Achieving a 442% Increase in Lead Capture Rate and a 964% ROI
These figures aren’t just imaginative they’re the real results achieved by Beardbrand, a men’s grooming brand, within just 11 months of implementing email marketing. In this article, we’ll explore the significance of automating email marketing in today’s digital landscape. We’ll also highlight the top email marketing applications suitable for your business.
This illustrates how email marketing can address the critical challenges faced by your ecommerce business, just as it did for Beardbrand. Effective email marketing can transform your store visitors into loyal customers, enhance your conversion rates, and significantly boost your ROI.
It’s a logical approach: with around 4.2 billion email users globally, 78% of marketers have reported increased engagement with email over the past year. It’s an incredibly powerful tool for ecommerce brands like yours. For every dollar spent on email marketing, the average return is $36.
Email marketing & the importance of marketing automation
Email marketing involves sending commercial emails to your audience who have opted into achieve your business objectives, such as raising awareness, driving conversions and sales, and fostering a community around your brand. It enhances your existing online marketing strategies, making them even more effective. You can utilize email marketing to promote your products or services, boost brand visibility, decrease cart abandonment rates, and cultivate lasting relationships with your customers.
Types of Emails for Your Shopify Store
Promotional Emails: If you're looking to encourage customers to buy your upcoming products or to inform them about limited-time offers, promotional email campaigns are the way to go. These can be sent multiple times in a single day (like on Black Friday) or over several weeks (such as during Christmas). An example comes from J. Crew Factory, which cleverly combines humor with their promotional offers.
2. Informational emails: Informational emails focus on providing valuable insights that your audience will find interesting. For instance, you might consider launching a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly newsletter that highlights the benefits of your product ingredients and showcases relevant case studies. You can also use these emails for store announcements, such as updates to delivery services or the introduction of new product features. An example of this approach is Mint, a personal finance app, which captures the reader's attention with an engaging headline, followed by content that adds real value.
2. Informational Emails: Informational emails are designed to share valuable information that your audience will find engaging. For example, you might create a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly newsletter that discusses the advantages of your product ingredients and presents relevant case studies. Additionally, these emails can serve to announce important updates, such as changes to delivery services or the launch of new product features. A great example of this strategy is Mint, a personal finance app, which captures readers' interest with a compelling headline followed by informative content.
With email marketing automation, you can create distinct segments and accurately target customers based on their buying behavior. While social media also offers advanced targeting options, these features are primarily available for paid ads. According to eMarketer, email marketing is 20% more effective at retaining customers.
The best apps for email marketing on Shopify
You can automate every email sequence for your store, meaning it’ll run on its own to meet your business goals. Here are the email platforms you can make use of for your Shopify store’s email marketing:
1. Klaviyo
Klaviyo enables you to send personalized messages through targeted email campaigns. You can utilize data such as order details, product recommendations, and cart contents to create email content that drives conversions.
Here’s a list of campaigns you can execute with Klaviyo:
- Cart abandonment
- Welcoming new customers
- Post-purchase upselling campaigns
Pros:
- Automatically trigger a series of emails when a customer takes a specific action. For instance, if someone abandons their cart at the final stage of the buying process, you can initiate an email or a sequence of emails through Klaviyo to encourage conversions.
- Set conditions to display certain sections of the email only to customers who meet specific criteria.
For example, MixTiles successfully runs their welcome email and SMS series, which contributes to 40% of their total revenue coming from email and SMS.
2. Mailchimp
With Mailchimp, you can create impactful email marketing campaigns through behavior-based automation journeys.
You can send targeted emails based on customer interactions and behaviors, resulting in higher engagement and improved customer experiences. Additionally, you can track your campaigns to see where recipients clicked within your emails.
Pros:
- Utilize the Content Optimizer, which offers recommendations to enhance your email copy, layout, and imagery for greater engagement.
- Choose from a wide range of drag-and-drop templates or even code your own custom designs.
