Creating more effective eCommerce email campaigns

Did you know that through a few simple changes you could substantially increase your sales from email marketing campaigns? The ROI on email marketing for eCommerce can be overwhelmingly positive by following some simple rules. First off, let’s look at where we should be starting as a minimum.

The lowdown stats on email marketing for eCommerce

1. You should aim for a minimum of an 18% open rate for your campaigns*.
2. The click rate should be 10% or higher of your open rate*.
3. The number of orders you can expect from an email marketing campaign are about 1.5 orders per 1,000 subscribers.
4. The open and click rates for transactional emails post purchase are significantly higher than for routine email marketing emails.
5. People take action on emails usually within minutes of receiving an email.
6. Shoppers from more affluent areas purchase more expensive items and buy them more frequently.

Note: the * highlighted data are as a result of my experience working with many eCommerce retailers. What I’ve seen differs from many of the wild stats offered by various sources online.

Of course there are many other stats we could look at but the above is a good starting point.

Getting better results with Mailchimp and eCommerce

Connecting your Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce or Magento store with Mailchimp has a multitude of benefits (contact me if you need assistance with integrating your eCommerce with Mailchimp). With eCommerce, the objective of sending email campaigns is usually to get more sales. Here are a few tips that are sure to improve your eCommerce related email campaigns:

1. Segment your subscriber list and send relevant offers to each segment. For example, subscribers in more affluent areas spend more so offer higher priced goods to them.
2. Focus on achieving only one thing with each campaign; for example, choose the one product that you want to sell in a campaign. The primary product must be at the top of the email, just below your logo.
3. Your email must be very easy to read and understand; body font size must be a minimum of 14px (ideally 16px) and use a white background if possible with dark text.
4. Have adequate text to image ratios i.e. don’t include only images as your email body. Have at least 50% text.
5. Images must be reflective of your product and simple to understand.
6. Your campaign must look good on desktop and mobile devices (i.e. must be responsive).
7. Busy looking emails don’t convert well. White-space works well in email marketing.
8. Don’t always send sales emails; if you send four times a month consider making one or two of those emails informational. For example, if you sell art supplies online then include a video or story about your staff and their art in the occasional email.
9. Sell the benefits of buying from you; many products can be purchased from a multitude of competitors so say why buying from you is a better choice than buying from your competitors (e.g. explain your guarantee that only you provide).
10. Ensure consistency of branding between your online store and your email campaigns. A great way of achieving this is by using Mailchimp product content blocks.
11. Send your order notifications though Mailchimp and include product recommendations in the order notifications. People open transactional emails more than marketing emails so why not sell though transactional emails?
12. Understand the decision makers in making a purchase decision. Your content and wording should appeal to the demographics of the decision makers.

It has become so easily accessible to integrate your eCommerce store with Mailchimp and the benefits are significant. Contact me to learn more about integrating your eCommerce with Mailchimp and the increased sales that you can enjoy.