Importance of email marketing for ecommerce: 5 ways it benefits online stores

Email continues to be one of the most direct and immediate ways for owners of online stores to connect with people and get customers in ecommerce. 

After all, emails are sent immediately to your customers’ inboxes as soon as the campaign is executed. Customers could potentially open and act on email messages within minutes of a campaign’s execution.

Many people spend long hours in front of a computer screen and looking at their smartphone throughout a typical day. As a result, many of your customers may check their email accounts at least a few times each day. 

With this in mind, email is a great way of reaching online shoppers and should be a part of any entrepreneur’s plans to scale their ecommerce business.

What is email marketing?

Direct mail has traditionally been a popular marketing method that retailers have used to announce sales, introduce new merchandise, and get customers to visit their physical stores. 

When businesses use direct mail marketing, their customers receive flyers and other promotional materials in their mailboxes. 

It usually takes several days for customers to receive marketing materials from a direct mail campaign. However, this method often places a business’s materials directly in the hands of their customers.

As beneficial as snail mail campaigns have been for retailers, email is increasingly preferred by ecommerce stores because of its unique advantages. For example, because email is a digital method of communication, there are no costs related to supplies and postage. 

In addition, the messages are available immediately for recipients to read. Customers are already online, and they can easily reach the website with a single click on a link. 

Note that there are numerous types of ecommerce emails that you can send for your online store. 

For example, regular newsletters may announce important company updates and send links to recent blog posts. Promotional materials, such as announcements about sales, are also commonly sent via email. What’s more, ecommerce automation makes email marketing easier than ever these days.

As beneficial as email marketing can be, businesses must be careful not to overwhelm customers with frequent messages that were not requested. 

When customers view a message as spam, they might tune out future messages or opt out of campaigns completely. In this way, a poor email marketing plan can potentially alienate customers.

How can email marketing benefit your ecommerce business?

Email marketing is effective at reaching customers and affordable relative to many other modern marketing methods. 

Before you develop your business’s email marketing campaign, you need to understand the specific ways that this type of outreach can benefit your ecommerce business.

Through greater understanding of the benefits, you can develop a marketing plan that produces well-rounded, optimized results. 

Here are some of the leading benefits of a thoughtful email marketing campaign for ecommerce businesses.

1. Boosts conversions

If your ecommerce shop is like many others, your target audience consists of several segments. These segments may have unique priorities, goals, and interests in specific products. 

Through email marketing, tailoring marketing messages to appeal to different segments of your target audience is easy and affordable. Segments may be tied to age, geographic area, shopping habits, and other groups.

While segmentation enables your ecommerce business to deliver a message that’s tailored to the customer, it offers another benefit. Customers may perceive the message as being personalized specifically for them. 

These factors all play a role in increasing your ecommerce store’s conversion rate.

There are many types of segmented emails that you can send. These may be related to customer retention, birthdays and other special moments in a customer’s life, items abandoned in a shopping cart, and more.

2. Strengthens the reputation of your brand

The success of an ecommerce website is dependent on its ability to establish and maintain a positive brand image. You’re likely devoting a significant amount of time, energy, and financial resources to delivering a customer experience that lives up to the image you’ve developed. 

Through direct emails to customers who have recently made a purchase, you can solicit positive reviews and learn about the customer experience.

Asking a customer to complete a post-purchase survey is an excellent way to gauge how well your business is doing at meeting customer needs and expectations. Survey responses can help you to determine areas that require improvement. 

You can also ask customers to leave feedback about products purchased or about your ecommerce store in general. 

Customer reviews directly impact the buying behaviors of future customers. They can also reinforce your brand image to those who aren’t yet familiar with the experience that you deliver.

3. Improves customers’ post-purchase experience

A customer’s first purchase with you is only the beginning of what could be a long, fulfilling relationship for both parties. 

Customers want to know that their business is appreciated and that they’re valued. They also want to know that the businesses they make purchases from care about how satisfied they are with the products they received.

The post-purchase experience with a customer begins as soon as the online order has been confirmed. A confirmation email with an order number and shipping details should be accompanied by a word of thanks and contact information for questions and concerns. 

As tracking details change, the customer should continue to receive updates until the package has been delivered. After delivery has been confirmed, a satisfaction survey and a request for online feedback are advantageous.

4. Rewards customer loyalty

The financial benefits of loyal customers to an ecommerce store are clear. It’s generally easier to get established, satisfied customers to return to your website than to encourage new customers to visit and make a purchase. 

Rewarding loyal customers, such as with a special discount or other perks for their next purchase, can inspire them to visit your site again soon.

Email marketing is particularly effective at reaching loyal customers for a few reasons. Besides being direct, affordable, and timely, email marketing for loyalty and retention can be segmented based on a customer’s last activities on the website. 

Keep in mind that maintaining relationships with your customers by rewarding loyalty isn’t a one-time activity. The many benefits of email marketing for this purpose can help with establishing and maintaining an ongoing campaign.

5. Encourages inactive customers to return to your store

There are many reasons why established customers may not return to an ecommerce website for several months or longer. Understanding why they have stopped visiting your website and making purchases is important. 

After you determine if they’ve simply forgotten about your store or if you’ve somehow alienated them, you can take steps to bring them back.

If customers open a reactivation email, you know that they’re probably still interested in shopping with you. Further research would be needed to determine why they aren’t making purchases. 

In contrast, if these individuals don’t open a reactivation email, it may be best to remove them from your email marketing campaigns.

How do you measure the results of your email marketing campaign?

While email marketing campaigns are affordable, direct, and customizable through segmentation, you’ll understandably need each campaign to be as effective as possible. 

Through the analysis of various metrics, you can gain valuable insight regarding your campaigns and about your customers’ behavior.

For example, your email service provider may give you broad metrics for all campaigns as well as refined metrics for individual campaigns or segments. These metrics may include stats for the open rate, the click rate, and the conversion rate. 

You can then test various subject lines, copywriting and tone, images, offers, and more in different campaigns. This will assist you in determining how you can best communicate with your customers through email marketing.

Conclusion

Email marketing is an essential component of an ecommerce store’s overall marketing campaign. The effectiveness of your campaigns is directly tied to the quality of your email distribution list. 

While you can purchase a list of email addresses, emails sent to those who didn’t request them can be perceived as spammy. This can harm your brand’s reputation.

You can begin building your email distribution list through opt-in campaigns on your website during the shopping and purchasing phases of the customer experience. As you create your distribution list and refine your efforts using segmentation and testing, you can maximize the full power of email marketing.

Did you know that email marketing is a breeze when you create your online store with WiziShop’s ecommerce website builder? 

In fact, when you sign up with us, you’ll immediately have access to our Auto-Mail Booster. This handy tool can help you to send newsletters, customize email content, and checkout the results of your email campaigns live.

Furthermore, you can use Auto-Mail Booster to automatically program follow-up emails. This can be used to send emails to welcome new customers, remind visitors about items they’ve left in their shopping carts, and much more.

Test WiziShop today with a 3-day free trial and enjoy all of the amazing advantages that our platform has to offer!