How to Run Email Marketing to Boost Your Business

When it comes to promoting your brand and increasing sales, email marketing is one of the most effective and widely used tools. In fact, the average ROI for email marketing is $42 for every $1 spent.

The influence of email marketing extends well beyond simply getting messages into recipients’ inboxes. Brands should focus on communicating messages with the target audience while offering relevant, tailored information.

Let’s take a look at a list of email marketing strategies that can be easily implemented by every eCommerce business:

1 – Plan ahead and identify the campaign goal

As with any digital marketing, planning ahead is an important part of the success factor in your email marketing strategy.

First, decide the desired outcome for each email campaign. Is it to promote a new product line? Follow up on an abandoned card? Or to share holiday deals?

Different email campaigns will have different outcomes. Planning ahead will allow you to not only align email campaigns with your business goals but also allow you to decide which email lists you should target and which email lists to suppress accordingly.

2 – Include a clear call-to-action

Create a clear call-to-action (CTA) for your audience to take further action. Once your email has successfully landed in the inbox of a customer, be sure to include a clear message that will allow your audience to advance to the next step in the buyer’s journey.

Offer strategic discounts

Offer free shipping: One of the main reasons consumers abandon their shopping carts is the high cost of shipping. Customers that received automated abandoned shopping cart emails are 2.4x more likely to complete a purchase. Retarget shoppers that abandoned carts with a promo code for free shipping.
Subscriber discounts: Provide a discount to attract subscribers to return to their website and make their purchases. More than 50% of shoppers stated that the reason for joining email lists is to receive a discount.
Giveaways: Send out time-sensitive giveaways for new subscribers, which will allow businesses to quickly grow their audience through email marketing.

3 – Set up email automation

Use automated emails to create long-lasting relationships with your customers, sell your items more frequently, and expand your business. Studies indicate that automated emails generate 320% more revenue than non-automated emails.

For instance, a welcome email allows brands to make a good first impression. Compared to other mass promotional emails, a welcome email gets four times the overall open rates and five times the click rates.

Keep track of responses to gain further insight

Each time you send an automated email, there is a chance to obtain important information from each consumer. You can find out whether or not the individual: opens the email, visits your website, makes use of an offer, purchases a recommended product, and more.

4 – Personalization is key

When sending emails to customers, it is important to remember that the person on the other end of the email is in fact, a real person. You can’t expect to write a simple sales message and call it a day. Tap into your customers’ emotions and focus on how you can assist them to share the joy with the presents they may purchase from you. For instance, during the holiday season, sending a simple holiday greeting may go a long way toward establishing trust with your consumers.

5 – Be mobile friendly

46% of emails are opened on mobile devices, leaving no choice but to build a mobile-friendly design. Consider the following guideline:

Minimalist design
Single column layout
Clear CTA buttons
Compact images

Combine social media and email marketing for the best results. When sending a welcome email, don’t forget to include a heartfelt thank you note and links to your social networks.

Email marketing will not only provide sales but lead customers to your company's social media channels.

In the end, email marketing is all about building and maintaining relationships with your subscribers. Provide relevant, personalized information to your target audience and continue to optimize your email campaigns based on the data provided from your audience.