What is Email Marketing & How Does it Work?

Introduction

Email marketing is one of the best performing channels for eCommerce online stores to boost revenue, AOV, and increase retention and customer loyalty. If you want to get the most out of email marketing campaigns look no further.

In this guide, we will discuss everything you need to design a results-driven email marketing campaign and how you can enhance your customer experience with email marketing Shopify integration.

An effective email marketing program will help you keep your customers informed and engaged with your brand and its promotions. Also, it’ll help you turn visitors into customers and one-time buyers into loyal customers.

This popular email marketing platform for Shopify nudges the recipients to take some kind of action. Also, it is one of the most cost-effective ways of product/ service marketing. For more on the power of email marketing automation, keep reading this exclusive article dedicated to email marketing campaigns.

There are various factors that play an important role when it comes to hitting the inbox of the recipient, but two of the most essential preliminaries are :

1) Reputation: Your brand reputation helps a mailbox provider to determine whether your message should be delivered to the recipient inbox or sent to spam. Google analyzes emails and, by default, files them into specific folders. There are different laws that guide the use of email marketing for commercial purposes. If you break these laws or try to adopt the wrong methods to send bulk emails this will lead you to the shopify emails going to spam folder of the recipient.

2)  Engagement: Engagement rate also decides the deliverability rate of your email campaign.

From the past few years, mailbox providers have also become very strict with their email filtering decisions, and are now factoring in many engagement metrics – whether a person reads your messages, forwards them, deleted them without reading, and others. 

Subject lines can make or break your email marketing campaign. Your email subject line carries the greatest responsibility of getting your email significant open rates. Good email subject lines can create a persuasive impact on your readers. Here are some tips that you can use while drafting subject lines for your eCommerce email marketing.

1. No trickery.

Your subject line should give an idea to your reader what they’ll read. Do not use subterfuge to trick as this kind of email subject line will only work once. Based on the study, subject lines that consist of sales pitches and chicanery often make people unsubscribe.

2. No screaming.

Using all caps in your subject line is not an idea. However, both title case and sentence case can be a great idea to write the subject line. You can use a title case for a shorter subject line. Sentence casework when you have a longer or more conversational subject line.

3. Numbers do work. 

You can use appealing numbers in the subject line to increase reader engagement. So don’t hesitate to use a subject that includes a number.

4. Do not use some words and phrases. 

There are some spam words that users should avoid using in your email campaign. Words like Percent Off, Guarantee, 100%, and others count as spam words. 

5. Match the ideal length. 

Your subject line should be around 50 characters. It does not mean you can not use a 40 words subject line or 65 is a bad idea. It’s effective to keep important words at the starting of the subject line.

The best way for Shopify merchants to improve their CTR is to send personalized messages. And make sure to align your email’s subject line with the body content of the email.

Your subject line must be engaging enough to attract the attention of the recipient and set the mindset of your reader. When the content delivers the subject’s consent, subscribers are more likely to click through. 

Also, make sure all images are clickable, use CTAs, and create an A/B test plan to know what resonates with your customers. With an AI-powered email marketing platform, you can also create a personalized message for individuals based on their preferences, browsing habits, and other personal attributes you might have access to.

The more relevant the content, the more likely someone is to want to engage with it and click.

Best Practices for writing engaging email messages are:

a) Use personalization and personal attributes.

Using personalization triggers like name, last purchase product, or location in the subject line adds the feeling of affinity. Personalization also increases the clickthrough rate. “According to a study, emails that included the first name of the recipient in their subject line had higher clickthrough rates than emails that did not”. For example, “Happy Birthday John- Your Gift is Inside!” 

This subject line not only addresses the recipient by their first name, but it also creates personalized touch with birthday wishes. That’s a great example of personalization and great timing.

Another personalization method that works best is to use location. Uber sends location-specific emails with location-specific offers or news that could increase your open rates.

If you don’t want to use name in the email, use “you” or “your” so it still sounds like you’re addressing them directly.

b) Segment your lists.

Segmentation is the best way to curate your subscriber list to send more targeted messages. When you send an email that goes out to your entire list might be applicable and helpful to some people, it won’t be to others — and could create confusion or frustration. For example, sending a great deal of chicken to your vegetarian customer won’t help you. He will think, Why is this company sending me this offer? 

