Why newsletters equal e-commerce success

Although you may not realise it as you’re catching up with your own inbox, but email marketing remains one of the most effective ways of getting the best ROI bang for your digital buck. The stat that’s thrown around a lot for ROI in newsletter campaigns is 4300%.  While this should be reason enough to […]

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August 20, 2018 4 mins

    Although you may not realise it as you’re catching up with your own inbox, but email marketing remains one of the most effective ways of getting the best ROI bang for your digital buck. The stat that’s thrown around a lot for ROI in newsletter campaigns is 4300%.  While this should be reason enough to adopt email marketing, there are plenty of other ways in which it can benefit your business.

    Whether it’s because newsletters are better at driving sales than other channels, or that it’s the most effective way to build a relationship with customers, email should be part of any e-commerce business’s marketing plan. Here are four key factors that set email marketing apart, and what you need to do to get started with it right now.

    They outperform social media

    Social media is essential for engaging with audiences, but for selling to individuals email is king. The ROI for social media is hard to pin down though some studies have suggested it’s possible to achieve a return on investment of 1000%, but this is still a lot lower than what can be achieved with email.

    SEO isn’t getting easier

    While SEO is essential for getting a website ranked and products indexed in Google searches, it isn’t getting any easier while email marketing is becoming increasingly accessible.

    Email marketing platforms such as Mailchimp make it easy for even novices to get started, with a drag and drop interface to create templates and a system that makes it easy to build lists. However, if users want to create templates which are as close as possible to the branding on their site some knowledge of HTML coding will be required.

    Any online retailer will already have email addresses from customers at their disposals so won’t have to worry about embedding a newsletter signup form into their site (though this can help boost subscriber numbers as well).

    It’s highly targeted

    Another way in which email marketing trumps social media, is that it’s highly targeted. When posting content on social media, the same message goes out to the whole audience, while email can be used to send messages to individual users that are relevant to their specific interests. If someone receives content that’s been tailored to them they’re a lot more likely to act on it.

    Email marketing platforms allow retailers to target their messages using segmentation. Segmentation can be based on all the data that a retailer gathers about their customer. This could be their age, their birthday, or the kind of products they like to buy. Successful campaigns are ones that deliver content which is of value to the recipient – such as special offers and discounts – related to products similar to ones that have already been purchased.

    They build customer loyalty

    Email is a lot more personal than other channels, where a brand is talking to just one person rather than a whole crowd. Combining the more personal nature of email with automated personalisation, which makes it seem like brands are talking to individuals, rather than the masses; email is the perfect platform for driving brand loyalty.

    Not only will targeted offers help to increase sales and keep customers coming back to a site, but other messages can be sent out designed to increase customer loyalty. For example requests for feedback can be sent which will provide a business with valuable data and help them to improve their service, while customers can be rewarded for taking the time to fill out the survey.

     

    By adopting email marketing, online retailers can both drive sales and build long-lasting relationships with their customers. It’s easy to get started but if you need help, or are already using email marketing and want to improve your ROI, get in touch with Vu’s team of marketing experts to see how we can help.

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