Free Download: Shopify Email Marketing Template

Email Marketing Guide

Email marketing is a great way to keep in touch with your customers and nurture leads. With Back in Stock’s Shopify email marketing template and Shopify email integrations, you can carefully craft any message to your customers to notify them of restocked items, upcoming sales, or to simply wish them a happy birthday. Shopify email marketing is a necessity in this new era if your business wants to reach a broader audience, promote your brand, and drive ROI and conversions. 

In this guide, you’ll learn:

Why is email marketing important?

On average, 90% of Americans over the age of 15 years old regularly use an email account. And despite an increasing belief that email is a dying form of communication, latest email usage statistics show 95% of consumers check email daily. 

Some other interesting statistics to throw at you: 

• 73% of consumers named email as their preferred marketing channel.
• 83% of consumers say email is their preferred method of brand communication. Facebook is in far second with 38%, and postal mail with 27%.
• 61.9% of email opens occurred on mobile, 29.3% in a webmail client, and 9.8% on desktop.

So, if 95% of American adults use email and 83% named email as their preferred method of brand communication, how good is email at driving conversions? 

Let’s lay it out for you, 

• 87% of B2B content marketers use email marketing for nurturing leads.
• 78% of marketers have seen an increase in email engagement over 12 months with 35% of marketers sending 3-5 emails to clients per week.
• 61% of companies generate more than 10 percent of sales from email.
• On Black Friday, email marketing drives 28% of revenue.
• Email marketing is expected to have an annual growth rate of 19.60% by 2025.

For every dollar spent on email marketing, a seller can earn up to $44, with almost 4.3% of consumers buying from these campaigns. Email marketing is a highly profitable way to reach consumers without breaking the bank.

Your brain may be fuzzy from reading all of these statistics, but hopefully this puts email marketing’s essentialness into perspective. After all, who wants 25% off their entire purchase + free shipping? Evidently, 60% of customers do. 

Basic Email Marketing Tips

Build an email list 

Want to send out emails? You’re going to need subscribers or else you’re only going to be sending emails to yourself. You’ll receive the highest ROI when you maintain a subscriber base. 

You can build this list by

• Using Back in Stock’s email marketing integration. Back in Stock will prompt your customers to elect to receive notifications when a product is available again. This is a client who wants your product and provides a perfect opportunity to encourage them to join your mailing list so, add a mailing list opt-in checkbox to this message! If they join, their contact information is automatically added to your preferred email marketing platform. 
• Adding a “subscribe to our newsletter” button on your website. Just make sure it isn’t a pop-up, because this can affect the SEO of your store. 
• Using social media. Share your signup form on all of your social media channels.

Personalize the experience 

Nearly a third of customers want a personalized experience through marketing efforts. Tailor messaging and media to reflect the desires of each of your customers. 

Not sure how to start? Entice customers to contribute information about themselves in your sign-up newsletter. Ask for their birthdate, anniversaries, favorite movies, bands, etc. The more you know about your customers, the more personalized experience you can provide. 

• Stay true to your brand and customize each marketing campaign. Create templates for all marketing efforts carried out such as customer birthdays, back in stock items, events, special sales. Each sale and email effort should reflect your brand and the tone of the effort. For example, a birthday email may have balloons, or cake. A Black Friday sale might have a color palette of neutral tones.

• Set sending frequency goals. Successful marketers send out 3-5 emails per week. Don’t sacrifice quantity over quality. Again, your clients want a tailored experience. This goes along with our next tip…

• Use the Double Opens Strategy. Send the same email to the subscribers who didn’t open your first email, but this time send it with a different subject line. 7 of 10 customers won’t open your email on the first send. Sending another email boosts open rates.
  
  Before sending another email, consider the following:
  

• Make your subject line enticing.
• Add a personalized touch.

• Wait at least 3 days before resending.
  

• Give your preheader text some TLC. Preheader text complements the subject line. It is a preview text of your email’s content. 

Here are a few examples:

Entice your customers! Add enticing language in your preheader text to supplement your subject line. 

• Calculate your own email ROI. This helpful tool allows you to calculate your return on investment. Play around with this and try numerical variations.