Segmentation based on the action that your customer has already taken will help you get more clicks. When you use customer data and their preferences in email, they feel touched and most likely to interact with the campaign. 

eCommerce marketing platforms like AiTrillion help you granularly segment your subscriber list with 50+ predefined filters. It also helps you get a clear picture of your subscriber activity with the Just seen feature and engaging dashboard. 

Here are some tips to start building an email list with quality subscribers:

The sorted and segmented email list is a foundation of a good email marketing program. Without the right audience, even the best email marketing messages will not work to engage your subscribers.

Reach out to your social media followers, use popups, attractive forms, and even loyalty programs and ask them to sign up for newsletters. Promise them some good stuff that they will receive via your marketing emails.

Consider this, AiTrillion facilitates its users to add an email subscription widget to their home page, and blog page with a variety of styles. When people read great content on your blog, they’ll be more likely to sign up to your newsletter to get more exciting content.

Don’t forget to maintain your subscriber list. Timely clean out the email addresses of users who unsubscribed from your mailing list, also remove hard-bounced addresses to avoid being marked as a spam sender by the respective ESP.

Popups are an excellent way to get in front of online buyers and encourage them to subscribe to your newsletter. However, it is important to make sure you’re reaching the right people at the right time. AiTrillion allows you to display a popup based on explicit behaviors, such as when a returning visitor lands on your site after they’ve viewed specific pages or on exit intent (right before they’re about to leave your page). For example, you can send a popup with some exciting offers when a visitor leaves your store.

It is helpful to know that by reducing the number of clicks it takes a user to share and subscribe to content, you’ll see more action as a result. Use the AiTrillion’s popup instead of making your visitors have to click and open a service list window.

When it comes to utilizing incentives to build your email list, there are numerous ways you can go with. Every incentive has its own benefits, so select based on your own unique business. Here are a few examples to give you an idea of what type of incentive you can use with your email pop-ups. 

a) Contest Entry

When looking at the absolute numbers, there’s no better incentive to offer than a contest entry. Give your visitors an opportunity to win a big-ticket item by leaving their email. This incentive works so well because here visitors simply need to enter their email address in return for a potential benefit that could be a free item. One important thing to consider when running a contest is to select an item or package that your ideal customer would be interested in because you want to get email leads who show interest in your brand. This could be one of your products or something equivalent to the products you offer.

For luxury brands, they have higher-priced inventory and the sales process usually demands several marketing finishes. This put their main center on seizing as many email leads as possible. The implementation of a contest promotion can increase email sign-ups by 600%!

b) Discounts

Using a discount to encourage email sign-ups is another amazingly effective tactic and the great thing is you can tailor your offering to meet the demands of your business. When using discounts, find something that goes with your margins. Here are a few ways to do this. 

c) Percent Off of Total Cart Value

Offering a percent off discount is an infallible way to excite your shoppers and drive them to subscribe to your emails. This also gives the possibility of a customer purchasing during that same visit which is always a positive. The one critical part of offering a site-wide discount code is how it correlates to your margins. If you can offer 10% off sitewide, do it. If 5% is as much as you can go, that works too. 

Many brands have increased email sign-ups by offering a 5% discount to visitors while also increasing sales conversion by 50%. This shows that even offering a smaller incentive can still dramatically grow traffic conversion. 

d) Percent Off on One Item

You can also offer a percentage off on a single item. Offering a discount on only one item enables you to limit the discount price and have more control over overpricing. Since the discount is more controllable, you can offer a higher discount amount and make your offer more alluring to shoppers. For example, a 25% off one item looks considerably more beneficial to shoppers than 10% off all items.

e) Dollar Amount Discount

This incentive is best for retailers. It’s a definite discount amount that can be picked on by looking at average order size and profit margins. There are many big brands that had huge success running a dollar amount discount to grow their email list. Integrate this with an automated email campaign to nudge shoppers back to your site at a later date and you’ve got a compelling flow for stimulating sales through email.

f) Free Shipping

“73% of online shoppers affirmed that free shipping is the #1 criterion for completing a purchase”. Shoppers don’t like to pay shipping costs. Free shipping is something that people are actively seeking for and if you can give it to them on-site, it makes a fabulous lead capture incentive and driver of sales. In short, if you can offer free shipping, this will help customers to complete the checkout process and ultimately boost your sales. 

You can offer free shipping at a certain cart value. For example, offer free shipping on orders of $75 or more. This provides an incentive to subscribers and also increases the order value.

g) Offer Content Download

If you either can’t offer a discount/free shipping or simply don’t want to, consider using a gated content download as an incentive. Allow your shoppers a free download of relevant content in exchange for an email. For example, you can offer a product guide and cooking recipes, and other relevant content in the exchange of email addresses.  

