A person’s email address may be the most valuable piece of info an e-commerce company can know about a customer. It is a method of delivering important info and a means of learning more about a subscriber (e.g. when, where and with what do they open email?). In addition, email also has the highest ROI in comparison with other digital marketing channels, such as social media or content marketing.
Unfortunately, many companies are failing to see the full potential of email because they are only sending unoptimized marketing blasts. While promotional newsletters are a good start, there are many advanced email techniques and triggered message campaigns that e-commerce companies can use to gently nudge subscribers to take a certain action. Next time you’re trying to get customers to join your email list, redeem a coupon, make a purchase or share an invite with their friends, consider using one of these techniques.
1. The Email Receipt Opt-in
It’s confirmed. The internet is now America’s favorite shopping destination, but that doesn’t mean brick-and-mortar stores will be disappearing any time soon. Shopping is transforming into multi-channel activity. People discover (yay Pinterest!) and research products online, then make purchases in-store. The opposite holds true too, with customers checking out how products look, feel and fit in-store and then go online to find the best price--a practice also known as ‘showrooming’.
Retailers with both a brick and mortar and online presence, can use email as a good way to adapt to this type of new shopping. An email receipt can help tie the two experiences together for your customers. Next time, at the in-store point of sale, offer to email the receipt to your customer, rather than to print it. This is not only good for the environment, but also provides a great opportunity to ask if the shopper would like to subscribe to your newsletter for news about ongoing promotions or special events.
2. The Helpful Reminder
Your customers are busy (and sometimes forgetful) people. They may leave items behind in shopping carts or forget to redeem their birthday deal before it expires. Smart marketers can use email as a gentle reminder to nudge customers to make a purchase or to complete another desired action.
A couple examples of helpful reminder shopping emails:
Shopping cart abandonment
Oops, a customer’s shopping experience was interrupted, but that doesn’t mean she’s gone forever. Send an email featuring the items left behind in her cart and include a no-brainer call-to-action checkout button. If the first shopping cart abandonment email doesn’t convince , you can also send a second email with a promotional coupon to nudge her to make the purchase.
Promo expiry
Do your customers know that your semi-annual sale ends in two days? It would be helpful to send a reminder email one day before and then another one a couple hours before the end of the sale to make sure your customers have enough time to shop the sale.
Back in Stock
Oh no! Your customer tried to purchase an item that is no longer available. Rather than having her check back repeatedly to see if the item is back in stock, e-commerce merchants should allow customers to sign up for a helpful email notification for when the item is available again. The “back in stock” email should also include an easy checkout button to encourage the customer to make the purchase.
3. The Social Experience
Shopping is traditionally a social experience, but e-commerce is not always optimized to be interactive. A great way to make e-commerce social is to integrate your email campaigns with social media.
If you’ve enabled logging in via a social network that collects birthdates, such as Facebook, on your website, you can launch a special birthday email campaign. The email would display the upcoming birthday’s of a customer’s friends and family to inspire the spirit of gift giving.
Another social shopping and email tactic would be to design a referral bonus program to encourage customers to invite their friends to join your site. The best way to activate the referral program is to build a landing page that allows people to input their friends’ email addresses or to share the invite via social media. You can promote the landing page through a complementary email campaign.
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