email should be right on the money and consistent with your other marketing channels, while your product needs to be front-and-centre.
UWP’s email marketing service covers design, copywriting and delivery (or any of these components as you need them). Get in touch to discuss email marketing with us.
