How online retailers can leverage effective email strategies

BY JONAH NWOKPOKU

Internet retailers cannot underestimate the value of email marketing. A recent study has predicted that the total number of email users worldwide will grow to more than 2.7 billion before the end of 2017, with revenue hitting $20.4 billion.

This growing marketing channel is considerably inexpensive and provides a great opportunity for retailers trying to acquire and retain customers, increase conversions or generate awareness. After using this channel for a while, however, it can be easy for retailers to fall into just a marketing routine. When this happens, it is important for retailers to freshen up their campaigns by re-evaluating their current strategies and testing out some new ones. Below are some strategies that they may consider.

The first is recovering abandoned carts. Recovering abandoned shopping carts through email is one of the best ways for online retailers to increase conversions via email. After all, if a visitor spends time browsing through an online catalog and takes the effort to add products to his shopping cart, he probably has a pretty strong intent to purchase. Experts say, the trick is to make sure they don’t lose the purchase to a competitor. When visitors do leave websites without making purchases, retailers can leverage email to re-target them and recover abandoned shopping carts.

They however argue that it is important to note that retailers implementing a shopping cart recovery campaign should consider using incentives such as free shipping, free gifts or discounts to entice their customers to convert.

Another effective strategy is to use the email to promote slow sellers. Every product is not and can never be best seller. The implication is that retailers need to spend a little more time generating brand awareness for the products that their customer base might not be familiar with. Identifying these products just requires a quick look at analytics, as slow sellers won’t have as many conversions or page views as a retailer’s best-selling inventory.

The email can also be used to drive traffic to other channels. You have committed resources into building a presence in a certain channel, so it is important to take the time to promote that presence. One of the best ways to spread the word, of course, is with email. For instance, if a retailer wants to drive more activity to their Facebook page, he or she could create an email campaign promoting the page and teasing a special exclusive sneak peek at new inventory for its Facebook followers. Then the retailer can create a board that features the new inventory a week before promoting it on any other channel.

Culled from www.vanguardngr.com