Have you been running your Shopify store for a while now? If so, you might have heard about Shopify email marketing. It is quite the standard for the e-commerce platform for being an effective way to generate leads.
While you may have heard about email marketing nonstop, you might not have gotten the opportunity to learn the specifics of it. What does it mean entirely? Where do you begin? And so much more. If you want to get started, read further to learn everything that there is.
Table of Contents
Understanding Email Marketing
The first thing to know is understanding what email marketing is all about. Fortunately, it is as straightforward as it can get. As the name suggests, it is sending emails as a marketing strategy.
You send emails to prospective and current customers in an effort to educate and influence their shopping decisions. The goal is to make them aware of new products and the benefits in order for them to make a purchase.
The Benefits of Email Marketing
Despite the simplicity of email marketing, it provides some great results. There are even ones that you are not bound to get from anywhere else. So, if you are doubting the legitimacy and the need of email marketing, here is a list to answer that.
1. Builds Ongoing Customer Relationship
One of the main goals of email marketing is to keep constant connection with prior customers. You send them information of what you have to offer. You never know which ones find the need to make a purchase.
At the end of the day, you are able to generate repeat customers. You also strengthen prior relationships by being the one to cater to their needs.
2. Effective in Driving Sales
According to statistics, email marketing ranks as the best way to convert potential customers into real sales. This number was found during a Black Friday Cyber Monday Sale wherein email marketing had a total of 4.29% conversion rate. It is followed by search engine searches at 3.04%.
3. Email Marketing is Consistent
Looking at other forms of marketing, email marketing is one that is the most consistent. Take a look at social media marketing, algorithms are constantly changing. Therefore, it requires you to keep on adapting and learning what’s new. Your strategies a month ago may no longer work today, and that is not something you are going to have with email marketing.
How to Build Your Email Marketing Campaign
Now that you have settled the thought of email marketing with yourself, it is time to get started. You are not going to need much. That is one of the greatest things about email marketing, it is simple. As a matter of fact, it can be compressed in only three stages.
1. Choosing Your Email Service Provider
Email marketing is about sending a lot of emails to a number of recipients. Don’t expect that this is entirely possible to do manually. It gets tedious and time-consuming which could pull you out from more important tasks of your business.
The only way to keep email marketing viable is with the help of an email service provider. With one click, emails are automatically sent to recipients. You can also automate a lot of things so that you don’t have to create an email for every person.
There are a lot of email services providers in the market. To give you an idea, some of them are Klaviyo, Omnisend, and Conversio. You don’t necessarily have to stick to one until the end of time. You can always opt to change in the middle as you start to learn what you want and prefer.
2. Build Your Email List
Your email marketing campaign won’t work if you don’t have any recipients to send your emails to. So, after reaching a conclusion on your email service provider, the next thing to work on is building your email list.
You are going to collect contacts through different ways. There is no single way to collect customer emails. So, be creative and resourceful. The bigger your email list gets, the more effective and worthwhile your campaign becomes.
3. Send Your Emails, But Legally
You now have everything you need. So, the next step would be sending out your emails. It is going to be as simple as a click of a button, but before you do, understand what is legal and not. You never know, you might be getting into a problem without you knowing it.
For example, if you are in Canada, they have the Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation. It protects customers from unwanted and unsolicited excessive emails. Therefore, always be cautious and seek the advice of professionals who are experienced in the field of email marketing.
How to Build Your Email List?
Building your email list is no joke. In the three-step email marketing phase, this is going to be the hardest. To make things worse, it is the most crucial part. Without any real and legitimate recipients to your email marketing, it is bound to fail without a doubt.
As told earlier, there are different ways to compile a list of email contacts. Implement each of these and you are going to have a legitimate growing contacts list.
1. Pre-launch Page
A pre-launch page is what you are going to have before you release a product. It is where curious people can give their emails so that they can be updated and informed. However, as expected, it is not going to be easy. If you want them to give out their emails, you should give them more incentives like an early-bird discount.
Also, don’t forget to write interesting information about your product. Nothing beats authentic engagement from people who are really interested with what you have to offer.
2. Customer Accounts
In Shopify, a paying customer doesn’t necessarily mean that they have an account. However, if they do, you are able to get first-hand access to different information, especially their email. The best part about this is that they already came to your store. Your next goal would be to hook them in and turn them into repeat customers.
