This is the seventh post in a blog series. You can view the previous week’s post, “Start Tracking User Activity on Your Website with These 2 Free Tools” here.
Emails are an unbelievably powerful tool for reaching your customers directly with targeted messages whenever you need.
It’s far cheaper and easier to convince a former customer to buy again than to attract a brand new customer. And what better way to reach those customers than with the email they willingly provided you?
Emails have an average of 4400% ROI. You read that right. That means every dollar you spend on email marketing has the potential to bring you a $44 return, which is kind of amazing.
Most sophisticated companies put a $5 value on a new email addresses. But few companies put the time or energy necessary into building a robust email strategy and miss out on a large chunk of potential business.
Below are the steps we typically follow to help clients mature their email marketing strategy.
STEP 1: SET UP EMAIL CAPTURE ON YOUR WEBSITE
Capturing someone’s email address used to be as easy as pie. Now it’s about as easy as pi (3.1415…?)
People grew tired of having their inbox fill up with promotional material. Many of us have a spam email for promos and discounts, but as marketers we ideally want real emails, something people are actually going to check regularly.
So the question is: What can you offer that’s valuable enough for people to give you their real email address?
Here are two possible avenues for securing that elusive customer email:
- Give them money
Deep discounts and other offers are wildly popular and often work, but they aren’t always effective in winning you real, honest- to-god emails that your customers will actually check on a regular basis.
- Provide Unique Value
Another option is to provide customers something of value that’s not monetary, such as a one-on-one consultation or complimentary tips on how to use your product. Fitness instructors are masters of this. Human connection is incredibly valuable to people, and they’re more likely to give you their real email address if you offer them something beyond money.
To set up email capture on your website, we suggest using OptinMonster. It’s affordable and easy to do.
STEP 2: START SENDING REGULAR EMAILS
Once you’ve got a healthy number of emails in the tank, you can start scheduling regular email releases. A monthly email is a great place to start. Make it short, sweet, and to the point and include a legitimate value-add for your customer.
I would caution against using these monthly emails as a company newsletter. Let’s face it—no one wants to hear about the office birthday party or the team building retreat. Think more about your customer than yourself when writing monthly emails.
A basic platform like Mailchimp lets you send bulk emails as needed, but most companies will outgrow it pretty fast. It won’t be sufficient for advanced repurchasing tactics and email nurture campaigns.
STEP 3: AUTOMATE EMAILS BASED ON USER BEHAVIOR
If you’re serious about using email marketing, we recommend paying for ActiveCampaign or Klaviyo. This will enable your email strategies to grow as you grow.
A great way to start is by automating an email repurchase campaign. This is a series of emails that are triggered by customer behavior, e.g. when a customer purchases a product from your website. The goal is to persuade the customer to purchase another product, and the sooner the better.
A final note on emails: Although your customers are almost certain to receive an email from you, most of them won’t actually open it. Good emails get an open rate of about 10%. Great emails can get up to 25%. This means, best case scenario, only 1 in 4 people will read your emails. Make sure your emails are well-written, value-packed, and strategically deployed so that your message reaches customers.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Starting an eCommerce business is like building a rocket in your garage and expecting it to take you to the moon—it might not work, and even if it does, there’s a good chance you’ll get hurt along the way.
The good news is you’re not the first person crazy enough to try this. There are many others (myself included) who have tried, failed, and tried again. By learning from our many (many) mistakes, you can launch an eCommerce business that makes it safely to orbit and beyond.
In this blog series, you’ll get a step-by-step guide to creating and launching your eCommerce business years 1–3. We go over how to create a functional brand, set up your website, and develop an advertising strategy that scales with you. We’ll go through the various pros and cons, so that you can feel empowered to make the best decisions for your business.
My name is Chris Franks, and I’m the founder and CEO of CleverFunnel, a digital marketing agency that focuses on using straightforward, data-driven strategies to drive real results for our clients.
I’m also an avid lover of indie music, fly fishing, baseball, and sunscreen (although that’s more of a genetic necessity). I wrote this with the hope that my story could help other young entrepreneurs achieve their goals, without losing their savings (or their sanity) in the process. If any bit of this helps you, it’ll have been worth it.
