What is email marketing?

Email marketing is a digital strategy where brands and businesses build relationships with customers and generate sales through email.

Email marketing explained

In e-commerce, email marketing is an essential tool that helps brands and retailers establish a connection and consistent communication with consumers and, when done right, turn them into loyal customers. Email campaigns can go out anytime and in any situation to any potential or existing customer. The content of these emails can be about any topic or goal.

Merchants can send emails related to the customers’ latest transactions or activities in the online store and other sales channels—cart abandonment, order confirmation and receipt, and shipment updates. They can also implement promotional messages that updates shoppers of the shop’s latest deals, sale events, and product announcements.

Email marketing also allows e-commerce businesses to deliver relevant content that are non-transactional and non-promotional in nature. Owners can educate customers about their products, share their brand’s story, and provide general updates about the company through regular newsletters. They can also send occasion-related check-ins like birthday greetings and holiday reminders. While not directly sales-driving activities, these type of emails help businesses stay in contact and build closer connections with customers.

This strategy aims to attract new shoppers, keep current customers, and bring back old visitors. Ultimately, its goal is to gain revenue from the target consumers by interacting with them through emails. For small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), email continues to be the main driver of growth. According to data from marketing software company Emarsys, 81% and 80% of SMBs rely on email as their primary channel for acquisition and retention, respectively.

Accelerate sales through email campaigns

Businesses can find value in adopting this approach into their e-commerce strategy. Data Marketing Association’s (DMA) 2019 report finds that brands can expect an average £42 return of investment (ROI) for every £1 spent on email marketing.

Here are the top reasons why email marketing campaigns are crucial for e-commerce shops:

• Direct Access to Customers – Statista forecasts that email users worldwide will be at 4.6 billion in 2025. With most consumers having an email address, they can use it to sign up on an e-commerce site to complete an order or subscribe to newsletters. Brand owners then have a direct channel to these consumers, whom they can reach out to personally and regularly.
• Consistent conversions – E-commerce personalization tool Barilliance discovered in their recent study that 17.75% of clicked emails result in a purchase. Meanwhile, sending abandoned cart emails can help bring back busy and distracted visitors. It helps save more carts and recover more revenue automatically.
• 24/7 Marketing and Sales – By using automated emails, businesses can drive sales any time of the day. New visitors can get welcome email campaigns, while first-time buyers can receive upselling/cross-selling messages. Owners can send regular newsletters and promotional emails to existing customers to create consistent revenue for the online store.
• Launch new products and promotions – Email is a perfect place to share updates (i.e. a new product or an upcoming promo) with customers. Moreover, merchants can deliver customized emails to each shopper by adding their names to the email greeting or providing a tailored catalog based on their activities.
• Keep customers engaged – Per the Content Marketing Institute, nearly 9 out of every 10 marketers use email to disseminate content. And it is for a good reason. Even if the email doesn’t result in an acquisition of new customers or conversion into sales, it can engage users in various ways and build relationships with them. It helps brands remain top of mind of consumers.

Cafe24 streamlines email marketing for merchants

Cafe24 helps entrepreneurs succeed in selling online by providing a one-stop e-commerce platform. Included in its host of services and support given to merchants are cutting-edge marketing automation solutions for websites, social media, text, and of course, emails.

The Cafe24 Store offers several tools that automate these marketing efforts. One of the apps in the store is Poptin, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) tool that seamlessly converts website traffic into email subscribers, leads, and then sales. Merchants can create email forms to generate more signups from the online storefront.

Using big data and artificial intelligence (AI), TasOn analyzes customer interest and behavior to create automated and personalized emails to consumers. The tool can send emails to customers that leave items in their cart or when they visit from a specific channel. It also offers discounts, vouchers, or coupons for special sales that are customized for each shopper.

These email marketing automation apps allow for easy and direct integration with the brand’s website thanks to Cafe24’s hyperconnected ecosystem. They help merchants save time and capital by having optimized marketing processes, ultimately allowing them to succeed in any market, even so, globally.