If you are already using “Set and Forget” Email Automations, you need to know that there are some other very effective strategies along with them.
One of the reasons having a solid email marketing automation strategy in place is valuable for online businesses is that much of the top revenue is added without additional work. After initial setup everything runs by itself and just brings money.
You do need to optimize them over time – however after implementing the main 10-20 automations they’ll keep delivering you sales every day… forever.
But automations are only half the story when it comes to maximizing e-commerce revenue from email.
If you want to see 25 – 30%, or more, of your total total sales coming from email each month then you’ll likely need more than set and forget automations, powerful though they may be.
Email automations will often get you a 10-15% revenue increase, but to start pushing that to 25% mark you’ll need more tactics in your arsenal.
How to get to the next Level of email marketing?
The next level of email marketing implies two main parts:
- email marketing automations
- intelligent manual campaigns
The manual part is equally important with the automations. It’s easy to get lazy or just forgot that in addition with all email marketing automations, your email list is massively valuable when sending manually on regular basis.
An extra 10 to 15% in additional revenue is available on the table, on top of the top 15% you get from automations. Manual campaigns depend on each business, industry, target niche and so on.
For some businesses manual campaigns will be sent once per week or once per month. But for some it might work sending 2 or 3 per week, where most online stores fall, for their most engaged subscribers. Don’t send those emails to unengaged subscribers, it’s important !
The easiest way to go is to run promotions every time, hoping that people will bite and buy something and so on. But running promotions all the day is something that everybody is doing and has 2 negative effects:
- your email list will shrink, customers will unsubscribe because of hard-selling techniques and promos
- effectiveness is going to lose over time
What’s the solution for smart email marketing?
Maintaining a regular contact with the most engages subscribers using a balance of promotions, value-based emails, social-proof and branding.
Engaged subscribers want to hear from you, but don’t push the limit by constantly hard-selling them. This is the best way if you’re in a niche market, or in a market where all of your customers and prospects have something in common.
Ideas you can start using now
Here are some emails you can send regularly which are not just straight up discounts…
1. New products or exclusive items
Pretty self explanatory. Tell your customers about your new stuff first.
2. Presales
New product on the market? Tell everybody about release date, pre-sale registration or whatever else you’re doing. You might link the newsletter with a landing page to collect extra information about subscribers.
3. Blog posts
Publishing good blog content is helping SEO and usually brings extra free traffic on the long run. Is also going to help big your emailing. If you have something like a few new posts monthly, that’s a good reason to send them in the last week of the month. Just include title, a short introduction paragraph and maybe an image.
Lots of sales come from these emails, if you promote valuable blog posts that include links to your products or our product recommendations widgets.
4. Weekly Tip, Thought or Industry News
Something short and valuable to your market. For example if you sell beverages, maybe the new alcohol limit was increase. Or for food shops you might want to send recipes. A bite-sized piece of value or entertainment will give your customers the attention and value they are looking for and make you different from the competition.
5. Latest Customer Reviews/Photos
Hopefully you are already collecting customer reviews. Keep a note of the best reviews, and any pictures they send based on your orders. These are great to send out as lighthearted emails.
6. Product of the week/month
If you’re already using Vibetrace, this one can be automated. (actually you have 4 algorithms here: most viewed, most purchased, most wishlisted, most added to cart). But what about a product that you are proud of and want to show off?
If you want to run weekly promos, this is a good way to do it without discounting an entire category or everything. Give only this product with a discount or free shipping.
7. Company/Brand news
Is there anything noteworthy happening in your world in the last time? Maybe you’ve just made a new hire, you’re proud of a new accomplishment in number of orders/traffic, or you’ve just moved to a new office. Share with your customers! This also connects your business with them on a more personal level.
8. Seasonal events and key dates
Things like Mother’s/Children day which repeat every year or some once in a life-time events (solar eclipse!) can bring back some of the website visitors. It’s worth connecting the events with your business and your products (maybe you sell some crayons to draw a solar eclipse!).
Combination of all of the above
Of course it’s indicated that you mix campaign types and do whatever fits your case better. For example, let your subscribers know about an awesome new blog post you’ve just published, plus include a dynamic product block with bestsellers so far this month.
There are tons of potential variations, and you can be as aggressive or passive as you like in terms of how often you’re emailing, and what you’re actually sending. But always remember that sending too many emails is similar to spamming.
These are just a few ideas. There are lots more you can find.
Final thoughts
As you’re putting together individual emails like the ones above, it’s possible to feel that all the work is useless. Especially with the non-sales emails, that run counter to the business.
You may be thinking: “What’s the point of sending my blog posts/new employees information to my list?” But… if you’re consistent, then the cumulative effect does build up into a consistent revenue stream.
It’s reliable, you can control it, it’s cheap and it grows together with your list size.
