Use Email and SMS in Ecommerce and Win Big

Ecommerce businesses rely heavily on email and text messages to sell their products and services. Most of them send out newsletters and other forms of marketing communication on a daily basis. If you want to launch an ecommerce business, then you’ll need your own secret weapon to drive sales.

You don’t want to send out information that is redundant, boring or irrelevant, so we’ve created a guide on how to use email and text messages to lock down sales and boost productivity in your ecommerce business. Keep reading for our best ecommerce tips!

• Reuse Existing Content for Emails
• Try Different Types of Content
• Win Big with SMS Marketing
• Turn to Automation

Reuse Existing Content for Emails

Use content marketing to build trust and brand awareness, and attract customers to your brand. This is especially useful for businesses that are trying to sell to customers who might be wary of a new brand or reluctant to try something new.

If you’re planning an email campaign, start with a long-form piece of content (like a blog or an ebook). You can then dissect that blog post or a guide into a series of emails.

Not only are you saving time and working more efficiently, but you’re also getting an opportunity to test that piece of content before distributing it wider. You’ll see which PDFs and blogs perform well, and that will be a great indicator of which content should become an email sequence.

Here are some more ideas for your emails specifically:

– Offer a freebie. A free sample or a free coupon could really help you get more subscribers.

– Give away a free template. Similar to the first point, people love free stuff (as long as it’s useful and valuable).

– Be consistent. Don’t confuse your audience by sending a newsletter once a month and bombarding them with daily updates a month later. Pick a schedule and stick to it. Respect the fact that people shared their email address with you.

– Personalize your content. When possible, personalize the subject line and the content of your emails and notifications to appeal to your readers on a human level.

– Don’t worry too much about the open rate. With the iOS 15 update, open rates have lost their value, so pay more attention to the engagement with your emails – clickthrough rates, conversion rates, etc.

– Send out automated abandoned cart emails. You can easily set those up with email automation software and remind your customers to complete their purchases.

– Transactional emails are another great thing to consider among your email marketing campaigns.

Try Different Types of Content

Experiment with different content types (e.g., videos, photos, audio, etc.) and try to find something that works. You can also use this process to analyze what type of content performs best on your channel.

Instead of trying to force people to act, you can provide helpful tips, such as how a customer can reduce their risk when buying a product.

Try these ideas too:

– Make sure your photos are nice and clear. That’s a must for any kind of content.

– Enthusiasm is infectious. So make sure you’re super excited about what you’re sharing with your customers.

– Write out a compelling lead magnet (a method of capture) to encourage conversions. For example, a catchphrase like “save $30” will pull in a flood of traffic.

– Social media is full of helpful experts that can help you create content quickly. So make sure to connect with them and gain their support.

– Cart abandonment notifications are also great. Customers will appreciate the reminder and are likely to go back to your site to complete their purchase.

– Always have a single and clear call to action. Don’t try to communicate too many things at once.

Whatever you do, always ask yourself one question: why would a customer pay attention to my content? If you can answer this question, then you’re on the right path.

Win Big with SMS Marketing

SMS marketing campaigns are another way to communicate with your customers. And it’s often underutilized.

Ecommerce SMS marketing can be as simple as sending a coupon code for 10% off, but everything you do needs to tie into the bigger strategy. Anyone can send texts, but smart marketers make it a winning SMS marketing strategy.

A great way of utilizing SMS is sending your customers periodic offers for products that may interest them (based on their purchase and browsing history). AI can really come in handy here – collecting that data and predicting their behavior is key here.

Try cross-selling here too. Once again, AI can generate product recommendations and SMS automation software can send out those texts to your SMS subscribers. All you need to do is set them up and watch your customers turn into repeat buyers over and over again.

Make sure that you provide great customer service here. Even though SMS messages can be automatic, you need to reply promptly and be helpful. Customer support is extremely important to modern buyers, so don’t drop the ball here.

Turn to Automation

Of course, you can’t do all of this yourself and get great results. It’s simply not scalable. And that’s where marketing automation comes to the rescue.

Setting up an email and an SMS sequence at the beginning of your campaign is an incredible time-saving opportunity that will allow you to focus on other tasks. See what automation capabilities Maropost can offer and start winning big with email & SMS today!