Harnessing Strong Customer Relationships Through Email Marketing
Keeping existing customers engaged is just as important as bringing in new ones. One of the most used approaches for strengthening customer retention is email marketing.
Repeat purchases, increased return visits, and reduced bounce rates. Customer retention is critical to the profitability of any e-commerce business. In fact, the absence of an effective retention strategy can increase the number of disengaged customers and prompt a drop in revenue by 13%.
For e-commerce stores seeking to increase their overall revenue, focusing on retention tactics can help improve their numbers. Compared to customer acquisition, customer retention can cost less and generate more favorable returns. In reality, a slight rise in retention rates can result in a massive leap in revenues (from 25% to 95%).
One of the most used approaches for strengthening customer retention among e-commerce sites is email marketing. This is a cost-effective way to establish rapport with customers in the early stages of their purchasing journey and beyond. Re-engaging customers through email can also help deliver sustainable growth for e-commerce businesses at large.
While it might seem easy to send out random email blasts to customers, email marketing is not that simple. To achieve surefire results, there are certain pitfalls that e-commerce merchants must avoid.
For instance, most companies have a tendency to make their emails too salesy. While the agenda is to re-engage past customers and increase conversions, making all messages too sales-driven can drive customers away. Instead, the majority of email blasts should be centered around more informative and educational content that offers insights customers might find useful. Doing so makes it far easier for businesses to capture customers’ attention and gain their trust.
Another mistake that many make is invading their customers’ inboxes on a regular basis. Bombarding people with too many marketing emails can push the wrong buttons. If you don’t want to see a spike in unsubscribe rates, settle on an appropriate frequency that can support your marketing efforts without being overwhelming. Plot out the most optimal schedule to reach your customers — it also helps if you give them the liberty to choose the frequency of their emails during opt-ins.
Apart from adjusting the schedule of email blasts, improving the level of personalization can significantly improve retention rates. Emails must contain content relevant to customers. Using data analytics, businesses can customize email content to fit customers’ behavior, preferences, and spending habits. Browsing history and past purchases can help build personalized messaging. Some e-commerce businesses also build segmented mailing lists to ensure customers receive customized emails and not generic ones. In fact, doing this can increase open rates by over 40%.
Lastly, one of the most integral aspects of email marketing is assessing the results of your efforts. Evaluating the effectiveness of your initiatives should not be swept under the rug. Some skip this process, disregarding the need to audit whether their emails score high open rates or actually drive conversions. Performance assessment is a great way to determine which tactics are working and which ones need a revamp.