Are you using email marketing to your advantage? Studies have shown that customers spend almost 140% more when they are being marketed to via email rather than simply shopping through your ecommerce site. 44% of orders are larger and 28% of consumers reported they order more often. Email marketing also has a higher conversion rate when compared to social media and other traditional marketing practices. And abandoned cart flows have led to an increase in sales for business with average order values between $100 and $500. These email flows recover up to 5% of abandoned carts just by sending an automated email.
1. Ownership
Because consumers sign up and opted-in to receive marketing to their inbox, you own the marketing which allows you to take control of how your customers experience your images, graphics, and other marketing tools. In marketing, we know customer experience is the most important thing because when they get bored or annoyed, they unfollow and unsubscribe.
With email marketing, there is no fear in change of algorithm like there is with Instagram and Facebook, ensuring no drastic changes to marketing efforts. By putting in the time and effort it takes to grow an email list, you gain an asset to your company.
By owning your email list, you give yourself the ability to create and execute marketing strategies that are unique to your brand and align with your brand’s look and values.
Not to mention, ownership of the platform also allows you to take all of the revenue you generate from the marketing too. Platforms like Amazon take a cut of what you make.
2. Low Cost
Get more from your marketing budget! Email marketing is really easy to get started with a low budget, and is inexpensive to maintain over time. Email’s are a great way for small businesses to grow because of the low cost and high return on investment.
3. Timing
As mentioned above, flows like an abandoned cart email lead to an increase in sales. Think about the buying cycle: consideration, research and comparison, and ready-to-buy. Because potential customers are all at different stages of the buying cycle, having content ready for people at each step allows you to reach each group effectively.
Emails allow you to contact your customer base at opportune times, like promoting a sale, new product launch, welcome series, or abandoned cart emails, for each stage of the cycle. Providing customers with the information they are looking for will move them into the next cycle; the right content at the right time can do that.
4. Target Marketing
Similarly, email marketing allows you to nurture leads and move them through your sales funnel quickly and effectively, 44% of orders are larger and 28% of consumers reported they order more often when they receive emails from brands they know and trust. With email marketing, businesses have the opportunity to reach more customers, get more eyes on your content, and drive traffic to your site.
5. Brand Awareness
Simply having a customer’s email address means they showed up and your site interested them enough that they want to know more. Through email marketing, the business has the opportunity to increase their interest by staying on their mind (and in their inbox). That is brand awareness.
You may be thinking, but won’t my social media account do that, too? Yes and no. More customers see emails (90%) than see a business social media page (2%), and this is all thanks to the ever changing algorithms controlled by social media executives. (Read more about the Instagram algorithm here).
A mistake made all too often by companies is using email marketing as a sales tool, rather than an opportunity to tell their customers about who they really are. Take advantage of the fact that you’re brand is right in front of your customers eyes with less competition than an instagram post. Tell a story in your next newsletter about how your brand got started, how your products work, where you source your products, etc.
6. A/B Testing
One of our favorite features that email marketing allows is A/B testing. Knowing what strategies work and don’t work is essential moving forward in your business, for growth and sales. When using A/B testing, you are able to send two variations of the same campaign or automated message to different groups of your email list, allowing you to see which strategies perform better.
Test subject lines, products, call to action, and see which segment gained the most opens, clicks, and conversions. This means you can keep doing more of what’s working and change up what isn’t to uncover more opportunities to close the sale.
7. Reviews
Reviews are essential for business, I mean who isn’t reading reviews these days? By setting up an automated message to solicit reviews. Display these reviews in future emails, on your website, and across socials. Word of mouth is a great way to drive sales. Not to mention the fact that customer feedback is important when trying to improve customer experience.
8. Integration
Email marketing integrates seamlessly with your business’s other marketing strategies, like Instagram, Facebook, SMS, and your brick-and-mortar. Omnichannel marketing is the combination of these platforms, and the idea being it is providing your customers with consistent experiences and messaging, or a continuation of the marketing, regardless of the channel.
While email marketing is a great tool on its own, combining it with your other strategies enhances customer experience and brand loyalty because consumers like it consistent. Next time your run a social media contest, send out an email to gain some traction on your campaign
Omnichannel shoppers spend 30 percent more than other shoppers, so they are valuable customers to market to!
9. Save Time
Not to harp on the abandoned cart, but it’s a perfect example of an automated message. Other automated message options include “we miss you” flows that offer 10% off to a customer who hasn’t purchased anything in 6 months, for example. Welcome series and upsell campaigns drive sales.
10. Analyze
Email systems like Klaiyvo offer the ability to track delivery rates, bounce rates, unsubscribers, click through and open rates. Being able to track these metrics allows you to decide what works best for your brand’s marketing tactics.
11. Growth
90% of emails land directly in the recipients inbox, whereas only 2% of facebook followers will see your post in their news feed. Sending an email to your email list allows content to go directly to your target audience which drives more traffic to your site.
12. Boost Sales
That’s why we're all here right? “Yeah all this information is great, but I want to increase my sales.” Knowing and understanding how the metrics of success work in email marketing will help you tailor your marketing efforts to your desired customer. Using segmentation, A/B testing, and collective reviews all help boost your sales and revenue.
So, as you can see, email marketing does a lot more than just remind your customers that you’re there. It allows you to see what your customers like, don’t like, and want to see more of. You can track successful email campaigns and subject lines through the data collected by your email system. Email subscribers are qualified leads, meaning the chance of conversion is higher.
If you have any more questions about email marketing, reach out to us! hi@ansleymediaco.com