I remember it clearly.
My consulting client had just spent 10 minutes lamenting on how unsuccessful her eCommerce marketing campaign was.
Then she asked me…
“What one thing would you suggest I do to get long-term results?”
Without hesitation, I replied…
…”email marketing. Build your list, and start sending email”.
Why am I on a mission to educate eCommerce business owners about the necessity of email marketing?
Well, the answer is two fold:
- Too many potentially great eCommerce businesses perish into obscurity, all because they are ignorant to the marketing channels that work. I want to help change that.
- At Brazen Profit Lab we specialise in email marketing. We’re not pennies on the dollar, and not every eCommerce business owner has the budget to hire our services, but we want to make sure they at least have the knowledge to get started themselves.
I created The Brazen Profit Lab Email Marketing First Aid kit, to give you all the information and support you need to start taking action. This 3 part series will kill your excuses, and give you the strategies, tools and knowledge you need to help you build your email list, and rapidly grow your profits.
In this three part series, you’ll discover:
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Part I: 9 Profitable Reasons Successful eCommerce Businesses Focus on Email Marketing
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Part II: 10 Winning Email List Building Strategies eCommerce Business Owners Can Start Today
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Part III: 11 Ways to Supercharge eCommerce Profits With Your email list
I thought the benefits of email marketing for eCommerce businesses were obvious. A logical step in staying connected (and selling) to previous customers. The perfect opportunity to start a conversation, and build trust with new customers…
…but it turns out I was wrong!
So whether you’re yet to make your first sale. Have made a ton on sales, but not quite the profit you imagined. Are still on the fence about email marketing, or worse still, making half assed efforts – with no strategy and little success. This series will: teach you how to start building your list, and advise you on exactly what do with that list once you have it. GO.
9 Profitable Reasons Successful eCommerce Businesses Are Using Email Marketing (and you should too) – part 1 of 3
1. You get the chance to start a conversation with your customer. It’s this insight and ability to take action on your findings that give any brand, eCommerce or not, the edge over their competitors. Email can be used to do more than sell. You can ask questions, run polls, request reviews, and the list goes on.
Need further insight into your ideal customer, and how the best way to communicate with them? Grab my FREE video training and resources: HOW TO CREATE YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER AVATAR IN LESS THAN 6 MINUTES – right here >>Get instant access <<
2. You get a chance to educate and add value. Check out this great video below from mega retailer, Nordstrom. They could have just said “We sell scarves”, instead they made this. I’ll leave it up to you to decide which message and medium would be the most effective at driving sales. More importantly, you’ll see that simple ideas can be easy and inexpensive to execute.
Data demonstrates that products supported and explained by video, improve conversions dramatically. Don’t be misguided by the belief that video is just for big brands – you can do it too
Not quite ready for product video, yet? That’s no excuse.
You can still help with FAQ’s, how-to guides, and basically anything that will help your customer better understand your product, and reduce the risk of unnecessary returns. The best thing about this strategy is that, although not selling directly, you create another touch and trust point that helps you build a relationship with your customer… bringing you one step closer to a sale!
3. Give away the goodies. Win mindshare and Karma points. Email is the perfect platform to let your previous or target customers know about any special offers, contests or giveaways your brand is hosting. In fact, it’s often these time limited promotions that transform unsure prospects into buyers.
4. Reinforce your brand message and awareness. Through creative story telling, imaginative visuals and a clear integration with your social media marketing, email marketing is a highly effective way to quickly grow your social media following, increase prospect engagement across all your platforms, and really bring potential customers deeper into your eCommerce eco-system.
5. A/B split testing is simple and easy. Every email marketing platform worth its salt has the ability to segment your list. Just think about the intelligence you can gain by testing different headlines, messages and promotions to a small select segment of your list? Then… the edge you can achieve, by only sending the most high performing version to your wider list.
6. Mobilise now. Like it or loathe it, mobile is the future, and email marketing works particularly well with this platform as consumers are used to reading email communication on their handheld devices. The most savvy brands are making mobile optimisation a major part of their multi-channel digital strategy, and you must too.
7. Your click through rates are higher and less expensive than PPC marketing. Customers that engage with your brand via email are proven to be more likely to eventually convert into a sale. Why? you’ve taken the first step in building a relationship with your customer instead of just expecting them to buy from you. Remember what I said in points 2/3/4?
8. Send the right message at the right time. Returning back to list segmentation – which is basically a necessity if you want to nurture and grow your email list, rather than burn it faster than a bushfire. You can make sure that subscribers are only on mailing lists for the right stage in their sales cycle, by giving them the opportunity to select content based on frequency, product or interest. It stands to reason that, only sending content they are interested in greatly increases your likelihood of making a sale.
The deeper down the email marketing rabbit hole you go, you’ll discover that you can set up trigger campaigns (post-purchase) for things like reviews, re-order reminders, and re-engagement offers for prospects or customers who have been inactive. Hop on over to our contact page, to discuss creating an autoresponder trigger sequence for your eCommerce business.
Yes, this is high level stuff, and it will take some organising and resources, but there is no escaping the fact that a well managed, optimised and executed email marketing campaign can mean thousands in additional revenue to an eCommerce businesses bottom line.
9. It’s the cheapest and most effective form of advertising there is. While word of mouth recommendation is always going to be the cheapest and the best form of advertising you can hope for. Email marketing (especially to someone who has already purchased from you, or signed up to be kept up to date), really is the next best thing. With low cost options from MailChimp, Aweber, Constant Contact, and many others, everyone can find a plan to suit them.
Phew. Stick a fork in me. I’m done.
I’d like to end todays article with some educational fun. Take a look at this welcome email for beauty brand, Soap & Glory. * we are not the creators of this campaign copy or visuals.
- Tell me what you like, love or loathe about this campaign? Let’s have a discussion about what you think they’re doing right/wrong, in the comments.
In part II of The Brazen Email Marketing First Aid Kit, you’ll discover 10 profitable list building strategies, successful eCommerce businesses are using to build engaged, active email lists. Sign up below to make sure you don’t miss it.
Just before I get a G&T and call it quits for the night… I need to ask a question and a favour…
Favour: Did you find this article helpful? Are you excited about reading part two and part three? If so, get signed up below so you don’t miss the follow up, and please help get the word out there. Share buttons on your left. Use Pinterest to curate interesting content? Please pin me, pretty please.
Question: Are we compadres over on social Media? No?…we should be…come say hi!
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