Shapeways, a New York-based 3D printing company, leveraged Mailchimp to launch personalized email marketing campaigns tailored to the customer life cycle.
The outcome? A 238% increase in open rates and a 525% increase in click-through rates. Here’s an example of their abandoned cart email:
3. Omnisend
Omnisend is a comprehensive email marketing automation platform tailored for e-commerce businesses, including those using Shopify. It enables e-commerce managers to develop targeted and personalized email campaigns, automate workflows, and integrate various marketing channels to enhance engagement and conversions.
Pros:
- Segment your email lists based on customer behavior, purchase history, and other data points, allowing you to create highly targeted campaigns that are more likely to convert.
- The visual email editor makes it easy to design professional-looking emails without requiring technical or design skills.
Skinnydip utilized Omnisend’s email automation features to launch a series of personalized campaigns aimed at customers who abandoned their shopping carts. By sending targeted emails with product recommendations and discounts, Skinnydip successfully recovered lost sales and boosted their overall revenue.
4. NotifyVisitors
If you have a Shopify store and have been struggling with email marketing, NotifyVisitors might be the solution you need.
This email marketing app is packed with advanced features designed to help you optimize your email campaigns and expand your customer base.
With NotifyVisitors, you can utilize email targeting and segmentation while crafting emails with beautiful, customizable templates tailored to your needs.
Additionally, its intuitive dashboard allows you to monitor email campaign performance and gain clear insights whenever necessary. NotifyVisitors is an essential email marketing app to elevate your Shopify store.
Pros:
- Easy to create and send email campaigns.
- Reliable customer support.
- Single dashboard to track all campaigns.
- Real-time analytics for performance tracking.
- Advanced segmentation for more targeted content.
For example, jusherbs, a global beauty and personal care company, used NotifyVisitors to implement personalized email marketing campaigns tailored to their branding needs.
The result? A 200% increase in open rates and a 26.3% increase in average order value. Here’s an example of their email:
Tip & tricks for successful email marketing automation
Creating effective email marketing campaigns requires experimentation and a solid understanding of your customer segments. Here are some best practices for successfully implementing your email marketing strategy:
- Clean your email list regularly: While it may be tempting to have thousands of subscribers, inactive ones can negatively impact your open rates and diminish the effectiveness of your campaigns.
- In addition to regular list maintenance, ensure the “unsubscribe” button is easily accessible. If someone wants to unsubscribe, it's beneficial for your list to let them go.
- Never buy contact lists: Purchasing contact lists means you lack the recipient's consent, which can harm your brand's reputation and be perceived as spam. Moreover, since these contacts haven't voluntarily subscribed, engagement with your campaigns is likely to be low.
- Personalize the email greeting: According to studies, 88% of users are more likely to respond positively to an email tailored specifically for them. Instead of generic greetings like “Dear Subscriber,” use the recipient’s name to make it more personal.
For example, with the subject line “The Spookiest Bedtime Story Ever” and a personalized greeting, Tuft & Needle successfully engaged readers and encouraged them to read the entire email.
Keep your call to action above the fold: The above-the-fold area is what subscribers see first when they open your email. This section is visible to recipients without any need for scrolling. While people may scroll more nowadays, placing your CTA above the fold is a safer choice, especially considering social media and vertical timelines.
Dial in your subject line: A staggering 47% of email recipients open an email based solely on the subject line. This highlights the importance of having actionable subject lines. You can incorporate offers, limited-time deals, or curiosity-driven hooks.
For example, Mixtiles effectively uses a combination of emojis and directly addresses its target audience with the subject line, “Give your walls a bloomin’ makeover.”
How to quickly automate your email marketing campaigns
Email marketing campaigns can deliver remarkable results, including enhanced brand awareness and the cultivation of a loyal community.
Now that you understand the fundamentals of email marketing and the advantages it offers to your e-commerce business, begin by setting up various email sequences and building your email lists.
With Mavenbird, you can utilize existing templates without having to worry about technical details. Integrate it seamlessly with your Shopify store to achieve your email marketing campaign objectives.