Beginner’s Guide to Email Marketing for eCommerce Websites

As the old saying goes “the money is in the list”.  Email marketing has proven itself as one of the most cost-effective and profit-pulling marketing methods available. To help you make the most of email marketing in your ecommerce business, here’s a quick beginner’s guide.

Why email marketing is crucial for online retailers 

If you are just starting out with your online store, you will no doubt be focusing on getting new customers to your store. However, you should focus equal energy into retaining your past customers. After all, they are the most targeted customers you could possibly get because they are clearly interested in the products you sell! Furthermore, studies have proven that it costs four times as much to gain a new customer compared to retaining an existing one.Selecting good online store software is also necessary for better marketing.

Hence why selling to your existing customers is so important!

Email marketing makes it easy to keep these buyers coming back for more. Your first step in a successful email marketing campaign is to collect your customer’s email addresses. You may be able to go back through your email account and database all the customers you have liaised with via email. While this can take time, it’s worth doing!

Collect your customer’s details automatically

Going forward, you can collect email addresses automatically as most good shopping carts will collect and database this information for you. Usually your shopping cart will allow you to have an email list opt-in option that users can check. You will get the best response to this if you give users an incentive to join your mailing list. For example, instead of saying “Tick here to join our mailing list”, say “Tick here to be the first to hear about exclusive offers and discounts”.

Writing your email newsletters 

For some, sitting down to write your first email newsletter can be intimidating! But don’t worry, you don’t need to be an expert marketer or a top writer to create a good email newsletter that will deliver results. The number one rule of creating a good email newsletter is not over-selling!

If a customer of yours receives an email that simply tries to push them into making another purchase, you will only push them to unsubscribe from your newsletter. If you are pushy enough, you could also lose a customer for life.

Instead, your newsletters need to inform and entertain. In terms of informing, establish yourself as an authority on your subject and teach your customers about something new. For example, if you sell baby items, your market is going to be parents. Parents are always interested in hearing about new parenting techniques and/or studies that reveal interesting statistics about parenting. Share these with your list, and they will look forward to receiving your emails on a regular basis!

Build a relationship with your subscribers 

In every form of business, relationships are extremely valuable. It takes work to build a strong relationship, but the results can last a lifetime... or a lifetime of repeat sales! Building a good relationship starts with earning trust. You will earn trust by providing your readers with valuable content as I mentioned above and by avoiding over-selling your product range.

Above all else, treat your subscribers like they are your friends. Tell them stories that are related to your product range. If you sell baby products, share a story about your baby to keep the content relevant.

Free options for email marketing 

There are some fantastic options for email marketing that will save you a lot of time and some of these options are free! Check out Mail Chimp (free), MailPush and Campaign Monitor.

Familiarise yourself with anti-spamming laws in your country and make sure you stick to them! If you violate these laws, you could face prosecution.

Above all else, just aim to write top quality newsletter content and get ready to make more sales!