3. Forms All Over Your Site
Your website receives traffic every day. There are people who just came in to take a look while others are more dedicated to make a purchase. Regardless, your website is the most ideal place to build your email list.
You can put forms all over your website to gain emails with the promise of different things. You can offer to keep people updated or educational content they are not going to get anywhere else. Your website is already engaging them, making them more susceptible to things like this.
4. Hook People with Lead Magnets
When people are not being cooperative with free content and the promise of being updated, you are going to need to use lead magnets. Begin offering discounts or contests in exchange for emails. If that doesn’t get you any cooperation, nothing will.
Even during times when free content is working, lead magnets are still essential. A little bit here and there will keep people engaged and come back for more. Those who weren’t interested the first time are bound to cave sooner or later.
Types of Email Marketing Campaigns
Email marketing is not just about sending emails as you please. If you don’t follow a proper campaign plan, it can either fall as spam or too inconsistent that it doesn’t really lead to any benefit.
To get the most out of it, follow an email marketing campaign. Here are the three main types of email marketing campaigns that you should follow.
1. Transactional Emails
When somebody makes a purchase, you are obliged to send them an email regarding confirmation, receipts, and the likes. It gives the buyer the information they need after a purchase. Also, it gives them peace of mind that the transaction has pushed through.
While this may not be considered as email marketing, it can strengthen the relationship between you and the customer. Though, if you want, you can slide in some promotional content in there.
2. Promotional Emails
The purpose of this email campaign is to generate awareness for an upcoming event. Are you going to release a new product? Send out promotional emails. Is there an upcoming event such as Black Friday or the Christmas Holidays? Give your customers promotional emails to tell them what they are missing and what they might want to be a part of.
3. Lifecycle Emails
While the first two are strong email campaigns, the one that stands out are lifecycle emails. Any activity a customer does will trigger an email based on what they did. For example, if a person abandons a cart, an email will be sent relating to that specific activity. Either you ask them for a feedback or give suggestions for other alternatives of that product.
Tracking Email Marketing Performance
The goal of email marketing is to convert more people into customers. So, you are investing into something that is expected to help you earn more. Otherwise, the point of your campaign is all for nothing.
The question now is, how do you know that you are making more out of your investment? What do you track to make sure that you are succeeding in your email marketing performance?
Fortunately, email marketing is something you can track accurately. As a matter of fact, there is more than one way to gauge the output of your efforts.
1. List Size and Growth
If your contact list is growing, that is definite proof that you are in the right direction. When you are not doing great and you are not creating efforts that are susceptible to an audience, you won’t be experiencing such response.
Most would try to justify that an increasing list size is not proof of good email marketing efforts. However, nothing could be farther from the truth. Great email marketing will mean that more people want to participate.
2. Open and Click-Through Rates
Sending out an email to a recipient doesn’t necessarily mean that they are going to open it. Instances of emails being ignored and left in the inbox are quite rampant. While it is a good thing that you haven’t been blocked or placed in spam, being left in the inbox is nothing to boast either.
What you want to have is an email that is being opened and engaged by your recipient. Otherwise, you are just sending out emails that are not making a difference. So, if the opposite is happening, you might want to start rethinking what you are doing.
3. Deliverability
If you send an email, there is no guarantee that it will land inside the inbox of your recipient. While technical issues are of a concern, the most prominent cause of this happening is either being blocked or placed in spam.
Blocking is something that is done by the recipient themselves, so if it does happen, it is time to rethink your email content. You might be providing unsolicited and unhelpful content more times than one would like.
On the other hand, spam is a more complex matter. Automatic spam filters follow a criterion when an email is labeled as such. The problem is that every service follows a different criterion and these can change without any notice.
However, there are general rules you can follow. Don’t use all caps, too many exclamation marks, and words like “free”. Also, make sure that you are filling in on words and not on massive images. Huge email sizes with little words are triggers for spam filters.
Email Marketing is Easy, Except for Complete Beginners
While there might be a lot of things to take note, email marketing isn’t really quite difficult. Once you get started and get the hang of it, it’s just a matter of doing routine things. However, how to reach that level is something to be questioned.
If you don’t have all the time to go through all of this, that doesn’t mean you have to say goodbye to email marketing. Instead, you can always seek the help of the best online marketing agencies. Contact us today to get a free strategy consultation.