Examples of successful email marketing campaigns

#1 Ulta Beauty

Tactic: Personalization

Why It Works?

Ulta Beauty sends a personalized email on a client’s birthday including gifts only available during their birthday month like the ability to choose a free gift and 2X Ulta Rewards points on everything in the store. Allowing the customer to choose a free gift out of three options focuses on giving the choice to the customer. This leaves the customer feeling empowered to make a decision. 

#2 Lulus

Tactic: Subject Cliffhanger

Why It Works?

Ever watch a movie ending in a cliffhanger and find yourself scouring the internet for clues? Is this a dream or is Cobb finally back to reality? Black Panther and Spiderman were turned to dust–are they still alive?

So, what’s an easy way for customers to open your emails? 

Do you really want to know?

What’s in store…

For you?

A cliffhanger! This classic copywriting technique draws your customers in by withholding information. 

Note of caution: With anything, less is always more. Using this technique too often may vex your customers.

#3 The RealReal

Tactic: Urging subscribers to sign up for their mailing list in order to save $25 off their first purchase.

Why It Works? By prompting clients to sign up for the mailing list to receive a discount, not only is the RealReal collecting emails for future promotions, but also encouraging customers to buy from their site upon first click. This tactic also encourages customers to stay subscribed in the event another enticing discount appears.

#4 LOFT

 

 

Tactic: Personalization 

Why It Works: LOFT personalizes this message by adding the line about a customer’s existing rewards. By listing the reward amount plus the expiration date, they encourage customers to buy an item from their site during their Summer Clearance Sale.

#5 Bed, Bath, & Beyond

Tactic: Coupon bundling

Why It Works: We love a 20% off Bed, Bath & Beyond coupon. 

It’s even better when coupled with an additional 30%. BBB puts their 

famous coupon on top. It isn’t buried among their marketing materials. They want customers to see the coupon. What’s more: they are also offering a 1-day flash sale. This further encourages email conversion.

How to get started with email marketing for Shopify

1. Choose an email service provider

In order to send an email, you’ll need an email provider. Although we offer basic email marketing templates, we also offer integration so if you want a sophisticated system for organizing email list members, Back in Stock currently supports five integrations: MailChimp, Constant Contact, Campaign Monitor, Shopify Customers List, and Klaviyo. Shopify also has a few recommendations. Pick a solution that closely matches the needs of your business. As a Shopify customer, Shopify Email is already integrated with your store to create and send emails with clients. If you’re struggling to find a provider, view Shopify’s extensive list of recommendations here.

2. Build your email list

Collect, collect, collect.

Just like your grandfather may have had a stamp collection, your business needs an email collection. As soon as your business is launched and your products are ready to sell, start building up your email list. Important note: you need to ask your customers for permission to sign up for your newsletter. Encourage subscribers to “opt-in” by having an opt-in checkbox in your checkout cart.

Shopify has great tips on how to build your email list. 

3. Do it legally.

Permission isn’t only a polite gesture to ask of your customers, it’s also a legal requirement.There are laws surrounding email marketing. Familiarize yourself with the following:

CAN-SPAM. The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act. GDPR. The General Data Protection Regulation, personal data protection for residents within the EU.

CASL. Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation.

Disclaimer: This is meant to inform and shouldn’t replace the advice of a law professional.

4. Try out a Shopify email marketing template.

Everyone has writer’s block from time to time. Back in Stock now offers a template to help get you started. You can alter the email headings, text, colors, the content of the template, add a store logo, and further edit the template in HTML. 

So, let’s review what we’ve learned. 

• Email marketing is an easy, cost-effective marketing strategy with the highest ROI of any other campaign. 
• Clients want to feel special (don’t you?). The more personalized experience for the client, the better.
• Have a clear strategy for each marketing campaign. If it’s a summer sale, add graphics of beaches or pails of water! 
• Send another email to increase open rates.
• Give your preheader some TLC and make sure it flows with your subject line.
  
• Choose the right email service provider for you.
  
• Build up your email list and send away! 

Want to wish someone a quick happy birthday? Send an email!  Need to set up a meeting? Send an email! (The meeting should probably be an email anyway).