Email-marketing for online retailers
An online store can only flourish if it has a constant influx of new customers. Therefore, the business owners face an important task: to convey their information to a potential buyer and encourage him to take the target action: go to the site, use a promotional code, place an order, etc. At its core, email marketing for online stores has two key objectives:
- Working with people who have already become buyers of the online store.
- Search and attraction of new clients.
Development of an email marketing strategy
In order for the mailing of letters to bring the most positive results in the form of attracting new customers or encouraging existing customers to purchase your product, it is necessary to develop an effective strategy for working in this direction. It is worth considering the fact that in the field of email marketing, even with a well-thought-out strategy, it is necessary to work with different methods and approaches to composing and sending letters in order to find the most justified for each case separately.
An email marketing strategy for an online store includes several fundamental points:
- Determination of the tasks to be achieved with the help of the mailing list.
- Choosing the target audience.
- Drafting an effective letter.
- Determination of the optimal number of letters per week for one addressee, as well as the day and time of their sending.
To figure out how to make your email marketing campaign as effective as possible, you need to start by looking at what the email marketing company faces. The narrower and more focused the task, the more chances to achieve a positive result by spending the minimum budget. For instance:
- Instead of setting the goal of "Attracting more customers", it is better to strive - "Attract young people from 18 to 25 years old" or "Make a profitable offer to women 40 and older."
- Instead of informing subscribers about new courses of an online school, it is better to devote 1 letter to 1 course.
- E-mail newsletters with advertisements of new products work better when the letter draws attention not to "New items" in general, but to several notable models.
Exactly the same, maximally specific approach should be applied to other steps of developing a sales letter strategy for an e-mail newsletter. Some of them will be discussed later in the article.
How to build a subscriber base of an online store
Naturally, one of the fundamental requirements for sending emails is to have a subscriber base. Before starting a mailing list, you need to have a database of contacts to which letters will be sent. There are two options for getting a list of Email addresses:
- Buy a ready-made database and send your letters through it.
- Build a base for sending emails yourself.
Some entrepreneurs decide to purchase a database of email addresses and use it to send newsletters. It may seem that it is profitable and fast, since this approach saves time and effort in collecting contacts. In reality, buying a ready-made database of email addresses is one of the mistakes that many make. The reason is that the effectiveness of such mailing is scanty: most letters either do not reach the addressee at all, or end up in spam, where no one reads them.
The experience of many successful entrepreneurs confirms that it is much more effective to independently collect a database of email addresses to send letters to. There are many ways to encourage people to leave you their email addresses, here are some of the common ways to build a database:
- Submit a subscription form on the site.
- When placing an order through the site, enter the required field of the E-mail address.
- Periodically make exclusive promotions and discounts for subscribers.
- Conduct various contests and promotions among subscribers.
- Advertise your newsletter on thematic sites and social networking pages.
You can use several of the listed techniques, which will gradually allow you to collect a rather large database of email addresses of those people who are already potentially interested in your product or service.
Types of email campaigns
To send letters to the maximum selling and bring you the desired results, you should use various types of e-mail campaigns - this will cover the largest target audience base, as well as make the letter the most tailored to the target action. Let's take a look at a few of the most common types of emails:
Triggered mailings are a type of emails generated automatically in response to a specific visitor action on your site. For example, after registration, a person immediately receives a specific letter to his email, in the same way - after adding an item to the cart, placing an order, etc.
Regular letters - this method is successfully used by many online stores. In order for recipients to read such letters, and not automatically delete them, try to provide them with relevant and useful content - this can be useful information, interesting thematic news, etc.
Informational - from the name itself it is clear that the sending of such letters should be associated with information that is relevant and useful for subscribers. It is worth analyzing: what information can be potentially interesting to your customers and place it in such emails.
Sales Letters - Use a sales email from time to time. Letters timed to any event or really good deals work especially well.
How to Optimize Email Marketing for Your Online Store
For sending emails to be effective, it needs to be well configured. In no case should this question be left to chance or be dealt with manually, as time becomes available. The more automated the process, the more positive results can be achieved. What needs to be done?
First of all, skip the manual work of sending emails and use one of the specially designed API services . The essence of such a service is to automate the process. Thus, trigger emails will be sent immediately after the action on the site is performed, and advertising, regular and informational emails will be sent at a specified time. An analysis of the EMAIL marketing market unambiguously confirms the fact that the sequence of interaction with subscribers and the automation of the process can achieve a positive result.
What needs to be done to optimize email marketing? This issue requires the interaction of two parties:
- An online store owner needs to find a professional competent programmer. And also draw up a clear specification for him: exactly when and what letters should be sent to subscribers.
- The programmer is required to implement the terms of reference on the site and correctly configure the corresponding service for sending letters. If the programmer does not work with the project on an ongoing basis, he must, after completing his work, provide clear and understandable instructions for working with the service for sending letters.
How to test your mailing list
When the subscriber base has already been collected and replenished, emails are compiled and sent, you need to regularly test your mailing. Testing is necessary in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the mailing and take the necessary measures to improve it. To conduct a comprehensive test, carefully consider the following questions and criteria:
- How quickly the subscriber base is growing.
- How many letters were sent.
- How many emails were delivered.
- How many letters have been opened.
- How many recipients clicked on the link.
- How many recipients have replied to emails.
- How many of the received emails ended up in spam.
Thanks to special tools, today all this information can be collected. But when is it worth conducting such an analysis? It is recommended to analyze regular mailings every week, and automatic ones - monthly. When conducting such testing, try not only to collect data, but to make changes (change delivery time, text, letter design, etc.), and then measure the indicators again.
findings
It is obvious that E-mail newsletters are a tool that should be used in the work of an online store. To ensure effective work in this regard, it is necessary to take 3 key steps:
- Collect and replenish the database of email addresses.
- Compose the correct letter with a well-thought-out design.
- Use one of the email marketing services and configure it correctly.
Okay CMS provides a complete set of tools for implementing email campaigns. Okay CMS has a special module for integration with Esputnik, as well as effective conversion forms, thanks to which you can collect a database of email addresses and set up a mailing list for them.