Ecommerce retailers and marketers account for more than half of the emails that fill consumer inboxes. While driving sales is the end-goal, just getting customers to open an email can be a challenge.
To increase profitability, boost brand loyalty, and grow your customer-base from email marketing, Remarkety has assembled a few suggestions that have proven to be successful for ecommerce email communications to consumers.
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Compelling Subject Lines
You’ve got mail. And your buyers are sifting through a lot of it. You also have 3 seconds to make eye contact with a consumer through their inbox and grab their attention. What do you do? Statistics show that 35% of email recipients open emails based on subject line alone. Your email subject line is the proverbial first impression. You must pique their interest and to do this you need be crafty with offers, personalization, latest news, and even emojis (that’s right, those crazy little icons lead to success, with 56% of brands who have used emojis in subject lines reporting a higher open rate!) Be bold. Be aggressive. Be daring. But most of all, be strategic. -
Mobile Friendly
Let’s face facts. #1 – There are an estimated 10 billion mobile connected devices in use at any given time. #2 – 80% of shoppers have used a mobile phone (even when inside a store) to look up product reviews and compare prices. #3 – An estimated 62% of consumers have made purchases using their smartphone device in the last 6 months. #4 – More than a third of holiday shopping came from mobile users and on Black Friday alone close to 40% of sales came from a mobile device. And lastly, #5 – studies have revealed that 40% of your consumers will seek out competitors if they have a poor mobile experience on your site. ‘Nuf said.
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Relevancy
When was the last time you opened or purposely read anything mundane? Who has time for that? Customer emails better contain or convey some sort of value (and that doesn’t necessarily translate into dollar savings either.) Your communications to customers should be a good mix of products, tips and tricks, offers, and industry-related news. You should schedule your posts accordingly using an editorial calendar with topics and not spam (junk mail not canned ham) for the sake of emailing. Your messages should reflect the seasonality of your business and on par with your competitors. Over 3 billion Twitter tweets are posted everyday in regards to spam and junk emails. That’s not the type of viral PR you want on your side. Make it relevant. Make it interesting. And make it worth their while.
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On Brand
Consumers find your website. They like what they see. They sign up for a newsletter because they want to see more. More of what you offer.More of who you are. If your emails and newsletters are not on brand, you’re not providing the content they are looking for. Customers aren’t just investing their time and money into your products and services, they’re investing in you as a company. You should be building their trust from their first site visit through to their most recent purchase to maintain their loyalty. The tone of the message should reflect your brand’s personality and the colors should be all too familiar to your buyers. Your email marketing is an extension of your ecommerce store.
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Social Focus
We already mentioned the eye-opening statistic of tweets around spam emails. So, saying that there’s a definite correlation between email marketing and social media shouldn’t come as a shocker to anyone. However, you’ll want to be on the receiving end of praising posts regarding your communication to customers. Therefore, ensure your social share buttons are displayed on every email you send out. You’ll want your own links to like and follow of course, but you’ll also want to make it easy for the customer to post, tweet, forward, and promote your offers or anything of interest within your emails with the click of a button. (And did we mention that all of this should be trackable by your email marketing platform to analyze the results and see the ROI?)
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Strong CTAs
If your Buy Now, Subscribe, Learn More, Get It, Use Promo Code…, or Checkout buttons are not prominent in your email, how are you supposed to make any money? Strong Calls to Action (CTAs) are your bread and butter. They’re going to drive customers back to your site, and ultimately drive sales. If they’re just blending in to the copy and design, you’re doing yourself a disservice. CTAs need to pop. Your words, phrases, and the look and feel of CTAs should be a primary consideration in ecommerce emails.
As the leading email partner for online retailers, Remarkety lets you create a more personalized shopping experience for buyers and promotes brand awareness to grow your database. Contact us for a customized demo and to learn how Remarkety can support your ecommerce store and family of brands. Request a Demo today!
