If you are running an ecommerce business and not engaging in email marketing, you could be missing out on major opportunities. Many ecommerce brands overlook email in favor of paid ads, but nothing can beat the cost effectiveness and efficiency said channel brings. With email marketing’s ability to get directly in front of customers eyes, it pairs greatly with any online marketplace. Learn how email marketing can benefit your ecommerce business below!
You Own the Channel
One of the biggest benefits of using email marketing is the fact that you own the channel. While you do have to go through mailing platforms and inbox services to reach your customers, there are no algorithms or paid audiences to deal with. Your mailing list is your own and provides you with direct access to your customers, unlike paid and social advertisements. Rather than being held back by ad policies and visibility limits, email marketing gives you the freedom to reach customers without restrictions.
Email Marketing Drives Sales on Autopilot
Another major pro for using email marketing is its automation. Unlike social media channels where algorithms dictate who sees what, automated email marketing guarantees everyone on your mailing list receives the same content at the same time. By using a mailing platform like Klaviyo or Mailchimp, you can automate welcome series, abandoned cart emails, and business updates to send as soon as they are triggered. A simple cart reminder email automated to send 30 minutes after abandonment can recover up to 10-20% lost revenue. Considering the fact that you can automate this to send without the need for your approval, you can close sales without lifting a finger!
Email Builds Customer Loyalty and Lifetime Value
Beyond the direct benefit to sales and brand awareness, email marketing is great for building customer loyalty and lifetime value. Regularly checking in with your customers through weekly or monthly newsletters keeps your brand top-of-mind. Additionally, providing exclusive offers, content, and early access to your mailing list builds an emotional connection and helps bring a sense of personality to your brand. Overall, these factors keep customers coming back and purchasing more, which in turn raises their lifetime value: an important metric for any business to track.
It’s Cost-Effective Compared to Paid Ads
Email marketing is great for ecommerce brands because it heavily benefits operations while maintaining cost effectiveness. In social and paid advertising, costs are constantly rising, making the method unsustainable for most small businesses. Since email marketing scales with your list size however, the costs often rise as your revenue does. Additionally, email channels let you monetize directly to your existing customers, a task it is much better suited for than paid ads.
Email Helps You Understand Your Customers
While paid and social ads do provide great metrics for insight on your success, email marketing provides a more direct understanding of your customer base. If only 10% of users who see your paid ad click through, it can be difficult to pin-point exactly why so few engage with your content. However, with email marketing, you already know the individuals you are mailing have an interest in your brand. This eliminates some of the guesswork on why engagement is so low. Rather than focusing on how to better present your brand, email marketing lets you test what elements in your campaign attract/turn away customers. You can do this by tracking open rates, clicks, purchases, and any other metrics you deem important. Then, segment your audience by behavior, interest, location, etc. Experimenting this way is like creating a virtual laboratory where you can test and manipulate different marketing factors to see which works the best. This ability to easily personalize your mailing list is what makes email marketing so powerful for ecommerce and virtual brands.
You Can Start Small and Grow
If you are just starting out your business, email marketing can still help. While the price range for paid and social ads may be out of reach in the beginning, email channels are cost effective and don’t require massive lists to see results. Only a few hundred subscribers are needed to help generate consistent revenue for your business. You also only need a little bit of content to get yourself started. A simple welcome email and one newsletter/campaign per month is a great start to beginning the process of growing your mailing list.
It’s Never Too Early (or Too Late) to Start
Email marketing isn’t tied to a specific size or age for any company. Its dynamic nature is what makes it great for brands both big and small. Any e-commerce business that wants direct customer contact, better profit, and long term growth can utilize email channels to their benefit!
Need help setting up your first email campaign? Contact Rise Marketing Group today for a free consultation!
