Here are some reasons why online shop operators should invest in email marketing.
The Great Potential of Email Marketing for Online Shops
Did you know that almost 100% of all online shops send newsletters to their subscribers and are only one click away from successfully selling their products? In the past, it took much longer to reach potential customers, not to mention the high costs and often inefficiency of marketing campaigns. People spent a lot of their budget on expensive print campaigns, ads, TV commercials and other stuff, hoping to get the right target groups to become loyal customers. And they couldn’t even track the success of their campaigns.
This has definitely changed since digitization has become a part of our lives. Online shops have been using email newsletters to communicate with their customers and sell their products for quite some time now. However, many online shop operators don’t see the potential of email marketing and don’t make use of all the benefits it has to offer. Some may also think they don’t have the time or the budget to expand their email marketing strategy.
Here are some reasons why online shop operators should invest in email marketing.
Win-Win Business for Online Shops and Subscribers
When it comes to email marketing, online shops have an advantage over offline retailers. Once a potential customers has registered for an online shop, chances are they will also sign up for your newsletter. As soon as they have subscribed to your newsletter, you’re free to send them customized offers at exactly the right time. Especially as an online shop you have the most relevant data such as purchase data, first and last name and perhaps even the date of birth of your recipients in your shop system anyway. All your data will be transferred automatically to an email marketing tool like CleverReach with the right integration.
This allows you to do targeted email marketing. However, many online shops don’t see the potential of the data they have and only send emails for confirming an order or sending an invoice or delivery status.
Collect more relevant customer data by using tagging in your newsletters to expand your email marketing and get your subscribers to start buying more from your shop by sending them relevant offers and news.
How Can Online Shops Sell More Products with Their Newsletters?
You’ve just learned that there’s no other channel to reach potential customers as directly as email marketing. We don’t, however, recommend sending your newsletters randomly to all your subscribers, but to offer target groups relevant offers and products. You can, for example, assume that most of your male customers won’t be interested in beauty tips and cosmetics offers.
Interfaces Reduce Effort and Increase Success
Put some effort in a workflow once and boost your sales in the long run? No problem. Interfaces between online shops and an email marketing solution such as CleverReach enable online shops to use important customer data optimally for their email marketing. Data like birthdays, the date of the last purchase or purchased products are useful for setting up customized emails. Mailings with birthday offers or welcome series automatically lead to people buying more from your online shop.
Segmentation Helps Online Shops Sell More
Segmenting only by female and male or opener and non-opener is no longer sufficient for targeted email marketing. In order to be able to provide your subscribers with the right offers, products or news, we recommend a more detailed segmentation, e.g. by using tagging. The more precisely you divide your target groups, the sooner the recipient will open your email, read it and finally put their favorite items or attractive offers in their shopping cart. Find out more about Tagging.
How the Customer Journey Boosts Sales in Your Online Shop
Use the customer journey to stay in touch with your customers and subscribers for a long time. It offers numerous touchpoints you can use for your email marketing and boosting your sales. Starting with a welcome discount, a birthday coupon and later sending a special offer to reward customer loyalty – if subscribers feel appreciated, they are more likely to end up in your online shop and buy your products.
Top 3 Reasons to Invest in Your Email Marketing
- The high Return on Invest. You only have a small budget for email marketing? No problem, you only need a software to get started. Even if you add the costs for the time you spend working on your newsletter, costs for image rights and templates: Email marketing has a very high return on investment (ROI in % = campaign profit / campaign costs x 100). This means you generate more sales than you spend. Could there be any better way to spend your marketing budget?
- Newsletters are popular. People prefer being contacted by companies via email. Emails give us the freedom to decide for ourselves whether we want to read a newsletter right away or at a later date. Reading their emails is an integral part of their everyday lives for many people. Make use of that when you do email marketing for your online shop. Don‘t be afraid you might annoy your subscribers with your emails. Targeted and attractive offers always hit the mark.
- Email Marketing is the direct channel to your customers. When you send your newsletter, it reaches exactly the person you want to reach. Social Media channels like Instagram, Facebook & Co. on the other hand constantly change their algorithms and automatically decide which people see which ads at what time. You can’t rely on your ad or message getting the desired visibility and reaching the right target group. Also, it takes much longer until you receive the recognition you want on social media channels.
Our Clever Email Marketing Tip
In times of digitization it’s incredibly easy to simply compare prices and products of different online shops on the internet and decide to go for the cheapest one. The more personal your relationship with your buyers and subscribers is, the more likely they are to remain loyal to you, your brand and your products. Your newsletters are an important tool to strengthen customer retention.
These factors help you build up customer retention:
- Address your customers personally
- Individualized offers
- “Rewards” (personalized discounts)
- Send reminders (e.g. at the end of a summer sale)
Good to know:
It’s much simpler to keep the customers and subscribers you already have, than winning new ones!
Summary:
Emails reach people more directly than any other channel. It’s no surprise then, that email traffic is constantly growing. Give it a go and use the power of email marketing for your online shop – for more traffic, conversions and increasing sales.
