So how does eMail marketing work, basically you build an email list and you start sending out emails that should be a part of a story/campaign to get the recipients to buy your products or services.

You can get your emails from basically two sources:

1- Your existing customers
2- Leads you acquire through an email capture form or a pop-up

I have been analyzing different aspects of digital marketing executions lately to kind of see what best practices are out there and I thought I would share with you some of these findings and some of my thoughts

First and foremost, it is important to keep in mind that to get the best eMail marketing execution, you need to be able to automate the entire process (or as much of as possible). This allows you to scale up quickly and avoids the panic and the headache of manual work.

If you are just starting, then you might be able to do somethings manually but keep in mind that eMail marketing is a channel amongst many other channels that require your attention as well. So if you reach that point where you are able to go “Pro” and automate that process, do not delay.

When I said eMail is a channel amongst many other channels, I said this because there is a debate on how much of your revenue should be coming from eMail marketing. The highest number I heard as the optimal eMail marketing revenue contribution is 30%. I think that might be high. But again it depends on the niche and the industry. The point is, whether it is 10%, 20% or 30%, you still got a 70%, 80% or 90% to chase after, so pre-plan and automate!

When you are building your email list through an email capture form, think of the following objectives when you are building your acquisition follow:

1. You want to leave an impression
2. You want to connect and introduce your brand to new customers
3. You want to provide relevant content
4. Psychological priming especially when you are preparing for major events like Black Friday (US Canada)/White Friday (Middle East)

And here are 2 tips that should work super well with any niche or industry, these tips should get you high quality sign-ups:

1. Targeted and tailor made pop-ups based on the top 2 or 3 landing pages. So let’s say you are a makeup brand and you top landing page is “how to get beautiful smokey eyes”. Then your pop-up message should be very specific to the landing page. This could be something along the lines of “Sign up to our mailing list to get access to more smokey eyes tutorials along with a 10% discount code” or “Sign up and learn the secrets of picking the right brush for the best smokey eyes look as well as get a 15% discount code”. As long as it is relevant to the page and you can build on it.
2. Set the pop-up trigger to run when the visitor has scrolled 60% of the page. This shows that the visitor has spent some time on the page and is interested in the content they are consuming and will likely be excited about receiving more content from you.

Once you have a lead, make sure that the welcome email (the email the customer receives upon sign up) is:

1. Aligned in messaging with the pop-up
2. Containing the discount code as promised and add a deadline
3. Use a combination of text and image

You can test with GIFs and moving images in the welcome email, but make sure it is light.

Another thought for you to consider is the usage of discounts. In many cases it is ok to get very generous with your discounts. Lots of cosmetics companies know that once you try their products you are going to order again. So you need to always look at the life time value of your customers and see how much you can discount and incorporate that in your discount progression.

Now moving to post purchase flow where the customer receives an email once they conclude a purchase. Depending on your eCommerce platform, the customer usually receives an email that contains something like a summary of the transaction. It is important to use this opportunity to communicate to the customer that they made a great choice and to set the tone for future purchases.

Most eCommerce platform send out one email once a purchase is completed. If you are able to edit that or change it up, do it! You can test sending 2 emails post purchase and then test 3 emails post purchase.

The idea is to:

1. Build excitement
2. Eliminate buyer’s remorse
3. Reduce refunds
4. Establish customer-brand relationship
5. Establish email as a channel from which repeat customers can be generated (mentally priming your customers to check your emails and interact with them)

The first email that should be sent immediately after the transaction is concluded and should contain the following components:

1. Buyer’s remorse elimination (something along the lines of “we guarantee you will be satisfied”)
2. What the brand stands for. Make sure it is brief
3. Weave these values in by explaining what it means to get a product from your brand
4. Give them a heads up about the order (“Your order is being processed”) and that they will receive more information soon (2^nd email)
5. Contact info

If you are doing the 2 emails options, then the second email should be send out when the details of the order are ready to be shared (tracking number, arrival time, etc). The email should contain the following components:

1. Brand promise
2. Shipment details (tracking numbers etc)
3. Products that may be of interest to your customer (I think 2 products are just enough, but test, test, test)
4. Discount code

Some thoughts on this, I would be careful with the discount codes, you will have some customers emailing you asking to reflect the discount on their purchase that is on the way otherwise they will request a refund (and then they will use the discount code to repurchase again). So you can assign this code to be active only with the products that you are showcasing in your email (products you are cross selling for example)