Commentary

Little Brands, Big Marketing: Email's Place In The eStore Mix

Email is popular with small ecommerce firms, but it lags behind other channels, according to Ecommerce Marketing Strategies For Small Businesses,  a study by GoodFirms.

GoodFirms surveyed 100+ specialists at small eStores. Of those, only 46.62% find email to be an effective marketing tactic.

The leader is pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, cited by 82.08%. Second is content marketing (74.66%) and third is social media (67.26%). 

Worse, the study calls email “a modest marketing weapon for eCommerce stores.” Huh?

GoodFirms offers no explanation for this disrespect, and the small survey sample may or may not be representative. But the firm notes that an earlier survey it conducted found email is used by 96.88% of marketing managers. And it states that email “resolves the three biggest challenges of eCommerce vendors -- lead acquisition, conversion, and retention.” 

Take the case of Blinds Direct, as cited in the new study.

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“We send around 3-4 emails per week, and the content differs in each," says Ellie-Paige Moore, marketing manager at Blinds Direct. "If we are holding a sale, one email will definitely be based on this topic. The remaining emails would focus on new products, bestsellers, and current trends.” 

The latter strategies do not necessarily increase sales, but “they always drive traffic to the site,” she says.

Are you new to email or need a refresher? The study describes five types of marketing emails: 

  1. Transactional — This type of email can “nurture prospects, belonging from the top-of-the-funnel sales cycle,” the study says. It is used for onboarding new subscribers, order confirmation, invoice receipts, shipping updates, return updates, customer feedback forms and other types of notification.
  2. Lead Nurturing — These emails target potential buyers who have entered the sales funnel. These prospects have “taken a plunge in your brand and signed-up for the newsletter,” the study continues.
  3. Promotional — Designed for the mass audiences, promotional emails alert readers to “enticing offers and discounts,” the study explains. These include new product release information, product newsletters, discount offers, time-sensitive deals on occasions like Black Friday and Cyber Monday,
  4. Cart Abandonment —These emails serve as a “gentle reminder to the clients recalling them about finishing the final stage of their buying cycle. They help brands reclaim a portion of unrealized revenue and help turn “skeptical buyers into sure-shot customers.”
  5. Remarketing — This type of email reaches out to visitors who visited the store for a brief period and didn’t return. “Marketers collect the customers’ information via the browser cookies and send these audiences real-time promotional emails so that they can revisit the store and turn into buyers,” the study says.

 

 

 

 

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