Running an e-commerce website is a lot of work. There are a lot of activities that run behind the scenes which helps keep such sites, afloat in the very competitive landscape of e-commerce; most especially the very efficient and reliable ones. One of such behind the scenes structures or activities is email marketing. Email marketing is an integral aspect of any successful e-commerce website. E-commerce giants like Amazon, Alibaba and others have invested a lot of resources into technologies for improving their email marketing campaigns.

So, whether you are running a small or big commerce store, email marketing is a core marketing strategy that should not be overlooked. With the help of as email marketing agency, you can implement these eight simple email marketing tips on your ecommerce sites.

Build well-segmented email lists

The success of every email marketing campaign is to understand who you are sending the email to as this would determine the kind of content that would be sent out to them. Right from the moment that email subscription pops up on your website, you must define your audience category. This can be done by creating a general email subscription form, either on the welcome page or exit page, and asking subscribers to select boxes which fit their interest. Give them a list of interests to select from or create a pop-up email subscription form every time a visitor searches for an item that is out of stock or a special subscription form for upcoming contests or giveaways or other incentives to get emails.

Deploy lifecycle marketing techniques

Lifecycle marketing is all about communicating what your audience wants to hear when they want to hear it. It is simply about understanding the current life status of your audience regarding their relationship with your brand. Are they new customers? Or are they existing and active or existing and inactive? This would determine the kind of email content that you would send to them to drive them to take an action on your site.

For the new ones who are interested in the products on offers, the goal would be to drive them to make their first purchase as soon as possible. For those who have bought before and are still actively buying, your email marketing goal would be to keep encouraging them to buy as often as possible also. For those who have bought from you before but aren’t buying any more or those that have not bought for a while, the email marketing goal would be to give them a reason or another incentive to buy from you again. Taking time out to segment your customers rather than just sending out bulk emails can really help to spike up sales.

Create amazing and engaging email content

Content is king, so treat it like one! Even if you have a well-segmented email list and you have clearly mapped out the lifecycle of your customers, if your content is wacky then you are going nowhere with sales. Good content is an integral aspect of any marketing effort. You need to get email content marketing right. With the right content and the right email marketing strategy, you can spike up sales on your site. If you need to hire a professional copywriter for your emails, please do. Make your content crispy clean and engaging, always! Create very catchy subject lines and also insert a catchy preview text. And ensure the email design is well optimized for the mobile view as well.

Create special email campaigns for abandoned carts

Heaven only knows why your customers abandoned their shopping cart. But rather than wonder, create a special email campaign that would address all customers that abandoned their carts. Bluecore reveals that abandoned cart email campaigns have the highest conversion for e-commerce websites. The idea behind it is to remind your customers about items they left behind and to spur them to complete the buying process. If there is no response from them still, maybe after a few days or weeks, you can give an incentive if they complete the purchase (maybe a discount or an offer).

Send out email campaigns that up-sell and cross-sell

Up-selling and cross-selling to customers that have bought items from is a common trend. With this, e-commerce websites can sell relevant products either in the same product category or those similar to the previous products the customer bought. Bluecore also reveals that about 55% of conversions are gained through these types of email campaigns; e-commerce websites are encouraged to upsell and cross-sell as often as possible in addition to sending out abandoned shopping cart email campaigns.

Make use of promotional emails

If an e-commerce website is offering huge discounts or has mouth-watering offers, these should be well communicated via email to all subscribers. It uncommon for buyers to shy away from taking advantage of such opportunities to save while shopping online. If you are launching a new product line or adding new products to a product category, or if a product was out of stock and it is back in stock, also send out emails to that effect.

Use emails to carry out surveys and to get feedback

E-commerce websites can also use emails to carry out surveys that would help them to either understand their customers better or improve general services regarding any aspect of their customer’s experience when using their website or products. Emails can also be used to give feedback about how a customer feels about a just-concluded delivery or customer service call.

Use emails to get reviews or ratings about a product

Emails can also be used to send reminders to customers to drop a review of the products they just purchased, to rate the product after usage or to rate the efficiency of the customer care personnel that attended to them.