The correct way to selling products with email

Why is email marketing important for e-commerce?

Everyone is aware that having a high cart abandonment is an issue. With over 70% of customers leaving ecommerce stores before making a purchase. So why do you send them an email after they leave? With the hopes of reaching that customer, so they come back to complete their purchase. 

What other ways can you use email marketing to get customers to come to your store to make a purchase? 

Most of the time, businesses are entirely failing at using email marketing correctly. First, let’s go over some stats on how sending out emails can completely change your business. Then I will go over a proven process with the correct way to market products to the right customers. Adding another method to your Ecommerce Marketing Strategy.

Contents 

The Stats
How Does Email Marketing Work
Pros & Cons of Ecommerce Email Marketing
What Not To Do With Your Email Campaign

Email Marketing The Right Way

1. Your Offer In Exchange For Their Email
2. Second Email For Those Who Haven’t Bought
3. Group Your Email List Into Categories
4. Order Confirmation Emails
5. The Review our Product Email
6. Cross Selling Products
7. Check Out Abandonment Emails

The stats 

I won’t get into the open rate and click rates because what you care about is getting products sold and how much money is made, so we’ll focus on ROI. 

Emails accounted for 19.8% of all transactions with SEO at first with 21.8% and paid at 19.9%

High performing email marketing can achieve $70+ per dollar invested while the low side of emailing is at $5 per dollar spent with the average being $42 per one dollar spent. 

81% of Small businesses have email as their primary acquisition channel and retention. While poorly used. 

Welcome emails are your best chance to get your information across, with over 82% being opened while the average click rate is 21%. 

Sending three abandoned cart emails results in 69% more purchases than a single email.

With email campaigns being the 3rd highest conversion rate at 19.8%, why wouldn’t you have your email marketing automated? If you aren’t convinced that you need to start collecting email addresses and have a great call to action with your repeat visitors to increase your checkout process, then I don’t know what to tell you.

How does email marketing work?

The ideal way for email marketing to work is you offer your customer something in exchange for their email address. While building up your email list, this can be a slow process,  but there are ways to speed it up. Email marketing is used to update your customers on new products, how to use the product correctly, and get existing customers to buy products. When done correctly, it can really boost your monthly revenue.

Pros of eCommerce Email Marketing 

• Free to send emails
• Connect with customers
• Free to get started
• High-profit margins 
• 3rd best-converting marketing 
• One time setup automation 

Cons of Ecommerce Email Marketing

• Building an email list takes time
• Correctly setting up take a while
• Must monitor automation 

Email Programs I Like:

MailerLite: give you the option to set up an automation that is easy to understand. 

Drip: rated number 1 for eCommerce email marketing.

Ones I Don’t Recommend 

Mail Chimp: not user-friendly, and keeping track of subscribers is difficult. Cant group your users and create visual work flows. 

Purely my opinion based on the email services I’ve used. 

What Not To Do With Your Email Campaign 

There are correct ways and wrong ways to do your email marketing. Most people go with a pop up that says sign up and get 10% or offer a discount for an email exchange. I’m not a big fan of this approach, as you aren’t likely to get a quality email address. 

When offering a discount, you’re giving your product away, and you don’t have to do that. Great marketing for your eCommerce business is being able to get sales without providing discounts to people! Trust me, it’s something you don’t have to do. 

Every email address you have on your subscriber list should bring you $1 per month. Now you just gave 10% off to get that subscriber and on an average order being $124. 

Now that 10% costs $12.4, and you only get $12 per year on that one subscriber if they stay on your list and don’t unsubscribe. That is one of the reasons why I’m not too fond of that approach. It works for some, but it is ineffective at growing a repeat customer based email list. 

So, where does everyone go wrong with their email list? They get a new subscriber and stop there. They might send promotional emails once and a while.

 I also see people sending the same email to everyone. What I mean by that is everyone on the list is getting the same email. 

