The Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing Tactics

Email marketing can be a great way to keep in touch with your customers, promote new products, and increase sales, but it can also be challenging to know where to start when it comes to your Shopify store. 

Without the right tools and knowledge, email marketing for any eCommerce store can seem daunting. 

It’s hard to know how to optimise your email marketing efforts or what emails to send and when.

This blog post is here to help. 

Together we will cover:

Part 1 | What is Email Marketing?

Part 2 | The Benefits of Email Marketing for a Shopify Store

Part 3 | How to Setup Your Emails For Success

Part 4 | How to Build an Email List

Part 5 | Three Types of Emails to Send

Part 6 | Create Your Email Copy

Part 7 | Shopify Email Marketing Tools

Part 8 | Measure the Effectiveness of Your Email Marketing Campaign

After reading this blog you’ll be able to create successful email marketing campaigns that will help to boost sales and keep your customers informed and around for a long time. 

But before we dive into the details, we would like to let you know that we have a more massive knowledge resource for email marketing, the KAMG Email Marketing Content Hub. You can use that guide for email marketing for any website.

But for now, let’s talk about how to do it for a Shopify store.

Part 1 | What is Email Marketing?

Shopify defines email marketing as “the practice of sending marketing messages to prospective and current customers via email in order to sell, educate, or build loyalty.”

It’s no longer enough to just say that your products are great – you have to put it in action and this is where email marketing comes in!

By regularly sending out information about new products, services, or sales, you can cultivate a relationship with potential customers and encourage them to do business with you.

For example, you can use email marketing for your Shopify store to: 

•  

  • Welcome them to your brand and community.

• • Share your free content offers like (blog posts and newsletters). 

• • Promote your latest products.

Part 2 | The Benefits of Email Marketing for a Shopify Store

There are several reasons to invest in email marketing for your Shopify store. We will discuss a few below: 

1. Cost-effective: Campaign Monitor states that “For every $1.00 spent, email marketing can generate up to $38.00 in ROI.”

2. Targeted: Email marketing is one of the best ways to interact with people who want to hear from you. Subscribers have already interacted with your Shopify store and can be further segmented based on their interests and needs. 

3. Generate and nurture leads: Prospects who sign up to your email list have clearly shown an interest in your Shopify store. According to McKinsey, “Email is 40x more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter.” 

Also, email is a great place to nurture those leads. We know they have an interest and whether or not they have purchased. Now you can form a relationship from the first purchase to future ones. 

4. Convert with ease: Leads that are primed have a greater chance of being converted. 

5. Easy to Measure: Shopify has incredible tools to help you track your email marketing metrics.

Part 3 | How to Setup Your Emails For Success

Follow Best Practices

Once you have an email account for your Shopify store, it is essential to optimise it for deliverability.

When it comes to email marketing, there are some important things that you should be doing. In fact, without taking these necessary precautions, your efforts can be in vain!

Many people focus on what they think is important and often overlook the most important thing: Getting your message seen by your subscribers.

There are a few best practices that you should follow to improve deliverability and increase the chances that your readers will see your message, such as: 

•  

  • Reputation Monitoring

• • Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)

• • Sender Policy Framework (SPF) 

• • Domain Key Identified Mail (DKIM)

• • Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC)

• • Send Throttle

• • Feedback Loops and ISPs

Why Should You Use an Email Service Provider? 

An email service provider (ESP) is an email marketing service that facilitates email marketing activities.

Finding the right email service provider is essential for businesses because:

1. They protect your email deliverability and sender reputation.

Sending emails from an ESP is far better and safer than sending from your own email client like Gmail as a business.

The best way to ensure that your emails don’t get filtered as spam or become blacklisted is by using a reputable hosting service.

This is because they have the knowledge and their servers have the capacity to send out hundreds if not thousands of emails to your list.

2. They have to comply with email marketing regulations.

In the United States, the CAN-SPAM Act (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing) is a law that sets the standards for sending commercial emails. 

The Commission must establish rules “defining the appropriate criteria to simplify the assessment of the principal purpose of an electronic mail communication,” according to this act. Almost solely, the CAN-SPAM Act pertains to “commercial electronic mail communications.”

