Effective Email Marketing Strategy: Plan and Schedule eCommerce Emails

Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to communicate directly with current and potential customers. A successful email marketing campaign catches the consumer’s attention, driving sales and increasing revenue. Below is a step-by-step guide for an effective email marketing strategy.

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Choose a Provider

An email service provider enables you to gather email addresses, send mass emails to your customers, and monitor your campaign performance. There is no shortage of email marketing services to choose from so choosing which provider is right for your business requires time and research. With your business needs and goals in mind, consider the following factors when choosing a provider:

• Send limits and corresponding price points: Consider the future and potential growth when deciding if the send limits and price points make sense for your business
• Integration: Does the platform work with your existing CRM? Can your email list be used for retargeting ads on social media?
• Ease of use: How easy is it to schedule, send and automate emails?
• Customization and Control: How much control do you have over the look and feel of your emails? Do the available templates fit your brand? Does it have the features you require?

Some of the most popular email marketing providers among eCommerce companies include:

• ‍MailChimp
• ‍Klaviyo
• ‍Zoho Campaigns
• ‍Drip

Know the Laws

The CAN-SPAM Act 2003 in the United States and Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) establishes rules for the sending of commercial electronic messages, including email marketing campaigns. It is important to familiarize yourself with the laws and regulations for the countries you serve to avoid incurring a fine. Email marketing laws include but are not limited to; only emailing individuals who have opted-in to receiving promotional materials, not using deceptive or false information in subject or sender fields and providing an unsubscribe option.

It is also best practice to become familiar with your chosen provider’s Terms of Use. Not only does this decrease the likelihood of encountering issues in the future, but it also helps improve your campaign deliverability and subscriber engagement. 

Build Your Mailing List

Listing building is the process of collecting email addresses from website visitors and customers. As mentioned above, email marketing laws require that you have your subscriber’s explicit permission prior to emailing them. Pitch your email newsletter on your website and your social media channels. Entice visitors to sign up by offering:

• Access to fully or partially gated content
• Loyalty or referral programs
• Exclusive discounts and deals
• Exclusive notifications: product drops and restocks

Segment Subscribers

Once you have built your subscriber list, it is important to group your subscribers by shared traits such as demographic information, location, purchase history and purchase frequency. Segmenting your subscribers allows you to personalize your messaging and create more effective campaigns. According to McKinsey, 71% of consumers expect personalization from brands they purchase from, and 76% of consumers get frustrated when personalization doesn’t happen.

Prepare Transactional Emails

Transactional emails are emails that are triggered by an event, such as order confirmations, shipment updates or delivery confirmations. Many eCommerce platforms provide preconfigured transactional emails. However, personalizing your transactional emails creates a better customer experience and can lead to improved retention. For example, a confirmation email should be personalized with the customer’s name. Additionally, adding a call to action or service survey is an effective means of increasing engagement.

Schedule Triggered Lifecycle Emails

The main goal of lifecycle emails is to reach customers with the right message at the right time. First-time buyer emails, cart abandonment emails, loyalty or birthday offers and new product alerts are all examples of common lifecycle emails.

Mix Up Your Newsletter Content

Staying in regular communication with your subscribers improves customer retention. However, it is important to ensure you are not boring your subscribers with repetitive messages. Diversify your newsletter content by using a variety of content types, such as:

• Endorsements and Reviews
• Blog Posts
• Coupons/Promotions
• UGC
• Product Launches
• Educational campaigns

Assess and Improve Deliverability

Once you have gotten your campaign off the ground, it is important to monitor and assess deliverability to improve future campaigns. You can improve your deliverability using the following methods:

• Authenticate your email domain
• Stick to a consistent send schedule
• Use a double opt-in or confirmed opt-in
• Avoid spammy sounding subject lines
• Ensure emails are optimized for mobile users
• Clean up your list regularly and remove inactive users
• Provide a preference centre: putting customers in control of frequency lessens the likelihood of them unsubscribing