Sure sending everyone 20% off during a sale is good, but it’s not an effective way for email marketing, but it’s what everyone does, and you’ll end up in the promotion folder of google and other email services. That’s the last thing you want. You are working so hard to build your email list to have them not receive your emails. That’s what happens with this approach stay away from this method. 

Email Marketing Campaign The Right Way. 

I’m going to break down the correct way to have email marketing from getting a potential customer to what you should do after the order. Some customers don’t sign up until they have already purchased, so there will be routes you have to take when that happens. 

The best way you can use emails is to connect, nurture, and guide your customers. As soon as you start to think about how I can make this buying process better for the consumer, the more your email list will generate orders. 

Keep in mind this can be all automated and set up once. Once you have it set up, you monitor and fine-tune your automation. 

1. Your offer In exchange for their email.

Your offer is the most significant step and will be a deciding factor if someone signs up or not. Start to think about what you have to offer your customers. It needs to be in line with what you are selling. For example, let’s compare these two methods the right way and wrong way. 

Wrong-way 

Sign up to get 10% off your next order. 

Correct way 

• Ten recipes you can use protein powder. (a company that sells protein) 
• Three ways to speed up your computer without breaking the bank. ( computer part store) 
• Tips from the pros to become a faster runner ( running shoes) 

The point I’m getting at is to offer something that will benefit your future customer. It’s not selling them but educating and bringing value to their everyday life. The best part about this is you can have different offers depending on what pages they land on. So, if they land on a biking shoe page, they don’t want to run faster, but you can have your offer show them biking tips instead. 

Now, you have their email, and they sign up for your offer. What you put in that email better be what you promised, or you can guarantee the customer will unsubscribe or send you to the spam.  

In this email, it’s important not to try to get the customer to buy your product.

 Strictly give what you promise. Fight the urge to market your product in these opening emails.

Instead, establish yourself as the authority in the field and gain the customers’ trust. Everyone is selling them, and by taking this approach, you are already setting yourself apart from the competition.

Performance Based Marketing

2. Your Second Email for those who haven’t Bought Yet. 

Time to nurture your customer with a follow-up email. Chances are they looked at your product but were skeptical about it solving their issues. So start to think about what problem does your product solves? How will your product make their life better? 

Start the email with talking about those. Don’t wait too long to have this email go out. Chances are they are comparing you and your competition.

Let’s go back to the running shoe example. 

Your email title will look something like this: 

The ultra-light running shoe that saves your knees and shin splints. 

How this shoe is helping runners be faster while taking pressure off your knees and shins, 

Now, if you are a runner, would you open this? Only if you were having those problems, but if you have running shoes that do that and the customer signed up for your emails, chances are they do have those problems. If they don’t, they aren’t your customer, and you shouldn’t waste your time trying to convince them that they are.

Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) ruins people’s marketing campaigns and strategies. Let those people go and don’t waste time and effort on them. 

In this email, give the proof that your product does what you claim. Show how it works and what tech you have installed that no one else has. 

This can be applied for all products, just not running shoes, that’s an example. The body of that email may look something like this.

Do you have to take days off from running because your knees and shins are hurting? Many runners suffer from knee pain and shin splints due to their shoes. What if we told you that you could run every day and not experience those pains. 

Our shoes were developed with that in mind while keeping them light for speeds. Most shoe brands use a generic sole and focus on just being light and comfortable to walk in. Our patent tech allows for support from your toes to your heel, providing a stable connection every time your foot leaves the pavement and relieving the tension in your shins and knees. 

Show proof on your claims, Have customers reviews in the email and give them options when clicking on the call to action. I’m not an expert in running, but I know people have issues running on the outside of the foot or the inside.

Have buttons there that address those different options taking them to a shoe/product that would be best fitted. Don’t just have a shop all button. If you have a single product, duplicate it, and change the writing to match that option on the second copy. People buy products when it solves their problems. 

3. Group Your Email List Into Categories

Based on what the customer has picked, you will split them into different categories. Grouping will ensure that you are sending the correct emails to the right people. 