The two most successful choices of email automation are “At least monthly”, “At least weekly,” “weekly”, and “monthly”.

Weekly emails are so efficient that many marketers send them. Monthly emails can be effective, too. But in mailing monthly there may be a chance that subscribers might forget who you are, and thus be more likely to delete your messages. So, if receipts are engaging with your email marketing campaigns, it’s good to send weekly emails with personalized content.

There are 6 essential elements to a great Welcome Email.

1. Subject line: Use a short and precise subject line that gives a clear picture of your email purpose.

2. Headline: Some modification on the subject line, or simply say the same thing.

3. Gift: Offer them a coupon, ebook, or some kind of helpful thing they signed up for.

4. Benefits: List 3-5 benefits of being your subscriber/customer.

5. What’s next? Explain what happens now with the emails. What will they receive? When? How does the newsletter work?

6. Call to action: Add the CTA button and motivate them to click a link, buy a product, etc. Keep it simple. One call to action is enough. 

1. Send a personalized email. Showing customers that you understand their requirements with relevant up-sells and cross-sells creates an engaging experience. But sending the same offers with no personalization will not work for customers. Even there might be chances they get irritated with your irrelevant offers.
2. Provide a harmonious experience across channels. Make your customer experience consistent across every channel. If you personalize a customer email, you should personalize the experience on your website and social media channels for that same customer. Communicating a rambling message will make them feel that you’re not provisioning to their particular needs and desires. 

a) Use Email Receipts as a Way to Upsell Related Products:

Upsell is the best way to increase the amount of ACV. Many big players in the eCommerce industry have already been doing this for a while. Upselling is the best way to convince a customer to buy something additional or more expensive. 

In 2006 Amazon, “reported that 35% of its revenues were as a direct result of its cross-sales and upselling efforts.  That’s mostly through email receipts”.

Here are some examples of upselling that you can use to increase your sales and engage with customers.

Try consolidating some product up-selling in your email receipt template, this will help you sell more. Start with hyper-relevant products based on their previous purchase to see if there is an increase in orders.

Here are some examples of other ways you can use this idea in email receipts:

• Include subscription purchase option
• Display related products or accessories
• Give the option of gift packaging

b) Offer a Discount Code for Future Purchase

By offering a discount code through an email campaign, you’re offering an incentive for the customer to come back and make another purchase.

“A study shows that 44% of email recipients made at least one purchase last year based on a promotional email that included a coupon code”.

Here’s an example of an email template with a unique coupon code for each customer that makes a purchase:

Even if you are offering a small discount of 5%, or $1 off their next order, this will nudge people to shop from you again. Another best thing to consider about coupons is that they have various uses. You can use them to:

• You can track sales for online and offline marketing campaigns
• Offer limited period discounts to incentivize another purchase
• You can include them on your physical retail receipts

c) Mentioned your Social Media Accounts in Email Templates to Keep Customers Informed

Based on the study done by marketers ”more than two-thirds of business leaders plan to integrate social media within their email marketing efforts”.

It’s good for your brand promotion to add a social media account to your all marketing campaigns, it helps in increasing your brand awareness. Simply add links to your social accounts in either the footer or in the content of your email receipt template. Some ideas are:

• Share with friends and get 5% off your next order
• Every time you refer a friend, you get $10 off your next order

There are several different variations that you can try to incentivize online shoppers, so consider testing a few different approaches to see which ones work best for you and generate sales including high engagement.

d) Get Immediate Feedback from Paying Customers

Automated email series also help you get immediate, valuable feedback from paying customers. Many Shopify store owners in the restaurant industry have been doing this for a long time. You can do the same for your online store. This will help get customer feedback when they are most happy with your service. 

This will also give you some insight into the pain points a customer may have experienced during the checkout process. Later you can solve the issue to give your customers an omnichannel experience.

e) Allow Customers Share their Purchase on Facebook

Everyone loves shopping and feels good after receiving their product on time.  “Research shows that shopping activates key areas of the brain, which boosts moods and triggers the release of brain chemicals that give you a “shopping high”.

Using email receipts, you can take benefit of this moment and influence people to share their shopping experience on social media platforms. 

Use Loyalty Program to encourage customers to share their purchases on Facebook when they’re still feeling excited.