Effective email marketing for online stores
E-mail is a service that every Internet user has without exception. And the use of email newsletters to increase sales is a tool that has long been traditional. But for some reason, many online stores use it not efficiently: they use letters only for rare notifications, which often appear in the SPAM folder.
Let’s see what should be a really effective and efficient email marketing for online stores and what mistakes should be avoided. At the same time, we will immediately clarify that we are against spam and similar methods. Emails are sent only to people who agree to receive information from the store. It is very important to remain not too intrusive, so as not to be on the black list, but also not to forget about yourself. But first things first.
Collection of addresses
In most cases, online stores receive email addresses of customers when placing an order. Many entrepreneurs on this and stop. In fact, visitors can receive email addresses in other ways. As a result, many of the “refusers” will, in time, thanks to a reminder, return and make an order.
Forms for email:
Subscribe to news. It works in the case of frequent promotions and discounts in the store, as well as in the presence of an interesting information blog.
Notification of the appearance of the goods. If the buyer leaves the page with the product that is not currently available, give him the opportunity to receive a notification when the product is received. Add a “Notify on admission” button to the page with a simple form – email and comment.
Discounts at registration. Give the buyer a small bonus after registration. Write about this promotion in the header of the site. Make it limited in time. Believe me, you will have registration for the sake of discounts even from those users who have not made a purchase.
Discussions and questions after registration. A visitor would like to ask a question about a product? In the comments (discussion of the goods) an interesting discussion ensued? The requirement to go through a simple registration in order to be able to write something on the site itself is perceived with understanding.
Connect social networks. Make registration and subscription even easier, users like to log in via social networks and it is especially convenient for visitors from the mobile Internet. In this case, you will also get access to the email address.
In addition, you can hold promotions and prize draws (discounts) on the site in exchange for a subscription, or come up with something special and special. The main goal here is to receive emails of that part of visitors who leave without shopping, for further work with them.
Types of mailings
Letters that are used by online stores in the process of working with customers can be divided into the following categories:
Service and information. Notifications on registration, status of the order (received, notification of receipt of payment, sending, etc.), password reminder upon user request, etc.
Mass mailing. This category includes messages with information about new goods arrivals, notifications about discounts and sales, mass congratulations on calendar holidays, news kits or interesting publications. Emails are sent across the entire subscriber base.
After sales work with the client. In this category, you can combine e-mail, sent selectively to customers for some reason. It may be requests to leave a review about the store after the purchase, congratulations and gift discounts for birthday or birthday, reminders of the expiration of the individual discounts and bonuses.
Automation
Even in a small online store, the buyer will not wait until the operator logs in and adds his mailing address to the database, sends a notification of registration or a password reminder. That is why automation is very important for service informational letters.
To implement this you need:
Choose a mailing service that supports automatic mailing in response to certain requests. However, these features are implemented almost everywhere.
Set up automatic data exchange between the online store and the service. Here you will need the help of a programmer who will be able to configure the API (automatic exchange system).
Create newsletter templates. Here you can stay concise and transmit only the requested information. But you can use email marketing in e-mail notifications, i.e., add recently viewed products to the order letter or “offers of the week” as a password reminder, etc.
When automating the exchange of data, you need to configure not just getting the address and request code, but also adding to the database all the information about the client (new or existing, if the information is updated).
