7 Targeted Email Marketing Strategies For The E-commerce Businesses

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So, you’ve built an online store, and everything is settled – the products, the website, the brand. You’re ready to launch your business.

But how can you ensure your eCommerce store makes an impact, reaches the audience, and brings you income? Surprisingly, one of the best and most effective ways to achieve these goals is by implementing targeted email marketing. When you send an email to the right person at the right time, it won’t even feel like marketing.

How exactly can you personalize your emails and use this type of marketing strategy for your business? I’m going to explain it in this article by providing you with the best practices for email marketing.

So without further ado, let’s get started.

What Is Targeted Email Marketing?

Targeted email marketing focuses on sending subscribers personalized (targeted) campaigns based on their profile data, location, preferences, etc.

Statistics say 51% of marketers don’t segment their email list and launch targeted email marketing campaigns. And so they miss several fantastic opportunities. Namely:

  • Bond. Segmenting your subscribers can help you personalize your email and create a stronger client-business connection.
  • Response. A targeted, which means a relevant email will have a higher chance of open rates, click-through, and conversion rates in general.
  • Retention. Statistics say that clients are 50% more likely to try your new releases than newcomers. You already know your customers’ preferences, so targeted email marketing can help you revive old clients and bring new ones.
  • Revenue. Targeted emails can improve the ROI (return of investment), generating 36% of all revenue.

How to Get Started With Targeted Email Marketing

There are a couple of steps you need to take when beginning your targeted email marketing:

  1. Collect the data. Without having any subscribers, you cannot send targeted emails. This is why you need subscription forms to collect all the data – contact information, location, gender, age, demographics, interests, etc.
  2. Connect the channels. You will need to connect your online store to the email service providers and CRM to ensure your information is stored in the same place.
  3. Define your customer personas. Who is your product for? Think about anything that might help build the image of your target buyer.
  4. Segment your audience. Make sure to divide all users into segments for easier and more personalized communication.
  5. Come up with targeted emails. Adjust the content so it fully resonates with the targeted groups.
  6. Make a test email. Run an A/B test to experiment with the content (subject lines, CTAs, etc.) This will give you an understanding of what you can potentially improve and adjust.

7 Best Targeted Email Marketing Strategies

Now that you know the importance and steps to implement targeted email marketing let’s discuss some of the best strategies that will help your e-commerce business thrive.

#1. Use onboarding emails

Almost 75% of clients expect to receive a welcome email after signing up, and these emails have a 42% higher open rate than any other newsletter. So why not use this chance to convert your prospect into a potential buyer?

Use onboarding emails to show your customers the advantages of your brand and nudge them towards completing their first purchase by offering some discounts and best-selling products.

That’s how the Ralph Lauren store welcomes its new subscribers.

Ralph Lauren Onboarding Email

#2. Offer promotions

Customers love promotions. It will increase conversion and click-to-conversion rates, whether it’s a price decrease, low inventory, triggering the impulse of scarcity, or new goods arriving.

Usually, businesses segment customers into categories:

  • Discount customers – those who typically buy only products on sale. You can send them lucrative sales opportunities and ways to save money (referral, loyalty programs, etc.).
  • High average order value customers – offer them product recommendations and promotions to buy everything they need at once.
  • Face value customers – those who buy at a nominal price. Discounts don’t drive such clients, so better send them top-notch promotions for newly released products.

Here’s an example of how IKEA creates targeted promotions for their discount customers.

Ikea Promotions

#3. Target emails by gender

Irrelevant emails get instantly deleted without reading into too many details, and even prompt readers to report them as spam and unsubscribe.

A great way to appropriately target the right recipient is to segment clients by gender and send them the appropriate content.

Lucchese Bootmaker, a Texas-based shoemaker, uses gender-targeted emails to boost their conversion rates. For example, the brand highlighted the “Roy” boots for men and the “Gaby” boots for women. As a result, the lift from matching gender in email campaigns was up to 30%.

Lucchese Gender Email

#4. Schedule your email smartly

When scheduling your emails, you need to schedule them smartly as your customers may live in different time zones. Your emails should reach the audience when they’re awake and online.

