As you might have read in Dan’s news post, in recent years customer acquisition through e-mail marketing has quadrupled to nearly 7%. E-mail marketing is particularly powerful for e-commerce websites, you only need an Amazon account to see that (order emails, review emails, related products & shopping cart waiting emails). Here are 5 quick hacks to improve the quality & ROI of your retail/ wholesale (fashion in this instance) e-mail marketing campaigns.
1.Draw Up An Offers Calendar
Your email marketing campaign is closely related to both offers and buying. At the start of the month (or even at the start of a three month period if you want to plan well in advance) you should sit down with the people responsible for buying, offers and social media. Write down the dates of any new products/collections that are being launched as well as any planned offers. You will then have an idea of when to send your e-shots for that month. Your social media schedule should also be tied into this for continuity.
2.Set Up Abandoned Shopping Cart Emails
It is estimated that around 67% of people abandon their shopping carts. Combat this by giving customers the option to save their shopping cart for future use. Send them a reminder soon after they leave to remind them that their products are still waiting for them.
You should also email users who abandon their shopping carts to try and encourage them back into buying. On average most companies will send this type of email within a few hours of the cart being abandoned. They then follow this with another email around 24-48 hours later and then again after 5 to 6 days. If you offer free shipping, if the product in question has great reviews or if there are products similar to the one that was abandoned then let the customer know in these emails.
Here is a quick additional tip. Most people (44%) abandon their shopping carts because shipping costs are too high and not appropriately disclosed. Therefore being upfront about your shipping costs can help to reduce your abandoned cart rate.
3.Send Themed Emails
To make sure that you are not bombarding your list with just emails about offers and latest products try sending themed emails. These are a bit like the style pages of a glossy mag in that they showcase a range of products around a certain theme.
Theme Ideas:
-A Particular Item of Clothing (Jumpsuits, Midi-Dresses, Puplum Dresses)
-A Fashion Trend (Varsity, Aztec, Folk, Geek Chic)
-An Event (Club night, Wedding, Festival)
-A Print/Pattern (Floral, Animal print)
-Celebrities: Get The Look
4.Offer A Welcome Discount
The welcome email is often overlooked when it comes to retail email marketing. Did you know that 32% of companies send no welcome email at all! Of those who do, many just fire over a text based ‘thanks for signing up’ message that helps to lower the expectancy of future correspondence. One of the best ways to spice up your welcome e-mail is to offer new subscribers some kind of discount on their first order. Something like 10% off or free postage will go a long way towards getting these fashion hungry shoppers back on to your website and loading up their baskets; especially if the offer is only valid for the next 7 days.
5. Choose Your Subject Lines Carefully
A report released last month by Adestra shows that consumers rate the subject line as one of the biggest motivators for opening e-commerce emails. They found that retailers were best to avoid using words like ‘cheap’ and ‘free’ as these fared poorly when compared to things like ‘% off’ and ‘sale’ which had above average open rates. Subject lines that included ‘free delivery’ performed very well with 35.9% open rate and 81.3% CTR.
I hope that this has sparked off some ideas! For more advice on e-mail marketing check out my other posts on due diligence and 13 great resources for email marketers.
Vicky
