Email marketing is undoubtably one of the most necessary marketing tools a small business can have. As a small business marketing agency, we strategize and implement marketing tactics that create a solid foundation for the business and email marketing is one of those tactics.
Today we’re diving into e-commerce brands and the importance of having shopping email campaigns, both through the buying process and after the sale, are so important for revenue.
What are Shopping Email Series?
Shopping email series are nurture emails through a customer, or potential customer’s, buying process. They include emails both during the purchasing process and post purchasing process. Shopping email campaigns have proved to be extremely effective in converting potential customers and bringing back looky-loos to your site.
According to Dynamic Yield, 44.1% of abandoned cart emails are opened and about a third of those are clicked on. The potential for grabbing a customer’s attention and then converting is pretty good if you have the right email systems in place.
Shopping Emails
There are many types of shopping emails that can nurture the customer into making that purchase. For shopping email series, I think it’s important that we break down these emails into two categories: Buying Process Emails and After-Sales Emails.
Types of Buying Process Emails
Buying process emails are happening as the customer is shopping. They are nurturing the customer as they are currently thinking about you and your products. They’re like a quiet whisper in their ear saying “buy me buy me buy me.” (That did not mean to come off as creepy as it did!) Types of buying process emails that really work:
- Welcome series Emails: as soon as the new customer puts their email into your site it’s the perfect time to start that welcome series trigger to start nurturing that relationship. You can read about welcome series from our previous blog here.
- Abandoned Cart: One of the best ways to make that potential customer come back and buy are abandoned cart emails. Abandoned cart emails can be a whole series unto themselves. But we believe, in our small business marketing agency professional experience, that the first abandoned cart should go out with 30 minutes of the customer leaving your site. Abandoned cart emails could also include a discount for coming back and purchasing, limited time offers and social proof emails.
- Purchase Suggestions: We’ve all seen the “If you loved this item, then you’ll love these” types of emails. And they are great at not only teaching a customer about other products you offer but getting them to buy MORE than what they’ve added to their cart. Can you say ca-ching?!
- Social Proof: Sometimes a customer needs that nudge to trust your business and the products that you offer. By sending out social proof emails you’re telling the customer to not just take your word for it but the word of previous customers who can’t live without your product. Social proof builds trust and long-lasting business/client relationships.
Types of After-Sales Emails
After-sales email series are self-explanatory, they come after the sale has happened. One of my favorite sayings is “Your Best Customer is Your Last,” and that’s exactly what the goal of after sales emails are for, nurturing the relationship between your business and your customer to keep customer retention.
- Order Confirmations: The quickest way to lose trust with a customer is to not confirm their order. As a customer, you want to know your money is going to a trusted source and you have confirmation that your order was received and will ship.
- Shipping Information: My favorite email to get from a company I purchased an item from is that my order has shipped! It’s like the alert that Christmas is coming. It’s also a simple, automated and instant way to continue building that business/customer trust.
- Review Requests: The best way to encourage new purchases is by product reviews from previous customers. After sales is the perfect time to incentivize the customer to leave a review (I suggest on the website itself for an e-commerce brand). You can even give them a discount for future purchases if they leave one.
- Additional Purchase Suggestions: Purchasing suggestions are both great during the buying process and after sales. Leading with “If you loved this product, then you’re going to love these” can generate fresh interest.
- Reminders to Refill/Repurchase: One of the best things Amazon does is remind you when it’s been a set amount of time to re-purchase your favorite items. If you have a business that requires continued purchasing, these emails are a perfect reason to touch base with the customer to submit another order.
Best Practices for Creating Emails
- Logo in header
- Tight and consistent branding
- Double check your links are working
- Mobile optimized – over half of the population looks at emails on their phone
- Catchy subject line – what’s your hook to get them to open?
- Keep your voice on brand
- Send to only those that sign up
- Keep the amount of text light and not overwhelming
- Use eye catching, high-res, imagery
- Include a call to action – what do you want them to do?
I should finish this blog with saying Congrats on getting to the point of needing both shopping email series and after sales email series. That means you have a product, website and working order fill system, no small feat! With proper buying and post-purchasing email series in place, we believe you could make a huge increase in your revenue.
Keep STAKing,
Michelle Johnson
Owner & Founder, STAK Marketing
Michelle Johnson is the owner, founder and Chief Marketing Guru at STAK Marketing. Our passion at STAK Marketing is to create beautiful STAKs of marketing strategies that help small and mid-sized businesses grow and reach their goals. STAK Marketing's expertise ranges from SEO to branding, e-mail marketing to website design, PR to advertising and much more - making STAK Marketing a one-stop-shop for all your small business marketing needs.