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Email marketing is one of the most important parts of making sales (especially repeat sales) in your e-commerce business.
Sending regular – and interesting – emails keeps you in front of your ideal and interested audience, helping you stand out in their mind when they’re looking for what you offer…
Each person on your list chose to sign up for a reason so don’t just leave them on your list until your next newsletter – they’ll have forgotten all about you by then!
For help with email marketing have a read of my blog pos that lays out several proven email marketing tips for e-commerce businesses.
Email welcome series are designed to introduce new subscribers to the different aspects of your brand, helping them get to know your business and recognise who you are and what you do.
So before you get started, keep the following in mind…
Welcome email top tips for product businesses:
To keep your emails focused, don’t make them too long and try to avoid having more than one type of CTA in each email – otherwise it’s just overwhelming.
Asking your subscribers to learn something, shop now AND follow you on social media will most likely result in people not knowing where to click! This means they probably won’t click on anything at all, so the email ends up being a waste of time.
It’s also important to send your emails in the best order possible. More people will see the first email in the sequence than will see the last, as you will inevitably have some people drop off the list. For that reason, you need to ensure the most important info gets included first. But with that in mind, you don’t want to be all ‘sell sell sell’ either. It’s a balance!
Here is an example for a 4-5 email welcome sequence. You could have a couple more or less emails, if it suits your business better.
1. Welcome + sign-up reward
2. Social media follow invite
3. Product benefit focus
4. Customer reviews
5. Optional: Your discount expires now
Let’s look at them in more detail…
1. Welcome + sign-up reward
If you offered a discount code or PDF guide/resource download then this should be included in this email. Even if it could be accessed from the thank you page, you’ll need to include it again via email as people might have clicked away before getting it.
It’s always a good idea to give your subscriber a huge ‘Welcome!’ and have a short paragraph on your brand values or startup story.
You should also include a sentence or two here to say how pleased you are that they’ve signed up.
Another thing to do is explain that you’d like to introduce them to your business and to expect 3-4 more emails over the next few days (or however long your sequence will take) – that way they’ll be expecting them!
You can also let them know how many emails you normally send to your list. So if it’s X amount each week or month, let them know. This makes people feel like they’re in control in some way.
Call-to-action idea: ‘Shop with discount’ – or ‘Download your freebie!’
2. Social media follow invite
You don’t have to send this as the second email in the sequence, but you may find you get more followers from this email when they’ve just received a freebie from you (especially if you hint that there’s more treats or surprises to come!). By also following you on social media, they know they won’t miss out!
Call-to-action idea: Follow us!
3. Product benefit focus
Here is where you could focus not so much on a product type or its features, but on the main benefit of your most popular products. For example, if you sell items which people can give as gifts then you could focus on how excited friends and family will be when given your items.
Or if you sell natural soap, you could talk about how it can help clear up bad skin – therefore allowing your customers to look better and feel more confident!
It’s also a good idea here to link a post from your blog or a shop page that’s all about this benefit – and you know how important blogging for your e-commerce store is…
But if you don’t have a suitable page, then you could link to a relevant category page instead.
It’s worth noting that with this email, you may get one or two people unsubscribe – and that’s absolutely ok.
Why? Because it means that person realised that your product isn’t for them – meaning they weren’t going to buy from you anyway. So don’t feel discouraged if you do see that happen at this point!
Call-to-action idea: Learn more
4. Customer reviews and social proof
If your subscribers were on the fence with the last email, this one will make them leap off and straight into the shopping cart!
You could choose either your bestseller or your top 3 products and include your customer’s reviews with each one. Remember to include a shop now button under each product to make it even easier for your customer.
Call-to-action idea: ‘Shop now’ for each product page
5. Your discount expires now (optional)
This last one is to try and get the rest of those fence-sitting subscribers to buy right now (before they forget, again) as most people don’t like to miss out on a bargain – creating a sense of urgency with a time limit is a great way to do this.
Call-to-action idea: Don’t miss out – shop now!
This is up to you but in general, I recommend every 2 or 3 days between each email – just remember to let your new subscriber know what to expect. But depending on what you sell you may want to have longer in between. See below for more info!
Yes, you can absolutely change the length and the order of the emails in the sequence – after all, you know your audience the best.
If you sell handcrafted luxury wooden bed frames, due to the high price point, for most people they might need a bit of time to consider the purchase. Meaning you may want to have a longer sequence. For example, after a few emails, a weekly email for 6 weeks would work well to gently remind your subscribers about your awesome product.
However, if you sell cute hair accessories, for example, then you may rely more on impulse purchasers as they are not having to make a huge investment. So, you might want to make your welcome sequence much shorter!
I have to admit that I have changed and edited my welcome sequence 3 times in one year!
So go ahead and set up your welcome sequence and monitor it for a few weeks or months. And if you go back to make changes – ensure you copy the sequence and edit the new version (turning off the original). That way you will still be able to see the performance stats clearly and compare the two.
Then you’ll be really confident that your subscribers are resonating with the content you are sharing whilst welcoming them into your world.
Speaking of which, I invite you to sign up to my email newsletter, packed with useful and inspiring social media and digital marketing tips!
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