Use Targeting to Optimize Your eCommerce Email Marketing
One common misconception among online retailers is that it is best to cast a wide net when it comes to email marketing. In other words, the bigger the email list, the more conversions you can hope to garner by sending out mass, generic advertising emails. Time and testing has proven, however, that this strategy is clumsy and ineffective. Of course, there is also anti-spam legislation to contend with.
Time to scrap those clumsy mass email campaigns and update your strategy. Email campaigns are the tool used most by online businesses for web marketing, and can be hugely effective for generating those highly sought after conversions.
Ready to give your email marketing campaign a facelift? My advice to you is this: Target, target, target!
The most crucial key to successful email marketing for ecommerce is targeting prospects by providing them with the information and offers they will be most interested in, and is therefore most likely to lead to revenue through conversions.
Opt-In and Double Opt-In
The first step to targeted ecommerce email marketing is to do away with cold emailing all together. Think about it this way – How often do you make purchasing decisions based on junk email advertizing sent to your home? Instead, it is best to allow customers to opt-in to receive email messages from you. You may even want to consider a double opt-in, where an email is sent to the consumer with a link to confirm their subscription. Once this is implemented, you can be sure that you have a strong list of prospects who are sincerely interested in your brand.
Narrow Your Focus
After the consumer has opted in, and you have compiled a list of customers who are interested in hearing more from you about your products and special deals, you should narrow your focus even further by using data about customers’ behaviors, such as buying frequency, interest in certain niches or products, frequency of clicking links in emails, etc., and aggregate separate mailings tailored to those subsets.
For example, many eCommerce sites have begun using this 3-tier system, sending tailored messages to each separate group:
- Visitors to the site who have opted in, but never purchased.
- Customers who have made a single purchase.
- Valued or repeat customers.
Sending separate email campaigns to each of these groups with targeted information, calls to action, or special offers is going to be a highly effective strategy to increase conversions.
Watch What Works
One of the coolest benefits of an email marketing campaign is that you will be able to see the data on open rates and click through rates for each message. Determine what kind of messages and content drive customers back to your site, and use this information to further hone your targeted email marketing campaign.
