Certain techies love to say that email is taking its last breath. But we’re willing to bet, one look at your inbox is enough to prove “you’ve (still) got mail.”
In fact, many businesses are showing a renewed interest in email marketing as a way to reach their customers with relevant, personalised messages at the the right time. Our own clients, across a range of sectors, have seen consistently healthy growth in email marketing conversions with no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
Whether you're just getting started with email marketing or dreaming up the next big campaign, our guide below reveals what email campaigns work great and how to make the most of every broadcast.
Please Note: As a leading Shopify Partner and with Shopify our go to platform for e-commerce our email marketing guide is tailored towards the Shopify platform. However, its a useful guide for all e-commerce stores to follow and our recommended email marketing service can be used across a range of e-commerce platforms.
Why is email marketing crucial to eCommerce success?
The reality today with the majority of website traffic, even highly targeted traffic, is that most new visitors who land on your website will probably never return. That is unless, you do something to get them back. Developing an email list and sending compelling messages gives you a way to retain the traffic you worked tirelessly to get.
If your eCommerce store hasn’t taken the time to adopt an email marketing strategy, you’re likely leaving money sitting on the table. To prove it, here are four reasons to consider employing email in your marketing mix.
1. E-mail lets you build continuous customer relations
Yes SEO and social media advertising are great for getting discovered by potential future customers, but email remains the the winner in remarketing and creating a loyal customer base and strong relations with your customer. Email also encourages customers to come back and make a second purchase and beyond, which helps keep costs down that are involved with acquiring new customers. This is important for many businesses you may be on a limited marketing budget.
2. E-mail drives sales and we have the proof!
Obviously, certain businesses, products and sectors benefit better from email marketing campaigns compared to others. Return on investment varies across industries and products but the return is still there. Over the years, e-commerce research has found that email marketing is a high performing strategy that frequently outperforms other channels.
To proof this, Shopify released data from the last Black Friday & Cyber Monday weekend and it showed that email had the highest average order conversion rate when compared to other channels over the weekend.
3. E-mail can affect the 3 Main Growth Multipliers
Marketing guru Jay Abraham was one of the first to convey the idea that there are only three ways to grow revenue - increase the total number of customers (C), increase the total number of purchases per customer (purchase frequency, or F), or increase the average order value (AOV).
Most businesses quickly discover that acquiring new customers, over and over again, can get very expensive. Email marketing offers a viable solution out of the "acquisition rat race" because it can influence the 3 main growth multipliers at the same time:
Automated introduction and abandoned cart emails can increase conversion rates (C)
Bounce back or win-back campaigns can increase a customer’s number of purchases (F)
Lifecycle campaigns and messages can automatically highlight high-value products to the right customers (AOV)
With this in mind, its one of the main reasons why ZOMA push businesses to develop an effective email marketing strategy to grow their eCommerce business.
4. E-Mail is not influenced by 3rd Party Platforms
A huge benefiting factor for email marketing is that it escapes the grasps of 3rd party platforms, where changes to algorithms and tweaks to their platform can derail a distribution strategy.
Organic reach for Facebook pages has been falling since 2013, as the channel continues to focus its News Feed on promoting content from friends and family. Similarly, climbing the search rankings on Google is only getting harder and requires a huge amount of time, effort and investment. More than ever, if you want to reach your customers on these platforms, you may be forced to pay and those costs are increasing year on year.
Getting started with email marketing and what platform do ZOMA recommend?
Even the best email marketing strategy begins with choosing an email marketing service, establishing a plan to generate new subscribers, and understanding how to send emails legally.
Shopify have an email marketing platform built into their model and it can be a great starting point for businesses looking to develop their email marketing campaigns. But, its not their main focus and that's why we recommend Klaviyo as our go to email marketing platform.
Why Klaviyo?
In just seconds, you can unlock the power of personalized marketing for your Shopify store with Klaviyo.
With Klaviyo and Shopify, you can start sending more personal, better targeted communications in a matter of seconds. Klaviyo will seamlessly collect and store all relevant data about your customers so you can use it to deliver memorable experiences, drive more sales, and create stronger relationships.
We pick 9 features from Klaviyo that make it a dream to use for Shopify and eCommerce Stores:
Full sync of historical data - Automatically ingest all orders and customers without stressing servers or requiring developer effort.
Pre-built flow templates - Get started faster with a library of Shopify-specific automation & email templates.
Every order, every detail - Klaviyo sync every important action and detail on every order without limitation. Know exactly what your customers are purchasing.
Codeless signup forms - Deploy Klaviyo signup forms without the need to write a single line of code.
Dynamic coupons - Easily send individualized coupons to your customers.
Product data enrichment - Automatically sync product attributes to checkout, order events, and catalog records.
Back in Stock Alerts - Out of stock products are no longer a lost sale. Let customers subscribe to alerts when items are back in stock — it’s that easy.
Personalised product recommendations - Easy-to-use, zero-setup product recommendations based on customer purchase history.
Customer-level predictions - Klaviyo automatically predicts lifetime value, churn risk, and more for every customer.
If you have any question about email marketing, Shopify or Klaviyo feel free to contact our team today hello@zoma.ie or call us +353 42 937 9720