Since hosting services have to comply, they make it easy for you to comply without knowing the ins and outs. 

CAN-SPAM’s Requirements:

1.  

   1. Don’t use false or misleading header information. 

1. 1. Don’t use deceptive subject lines.

1. 1. Identify the message as an ad. 

1. 1. Tell recipients where you’re located. 

1. 1. Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future emails from you. 

1. 1. Honour opt-out requests promptly. 

1. 1. Monitor what others are doing on your behalf.

3. Email automation.

Email automation is the process of setting up rules for when specific emails should be sent to your customers. And you can do this by using an email marketing platform.

Email automation saves time for marketers as they don’t have to send out emails manually. They can also be used to build relevance and provide content in a timely manner to subscribers.

For example, you can set a trigger for when a customer subscribes to your mailing list, the action of sending a welcome email is automatically sent to their inbox.

4. List management.

An ESP maintains the health of your email list by fulfilling certain tasks, such as automatically removing a subscriber from your list when they unsubscribe. 

They provide specific data that is essential when you decide to clean your list. For example, you can see if an email address no longer exists or is not active, and you can remove it manually. 

5. Email Reporting.

ESPs provide data that can help you make informed decisions regarding your marketing efforts. 

For example, you will be able to see which emails are performing well, and which aren’t and decide on what action needs to be taken. 

We’ve compiled a list of the best email marketing software for eCommerce to make it easy to decide what works best for you and your needs. 

Now that you have set up the foundation, you can begin to build an email list. 

Part 4 | How to Build an Email List

It’s important to ensure that you are not only attracting new prospects but that you are also retaining them. 

According to Taylor Landis from Outbound Engine, “Acquiring a new customer can cost five times more than retaining an existing customer.”

Getting to know your prospects better will help you grow a larger list of potential customers.

There are many ways to build an email list, but here is a brief overview of some common strategies:

1.  

   1. Lead magnets

Lead magnets are something that you give for free in exchange for someone’s email address. These gifts should be targeted towards your idea prospects. 

This is the most common strategy to build an email list. This can be anything from an ebook, template, or mini-course.

2.  

   2. Landing page

A landing page is a single web page that you land on after clicking a link. These pages can be used to capture leads’ email addresses.

3.  

   3. Discounts and deals

These are a great way to entice prospects to sign up to your email list. You can do this by offering, for example, 10% off their first purchase. 

Part 5 | Three Types of Emails to Send

It’s important to remember that there are many different purposes behind sending an email.

Whether you are just getting started with email marketing or looking for new ways to engage your customer base, there are three types of emails that will help to ensure your success. 

1. Transactional Emails 

Transactional emails are a great way to keep in touch with your customer base about all things important. 

Transactional emails are used to guide the customer through the buying journey. 

These kinds of emails are more personalised based on where that recipient is in the buying journey. 

These emails get triggered when a recipient takes a specific action; for example, an email is sent out when they ask for their password to be reset. 

The different kinds of transactional emails

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  • Verification Emails

• • Password Reset Emails

• • Legal Update Emails

• • Order Confirmation Emails

• • Shipping Notification emails

• • Delivery Confirmation Emails

2. Promotional Emails

Promotional emails are a great way to show customers what you have in store for them and encourage their purchase.

Promotional emails are used to inform subscribers of any promotions or specials as well as offer birthday discounts. 

These emails are more sales-orientated. 

The different kinds of promotional emails

•  

  • Special Offer Emails

• • Product Launch Emails

• • Exclusive Subscriber Emails

    – Birthday emails

    – Individual coupons

•  

  • Seasonal/Holiday Campaigns

3. Relational Emails 

Relational emails are a great way to build and maintain a relationship with your email list. 

These kinds of emails are used to nurture leads. 

The different kinds of relational emails

•  

  • Email newsletters

• • Blog emails

• • Surveys

• • Event emails

Relational emails are used to help prospects feel confident in your products by providing them with quality content that showcases what makes YOU unique.

For example, brands that share weekly or monthly newsletters are able to form a relationship with subscribers and pique their interests through their offerings without being overly salesy.

This is also a great way to funnel traffic to your recent content offers and to help keep your brand top of mind.

