Introduction to Email Marketing for Online Retailers

Email marketing doesn’t get the credit it deserves. Un-glamorous as it may be, it reliably brings in new clients and sales. But its flashier social media marketing cousin gets all of the attention. Despite the rise of social media, email is still one of the most effective means of online communication and it is a powerful tool for marketing your online store.

If you want to succeed in online retail, you’ll need to understand email marketing. Customers expect to get emails from retailers they trust and often look forward to those messages. Many successful online retailers create communities of customers using email marketing. Those communities can quickly become a loyal customer base.

Basic terminology

The best way to understand email marketing is to become familiar with the basic terminology. Fortunately, the terminology is easy to understand.

Common email terminology includes:

• Open Rate: This is the number of people that open an email. The open rate will tell you how effective your email’s subject line is.
• Click-Through Rate, or CTR: This is the most important factor of all—it’s the number of people who find their way to your store through your email. Online email platforms like Aweber and MailChimp can track your CTR. Something to be aware of is that the CTR is usually low; 3.6 percent is good.
• Bounce Rate: When an email is returned unopened, it's considered a bounce. The bounce rate is the number of emails going to closed or bad accounts. This tells you a lot about the quality of your mailing list.

Benefits of email marketing

The greatest benefit of email marketing is that it gives you the ability to build a closer relationship with your customers. With email marketing, you can keep regular contact with your really good customers — the ones most likely to buy from your store. You update those customers when you have new products and help turn them into loyal buyers.

Email is also one of the cheapest and most cost-effective marketing tools out there. The only real costs to the typical email marketing campaign are the fees paid to the mail provider and sometimes the cost of purchasing a mailing list.

No other marketing technique can get these impressive returns for such a low cost. You can build brand awareness, establish a good relationship with clients, identify good customers, and generate sales. Email is also very easy to use and easy to automate with the right tools.

Email providers

You will not be able to use a free email service such as Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail for email marketing. You’ll need to use one of the big commercial providers to get the kind of control you’ll need for a marketing campaign.

The three best providers are:

• SaleHoo: One of the best features of SaleHoo Stores is the in-built email marketing system. You can save templates, send emails to subscribers and/or customers, and, best of all, there's a robust Reports feature that measures the effectiveness of your campaigns.

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• AWeber Marketing: Aweber provides a wide variety of tools, including subscription management, ready-made HTML email templates, an RSS to Email tool that lets you turn your blog into an email newsletter, an autoresponder, and customer support. You will have to pay a small charge to sign up.
• Mail Chimp: This service lets you design and send email marketing campaigns. It's easy to use, and it can let you send out large volumes of emails — up to 50,000. One special feature of Mail Chimp is that you can create your own email newsletter, which is an effective means of reaching customers.

Tips for improving email marketing campaigns

The real trick to email marketing is to get people to open your emails. This can be a lot harder than you think because the average person receives 84 emails a day, 365 days a year. That’s over 30,000 emails a year!

There is no formula that can help you write the perfect marketing email, but here are a few tips that will make it more likely that your email will be opened:

• Write a compelling subject line: Your subject line should have one goal, and one goal only — to intrigue the reader and compel him (or her) to open your email. If your subject line achieves this, it is a success.
• Keep the email short and to the point: In email marketing, brevity is key. The easier something is to read, the more likely it will be read. The reader should be able to discern all the important points in the email with a quick glance.
• Don’t shy away from controversy: Outrageous and controversial claims attract attention. People are more likely to read something they disagree with or something that surprises them than a bland marketing email they have seen a thousand times before.
• Introduce urgency and scarcity: Set a timer in the readers' minds so they act now. You don’t want them to put your offer at the back of their mind, because it will likely be forgotten. A good technique to use is a limited-time offer. Scarcity can induce urgency (for example, "offer only good while supplies last."
• Avoid spam: Spam filters are set up to identify spammy words and dispose of messages that contain them. So it is important to learn the characteristics of spam. A list of spammy words like this can teach you what to avoid.
• ​Use Coupon Codes: How many times have you bought something simply because you had a coupon? Email coupons fare just as well. Coupons work because they generate a sense of urgency and scarcity. Here is an example of an old JC Penney coupon:

As you can see above, coupon codes are easy to use and add to emails. Coupon codes are more effective if you connect them with an event, such as a holiday sale, or something going on, such as a discontinued item or overstock.

Get started today!

Want to get started with email marketing and make more money from your existing customers? Sign up for Aweber, or if you are a SaleHoo Store owner, make the most of the free in-built email marketing system we've created. Come up with a few ideas for email promos and get going now!

Get A SaleHoo Store Now and Use Email Marketing To Grow Your Business!