Back to the shoe examples, if you had a cross country shoe or a sprinting/short distance, you would have the respected interest go into their own group on your email list. Now your able to send the correct information to the right people, which will increase clicks and sales. Showing the right person the right information is an essential step in sales. 

If you sell multiple products and have many options, you may need to send another email in that subject to get them into their correct category if you do take an extra email or 2. This will be important when you start to cross sell products. It will also help you put the correct cross-sell in front of the right people. 

Now the customer is in the right category, and you will begin to market your product to them. Make sure to follow step 2 on this process but have a single product in mind.

 If you have multiple styles and options that solve the same issue, it’s okay to list those here as well. Remember, people like options but don’t over overwhelm them with too many. 3 is the magic number here.

By putting the customers into the correct categories, you should recommend a tailored product to the customer needs and inspiring them to buy. If, for some reason, they don’t, which will happen, have them moved automatically to a new list that gives them more information on you and your product while providing valuable insights on how they can better their life. 

Don’t think you have valuable information to better their life? Just remember you do this for a living, and they might have it as a hobby. Give out your tips and secrets in your emails, and people will eat it up. 

4. Order Confirmations Emails

The customer has placed an order and is excited to receive your product. You don’t want them to return the product because they couldn’t figure out how to use it properly. You have to remember that you use your product every day, and they might use it once a week and are entirely new to it. 

Send a how to use your item and what to expect in an email to your new customer. This will help out with product returns and reviews because after they receive it, you will have them leave their feedback.

5. The Review our Product Email 

The customer has used your product for a little bit, and emotions are high. They are excited to have their new item. This is when they will be talking about you and the product the most while eager to give feedback. This email needs to go out about 1-3 days after they receive the package. 

The review email shouldn’t just be: 

 Hey, thanks for your purchase. Can you help others by leaving your feedback?

Instead, try: 

 You should have gotten your package by now and had some time to use it. Was everything up to your expectations? Most of the time, when they are not, the product is being misused.

If we haven’t met your expectations, please email @youremail.com To take care of any issue you may be having. 

If your expectations are met, please kindly rate the product so others can experience the benefits.

 It adds more of a personal touch and shows you care if they have a good experience with your product. It goes a long way towards building your brand and customer loyalty.

Everyone is sending emails customers can tell when its a heartfelt message.

6. Cross Selling Products. 

Now you have your customer separated into groups that have made a purchase. You will now cross-sell products correctly. You follow the same steps but make sure they are products that they would be using.

 The long-distance runner could be a runners belt with water bottles that hold a little more water than sprinters need. Another example could be socks, anything that goes with that product you should be cross-selling. Follow steps 2-5 for the cross-sell. 

7. Check Out Abandonment Emails.

This is something most everyone is doing because they want sales, and its something all “eCommerce experts” recommend. There is a correct way and a wrong way to do it. 

You have to get personal again. Personal emails go 10x further than saying, hey, you left your items in the cart.

Give them an option to choose something so they can take action instead of just leaving the cart at your shopping store. 

That would have buttons as an example. 

• Add to wish list 
• Go back to the checkout.

If they pick the wish list, you know, they are waiting for a paycheck to come in or haven’t made up their minds yet. 

Do not offer a discount on the first checkout abandonment email or the second. We are going to make the customer earn a discount if you want to provide one. Once the customer has picked the wish list option, send a follow-up email that tells them they can earn a discount. 

It could be to link your products in their social media and tag you in the post. Free marketing if they don’t buy, and you got marketing out of it if they did, but you didn’t lose any profit. 

Chances are they hang out with people who do the same things as them. Make them earn a discount because your products aren’t cheap. It’s a win-win for everyone. Make sure you have three emails in this automation step as it will increase your chances of winning a customer by 88% over the one email. 

Follow these steps when you want to see successful eCommerce marketing using email. You don’t have to give away coupons to do so when you are genuinely trying to take care of the customer. This method can be 100% automated and fine-tuned to any store. 

If you need help having these strategies put in place, you can contact me here and set up an appointment to see if its something for you. 

Tell us your thoughts below. 

Performance Based Marketing