Email marketing is key to increasing online sales. It's a great way to capture new customers, drive repeat business, and build brand loyalty. So why isn't everyone doing it? Well, because like yourself, most business owners are already stretched thin and don't have the bandwidth to learn about email marketing and implement a new marketing strategy.

Businesses that do email marketing well see incredible results, so it's definitely worth investing a little bit of time into. But, to make it quick and easy for you, I've put together a list of the essentials you need to know about email marketing and how to build your email list so you can get started today.

What is Email Marketing

Email marketing is when a business sends a potential or current customer an email to promote its products or services.

Think about the last time you went to an online store and you were prompted to enter your email for a discount code or to subscribe to their newsletter. That's email marketing - and it's a highly effective marketing strategy.

Who benefits from using Email Marketing

Every. Single. Person. that has a website but especially e-commerce businesses! Email marketing is a great way for e-commerce business owners to notified their customers of sales, new products, or to offer them a discount code.

Why Email Marketing is key to e-commerce success

The reality of website traffic is that you have to find ways to make your customers keep coming back. Even with a pretty decent customer base, you have to remind them to come reorder their favorite products, or to notify them when you launch a new product.

Building an email list gives you a way to retain and build your websites traffic by providing email subscribers an incentive to return to your website.

Email Marketing seems like a lot of work

There are SO many companies that have made it way easier to utilize email marketing. Flodesk is one of the top recommendations I give to my clients just because it directly integrates with Shopify stores and it's incredibly easy to design beautiful emails.

You can read more about Flodesk and Shopify here.

If you decide to sign up with Flodesk use my affiliate link to receive 50% off for life!

Still not convinced? 

Here are 4 of the top reasons your e-commerce business needs Email Marketing:

1. Email helps you build and improve your relationship with your customers. Social Media and Search Engines are great for helping your ideal customers find your business but email is the best way to maintain, build, and strengthen your relationship with them.
2. Email is incredibly effective at boosting online sales. In this report by Emarsys, 80% of businesses rely on email as their primary channel for customer retention. With email marketing, you're able to do things like send out emails to new subscribers and incentivize them to return to your website and make a purchase with a discount code, email customers their carts, and send out emails to customers that haven't purchased from you in awhile. All of these examples help businesses like yours increase online sales every day.
3. Email marketing is a lot cheaper than running ads. Now, I still recommend running ads, but you can decrease the amount you're having to spend on ads if you utilize email marketing. Cost per click by Facebook, Google, Pinterest, Instagram, and other platforms are increasingly becoming more and more expensive. Companies like Flodesk make long term marketing strategies a lot more cost effective.
4. Email isn't influenced by new algorithms. All of the social media and search engine platforms are constantly updating their algorithms. Email marketing is a sure way to get your online store in front of your customer again without having to rely on Facebook or Google to help you out. You can read more about the Google's new algorithms changes here.

Need help with your e-commerce website? Inquire to work with me here.

Getting started with Email Marketing

The first step to starting email marketing is to choose an Email Service Provider aka ESP. Like I mentioned earlier, I always recommend Flodesk to my clients. However, if you need more customizations, I recommend checking out Klaviyo.

Whichever ESP you decide to use, they all have similar functionality. The most important being automatic emails sent on your behalf. So, no need to worry about sitting behind your computer for hours and sending emails upon emails. Here's how it works in a nutshell: A customer subscribes to your emails, the ESP automatically assigns them to a Workflow, and they automatically send out the emails that you've set up on your behalf.

Easy peasy.

And the best part is anytime you want to send out an additional email to notify customers of a new blog post, product launch, or sale, all you need to do is create one email within your ESP portal and the emails will automatically be sent out for you!

Building your email list

Note: Before you begin email marketing, it's important to remember that you need permission to follow up with prospects. You can do this by creating a button on your email marketing section that says "opt-in."

Easy steps to creating an email list

1. Collect emails from sales and customer accounts
2. Place opt-in forms across your site. Include the forms in your header, throughout your website's page, on a pop-up and in the footer.
3. Offer discounts or sales for customers that opt in to your emails
4. Encourage customers to sign up for your emails to learn about your new products. This makes customers an exclusive feeling to be the first to learn about a new product before they sell out

Make sure you're sending emails legally

Like I mentioned earlier, customers MUST opt-in to receiving emails and there are laws to enforce them. And while I'm not a lawyer and am not giving legal advice, I encourage you to check out CAN-SPAM, GDPR, and CASL to familiarize yourself with these rules and regulations.

How often to send emails

This is entirely up to you but I recommend sending out emails every time a new product launches, you run an online sale, or when a customer leaves your site with products in their cart. You can also send out emails when you put out new blog content or if your products are being featured or recognized by another company. Companies like Flodesk and Klaviyo make sending reoccurring emails easy (what they call Workflows). They even provide you with templates and tell you when you should be sending emails.

Can you tell I really like Flodesk and Klaviyo yet!?

Conclusion:

Email marketing can be a highly effective marketing strategy when used. It's a lot cheaper and easier to manage then running ads on different platforms and you're guaranteed to get directly to your customers. Go ahead and mark a day or two on your calendar to explore different ESP options and sign up for a platform. Once you're signed up, go ahead and add your email marketing platform to your website and start collecting email addresses.

I'd love to hear your success and struggles with email marketing. If you need help designing, building, or updating your e-commerce website, inquire to work with me here.