Smart eCommerce marketers know that email is anything but dead. In fact, it remains the number one driver of ROI out of any marketing channel, which may be why nearly half of small business owners plan to increase their email marketing budgets this year.
With the competition growing by the minute, you will need to ramp up your own email marketing campaigns to keep your audience engaged with your brand. By leveraging the latest technology and using some smart email marketing techniques, you can continue to provide relevant content to your loyal subscribers.
Ready to begin building smarter email campaigns? Let’s get started!
Build a Better Email List
A large subscriber list doesn’t bring a lot of value if only a few of them are engaged with your email content. To keep your email campaigns going strong, you need to constantly be adding new, high-quality audience members to your database.
You can start improving your list quality by leveraging your current subscribers. For example, you can create highly shareable email content that your subscribers are likely to share with family and friends or start a referral program to attract new audience members.
To recruit new subscribers, try a special promotion that requires users to submit their email addresses to access the offer. Be sure that your signup form is displayed prominently on your website and social media platforms like Facebook.
Don’t forget to scrub your database regularly. Try sending inactive subscribers a reengagement email with an appealing offer to rekindle their interest in your business.
Automate and Personalize
Personalization is more important than ever, and you need to do everything that you can to boost your visibility in an ever-crowded inbox.
Personalizing your emails is a must if you want to grab your subscribers’ attention and provide them with relevant content. Adding a personal touch to your emails can significantly improve your opens and click-through rates, driving more sales to your online store.
For example, MarketingSherpa found that by simply adding the recipient’s name to the subject line, click-through rates improved by 17.36 percent. Other personal touches in the subject line could include mentioning their geographical location or referencing past purchases.
If you want to achieve similar results, you should be leveraging marketing automation to deliver subscribers relevant and highly personalized emails. By delivering personalized messages to your subscribers at the right time, you can maximize the impact of your email campaigns.
Segment Your Audience
According to the Direct Marketing Association, 77 percent of ROI comes from segmented, targeted, and triggered campaigns. Segmenting your email lists isn’t optional if you want your eCommerce business to thrive.
Consumers are more selective these days about which email campaigns they are willing to join. By signing up for your email list, they trust that you will provide them with something of value. If you send them too many irrelevant emails, it might cause your unsubscribe rates to rise.
With email segmentation, you can deliver relevant content that is exactly what your subscribers want—at the right time and frequency. Smart digital marketers are using advanced segmentation strategies to generate new leads, moving them further along the sales funnel, and keeping subscribers engaged with their brand.
Since you’re a champion and want to stay leagues above the competition, you can leverage RFM segments that measure the behavior of your subscribers, ranking your most valuable customers and helping you tailor your campaigns to maximize your profits.
You can segment your email lists in so many ways. Don’t be afraid to try different segments to see what works best for your business like demographics, purchase history and geography.
Track and Analyze the Data
Most digital marketers know that monitoring the performance of their campaigns is essential. By tracking key metrics and analyzing the data, you can make adjustments that will better engage your audience and boost sales at the same time.
There are some key metrics that every email marketer should monitor, such as click-through rates, conversions, and unsubscribe rates. Most email service providers will track the basics for you, but for a more insightful analysis, you may need to dig deeper into the data.
Here are a few additional metrics that you should consider tracking to enhance your campaign’s performance: engagement over time, type of device used to view the email, site traffic, time spent on email, average order value, and emails reported as Spam.
Not all email service providers (ESP) are equal, and you might be surprised at what they can and can’t track. The good news is that Springbot integrates with 3rd party ESPs to help you track all the results in real time.
Conclusion
Email marketing continues to advance in exciting ways, and the savvy eCommerce marketers can use it to build customer loyalty and drive revenue growth. With the help of a robust marketing platform and smart segmentation techniques, you’re all set to maximize your ROI this year.