Part 6 | Create Your Email Copy

Email is one of the most important tools in a marketer’s toolbox. 

It’s a direct line to your target audience, and when used correctly, it can be highly effective. 

 Here are four tips for writing email copy that converts:

1. Always keep your audience in mind: 

•  

  • Who are you writing to? 

• • What do they want or need to hear from you? 

• • What questions do they have?

• • What are their pain points?

2. Write an attention-grabbing strong subject line:

The subject line is one of the most important parts of any email. If it doesn’t speak to your readers, they most likely won’t open your email!

The key here is to create a subject line that grabs their attention and makes them want to open your email and read its contents. 

3. Keep it short and sweet: 

In an age of consistent information overload, email readers are looking for something quick and easy to digest. 

Keep your email copy concise and clear, and make sure each email has a purpose.

4. Call to action 

Add a clear call to action in your email that directs your subscribers to take the action you desire.

For example, if your email is informing them about a new promotion you have, add a call to action that leads them to that promotion on your website.

For example, Room Fifty is promoting their 10th season. They ae letting their subscribers know that they have found new artists sharing their names and letting them know there are new prinits out. 

There is a unique call to action “Shop Season 10 Now” and they lets subscribers know that they will receive 10% off using a discount code for a short period of time.

This creates a sense of urgency to respond to the call to action within their given time frame. 

Part 7 |  Shopify Email Marketing Tools

As your business grows and develops, you’ll find that email marketing is an effective way to communicate with customers and email marketing tools enhance that process. 

1. ActiveCampaign

ActiveCampaign is an email marketing, automation and CRM app for Shopify to create great customer experiences.

Now, how can it help your store?

People who buy things on Shopify can get high-response emails quickly if they connect ActiveCampaign to their account on the store. Using ActiveCampaign, you can set up your Shopify store to do things like creating personalized emails, sending emails, and segmenting customer types. 

It’s easy to send information about customer purchases and cart abandonment from your Shopify store to ActiveCampaign when you link them to each other.

When a customer adds things to their shopping cart but then departs before completing their purchase, this is known as an abandoned cart situation. This move may result in a large number of missed sales and a negative impact on your bottom line.

You may automatically email contacts who have abandoned their carts using ActiveCampaign’s Abandoned Cart feature for Deep Data integrations to urge them to finish their transaction. This will aid in the expansion of your sales as well as your general company.

2. Mailchimp

Mailchimp is an email marketing and automation platform.

Businesses are able to use the power of marketing and purchase data together when they link Mailchimp and Shopify directly. They can then use that information to help customers make more sales by figuring out when they are most likely to buy, reach more people at the right time in their buying process, and drive conversions. This direct integration is being made available by Mailchimp so that small businesses can connect to their customers.

Using Mailchimp’s customer relationship management (CRM) features, you can send personalized, relevant content that can help you sell more. You can create custom or pre-made groups for new subscribers, reward repeat customers, send new subscribers a welcome, and more.

3. ConvertKit

ConvertKit is an email delivery and email marketing tool.

 

Using the ConvertKit platform, you can make your signup forms and landing pages unique, and you can send attention-grabbing emails to your customers. This can help you get more traffic and sales to your store.

In email marketing, email automation, landing pages, and commerce, the ConvertKit platform is very good at what it does best. The tool lets you make your own landing pages, personalize your content, and automate your sales channels. There’s a lot you can do to make more money and build a bigger customer base.

4. Omnisend 

Omnisend is an email and SMS marketing app for Shopify. 

Omnisend has everything you need to keep your Shopify customers interested and coming back to your store.

Omnisend has a lot of automated email features. The most popular ones are the automation workflows that feature pre-built email and SMS channels that allow you to build up cart abandonment, welcome, purchase & shipment confirmation, and other processes in minutes.

This platform can help you build your email list with popups, landing pages, sign up boxes, and a lot more.

5. Drip

Drip is an email and SMS marketing tool for ecommerce. 

Some of the critical data you’ve gathered via your store is immediately transferred to your Drip account when you link your Shopify shop to Drip.

This imported data includes your:

•  

  • Customer list

• • History of the order

Also, Drip does the following things for you:

•  

  • It syncs your Shopify customers
    •  

      • This means you will not have a hard time manually adding your customers’ profile on the platform.