The studies showed that most people tend to check their emails between 9 am and 5 pm (during regular working hours). The peaks of email-checking were around 9 am, 12 pm, and 5 pm.

However, it doesn’t mean that your online business will have the same results. This is why the best way is to test and see the best time to send emails specifically for your customers. There’s no right or wrong here, find the best solution that works for your business, and you will see how your conversion rates skyrocket.

For instance, Reformation constantly sends their email marketing letters at the same time – around 12-13pm in order to ensure every customer notices a special offer sent to them.

Reformation Scheduled Send

#5. Use cart abandonment emails

Statistically, more than 75% of buyers abandon their carts. However, it doesn’t necessarily mean these sales are left forever.

With the help of an abandonment email strategy, you can recover hundreds of thousands in sales and potentially increase the conversion rate by up to 50%. And in fact, such emails have the highest conversion and click-to-conversion rates over any other e-commerce email.

So send follow-ups one hour, one day, and one week after your potential customer has abandoned their cart to get them to come back and eventually buy from you. Additionally, you can even offer a discount for the products on the customer’s card.

For instance, Enjuku Racing, a supplier of Nissan aftermarket parts, managed to recover over $425,000 in sales with their abandoned cart emails.

enjuku racing cart abandonment

#6. Targeting by location

What is the purpose of sending an email with a picture of an Eiffel Tower to your customer who lives in Canada? It doesn’t make sense.

Just like you want to call your clients by the right name, you need to pick images that reflect their geolocation – personalized location-based images can potentially increase the click-through rates by 29%.

Location

#7. Use re-engagement emails

One of the best and most powerful targeting strategies is sending emails based on the time passed since the last purchase. This is a 100% win-win situation: you bring satisfaction to your customers and generate more sales for your business.

For example, clothing brand Closet London offers past customers personalized offers based on the products they’ve purchased in the past. With that single strategy, the online business managed to increase revenue by 2900%.

Rockin Wellness Reengagement

Additional Tips To Keep In Mind

While the above-mentioned strategies are effective when properly used, here are a couple of additional tips to remember while using targeted email marketing:

1. Include a clear CTA

You have only three seconds for a person to notice a CTA in your email. So despite doing your best to send a beautifully crafted email with high-quality content, you need to make sure your CTA is visible and clear. There is no need to include dozens of CTAs; however, be clear from the get-go and use intriguing subject lines to get your subscribers to open and read your email.

The greatest way of catching users’ attention to your CTA is to insert a video element, for example, a ‘play’ button. Check out some clever examples of video marketing with powerful CTAs that you can use in your emails.

2. Learn about spam filters

People receive dozens, if not hundreds, of emails per day. And unfortunately for business owners, some of them may go straight to the spam box. Your task is to learn about spam filters and how to stay out of them by using special programs and tools.

3. Get into your customers’ shoes

Don’t be dull in your emails. Show a friendly approach. For example, instead of simply sending “here are the offers of the day,” include a funny GIF, a meme, or a joke to bring a smile to your customer’s face. You need to put yourself in the customer’s shoes and understand what your potential client can be interested in.

4. Don’t wait until checkout to ask for an email address

It’s better to offer valuable content even before the client’s first purchase. For instance, you can include a banner or a pop-up with a discount for the first purchase as soon as the customer opens the home page. The sooner your customers give you their email address, the sooner you’ll be able to send them personalized emails.

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To Wrap It Up

Using targeted email marketing can be challenging unless you know exactly what to do. Make sure to segment your client base properly so that your clients get the most personalized approach and follow these simple yet effective strategies:

  1. Use onboarding emails
  2. Offer promotions
  3. Target emails by gender
  4. Schedule your email smartly
  5. Use cart abandonment emails
  6. Targeting by location
  7. Use re-engagement emails

All of the above-mentioned strategies and tips work. Simply put the customer at the center of your strategy, and you will see that targeted email marketing can potentially bring you high ROI, increase sales, and skyrocket your conversion rates!


Written by our guest writer Lily Roberts

She is a senior digital marketing specialist with over 10 years of experience in corporate branding and product management. She’s a passionate tech enthusiast spending her spare time on sharing professional insights.

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