It’s been around commercially since the 70’s and we all interact daily with some form of email from spam all the way through to emails from colleagues, customers or friends. What is puzzling though is how little it is used to market online stores, especially considering just how effective it is as a marketing tool.
When I first started my store I had around 200 email addresses of friends and family which I gathered up from Facebook, email accounts and other sources. Armed with those 200 addresses and a Mailchimp account, I sent out my first email campaign to try to drive some traffic to my website. Although I didn’t get any sales from my first campaign, I certainly did get people visiting my store and that was the first step in getting my first sale. We now run regular campaigns to our 3,500+ base of subscribers and it’s a guaranteed way to drive sales. In fact, now we get sales with every campaign we send out.
That’s why so many people still use it to market their websites. It’s an inexpensive, effective way to sell to customers and subscribers who have engaged with your business in some way.
Need proof that it works? Check out these global stats:
- On average, the ROI on email marketing is around 4000%. That’s R40 in sales for every R1 spent.
- 70% of all email recipients say that they have used a coupon or discount code from a marketing campaign they received in the past month.
- Over the life of an email list, 50% of that list will interact with an email you send them by either opening it or clicking on a link and 19% will end up buying something.
- 44% of all email recipients made at least one purchase last year from a promotional campaign.
- People who receive email marketing spend 83% more when shopping and they shop 28% more often than those who don’t.
- 69% of people check their email first thing in the morning.
- 56% of email recipients check their email on their smartphone.
Here are some of our top tips to help you create successful email campaigns:
- Schedule your email for early mornings. Between 7am and 8am is a good time.
- Make sure you have a powerful subject line that people want to read.
- Include some sort of incentive. A discount code or special offer will go a long way.
- Make sure that your email is mobile-friendly.
- Keep the campaigns going. Get people engaging in your brand.
Be sure to install the Mailchimp for Shopify app on your Shopify store if you do use Mailchimp. This app will automatically sync customers (who have opted in to receive marketing) to your Mailchimp list, thereby growing your list automatically.
If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch and we can provide you with some great pointers too.
Happy emailing.