• • It adds Drip JavaScript to your store’s theme
    •  

      • These JavaScript snippets exist for you to identify visitors, monitor user activity, and learn more about your clients. Your JavaScript snippet connects your Drip account to your website directly. Each Drip account comes with its own snippet, which you can copy and paste into your website.

• • For each Shopify customer, Drip creates a new profile with a unique email address that doesn’t already exist in your account.
    •  

      • This way, each customer has a unique profile and a unique email address.

• • Drip proposes a unique opt-in forms with checkboxes, customer permission questions, and double opt-in confirmations that require the consumer to confirm through email
    •  

      • They can only be added as subscribers this way. This design not only helps to screen out consumers who aren’t serious about your company, but it’s also a terrific approach to guarantee that you have loyal customers.

These are just a few of the many features you can use with Drip as you link it to your Shopify store.

6. Klaviyo

Klaviyo is an email, SMS and marketing automation tool. 

Klaviyo is one of the best tools on the market. Using this tool can help you group your customers, send out automated email flows, start your SMS marketing, and upsell and cross-sell different products and services. 

Here are few of Klaviyo’s features that you may find useful when you link it with your Shopify store:

•  

  • Full sync of historical data
    •  

      • Klaviyo will sync the latest 90 days of your Shopify data when you initially connect them with each other. This will lead you to start engaging with your most current customers. Klaviyo will begin your full historical data sync when the previous 90 days of data have been synced.

• • Smart send time
    •  

      • This is an automatic tool that learns the habits of your email subscribers and tells you just when to send future messages to optimize your open rates using Klaviyo’s custom-developed smart optimization approach.

• • Back-in-stock notification
    •  

      • When a consumer subscribes to an out-of-stock product on your site, an event called Subscribed to Back in Stock will appear on their profile. Subscribers to a back-in-stock alert will be automatically included into your flow, which is triggered by this Subscribed to Back-in-Stock event. This is done so that out-of-stock items do not result in a lost sale.

Also, you can see how much money your customers spend, how many times they purchase, what they purchase, and more by using Klaviyo. 

Part 8 | Measure the Effectiveness of Your Email Marketing Campaign

The final step in ensuring your email marketing campaign is successful is monitoring your results and making adjustments accordingly. 

This may involve some trial and error, but it’s essential to keep an eye on what’s working and what isn’t and why. 

Consumer behaviour is rapidly changing, so it’s important to stay up-to-date with the latest trends. 

Monitoring your email marketing results and making smart adjustments over time can help to ensure that your campaigns are as effective as possible.

So, how do you measure the effectiveness of your email marketing efforts? 

Look at your email marketing metrics:

•  

  • Deliverability Rate: The percentage of emails that get delivered to a person’s inbox.

•  

  • Open Rate: The percentage of emails that have been opened by the subscribers/recipients.

•  

  • Click-Through Rate (CTR): The percentage of subscribers who click on  links contained in your emails. 

•  

  • Click-to-Open Rate: This metric compares the unique clicks to unique opens.

•  

  • Conversion Rate: The percentage of subscribers who completed your call to action.

•  

  • Bounce Rate: The percentage of emails not delivered to recipients. 

•  

  • Unsubscribes: The percentage of subscribers who opt-out of your email list. 

•  

  • Spam: The percentage of subscribers who mark your email as spam. 

•  

  • Share/Forward Rate: The percentage of subscribers sharing or forwarding your emails.

Delivering your email campaign to the inbox is essential for success. 

Optimising your email account and taking other necessary precautions, like using an efficient ESP and collecting emails transparently, can help to ensure that your message reaches your customers. 

By focusing on retaining your current customer base, you can save time and money while still growing your business. 

Email marketing can be a powerful way to connect with your customers and increase sales with the right tools and advice. 

We’ve shared some essential tips for getting started with email marketing in this post. 

We hope you find these tips helpful and help you achieve success with your email marketing campaigns. If you’re looking for deeper knowledge about email marketing, read KAMG’s Email Marketing Content Hub.

Or you can book a call with KAMG to find out how we can make email marketing significantly easier and more effecitve for you.