Nine Email Marketing Campaigns to Drive E-Commerce Sales

While e-commerce businesses can engage their customers across increasing channels, email is undoubtedly the most direct and engaging. Statistics show that, when appropriately used, e-commerce email marketing delivers an impressive $36 for every $1 spent!

As customer acquisition costs have increased an estimated 60%, email marketing has proven to be one of the most cost-effective channels while returning the highest ROI. Here are nine email marketing campaign ideas to help drive e-commerce sales: 

1. Welcome emails 
A welcome email is the first interaction between your business and a new email subscriber and sets the tone of a customer’s relationship with your brand. The primary objective of a welcome email is to confirm the recipient’s sign-up, set expectations on what a consumer can expect in emails, share more details about your brand, and seek additional information about their interest in the brand. When strategized well, welcome emails have an average open rate of 30.69%, a 202% lift over usual email campaigns! While welcome emails should not be used to sell directly, including a special offer or discount is highly encouraged.

2. Promotional emails
Promotional emails are email marketing campaigns designed to promote products a customer has shown interest in. These may include emails highlighting new products or collections, a best-seller, an ongoing discount or deal, creating hype around an upcoming sale, or announcing a flash sale. Promotional emails are also effective for flash sales. Because they are more time-sensitive, these emails get your message noticed almost instantly and help drive traffic to your online store in no time. 

3. Browse abandonment and cart abandonment emails 
Believe it or not, e-commerce stores face an average cart abandonment rate of 69.99%, making these emails incredibly important! Browse abandonment emails are triggered when a store visitor browses your website, explores collections and products, and adds items to their wish list without adding them to their cart. These emails help attract online shoppers by reminding them of the items they liked, recommending similar products, or highlighting a deal that would boost their purchase intent. Cart abandonment emails are designed to entice shoppers who added products to the cart to revisit your e-commerce store and complete their purchase. These emails contain content that reminds them of the product they left behind, gives them reasons to buy it (social proof, popularity), and may include a special discount to motivate the customer to buy. 

4. Transactional emails 
Transactional emails are informative messages to customers that typically include confirmation of an order they have placed, a copy of their payment receipt, an expected delivery date, order delays, shipping notifications, or even refund/ return/ exchange/ cancellation notifications. Based on a study by HBR, more than 50% of customers experience post-purchase anxiety, so transactional emails are the perfect way to ease their minds and keep them excited about their purchase and experience with your brand.

5. Birthday emails 
In addition to being an effective sales tool, email marketing also offers e-commerce business owners the opportunity to connect and engage with customers on a more personal level. Birthday emails are a great way to show you care! Birthday emails should help celebrate the customer’s special day and “gift” them a special offer,  discount, promo, or gift for any purchases made within 30 days of their birthday. These automated emails may be scheduled to be delivered a few days before the customer’s birthday as a fun way to honor them and encourage them to do something special for themselves.

6. Holiday emails 
Holiday emails are also a great way to keep customers and subscribers engaged and celebrate holidays like Valentine’s, Easter, Christmas, New Year, and other occasions with you and your brand. You may even consider segmenting your email list based on location demographics so your holiday content is more relevant to them. As with other email strategies, including a special discount, offer, promo, or gift with purchase may increase your engagement and drive sales.

7. Upsell and cross-sell emails 
When personalized to match a customer’s interest or intent to purchase, e-commerce email marketing yields incredible results! Especially when it comes to upselling and cross-selling. By mining customer data for customer’s account pages, wish lists, previous purchases, support requests, and similar activities, e-commerce brands can create strategies to promote post-purchase engagement. Upsell emails focus on introducing customers to an upgraded version of what they have bought before. Using their previous purchase history, brands can offer customers an enhanced online shopping experience and introduce them to a product of higher value. Cross-sell emails may introduce customers to products similar to or complement their purchase. These emails are intended to help customers find complementary products, get them to explore more items in your store, and address their product needs. Upsell and cross-sell emails help increase brand awareness and promote customer loyalty.

8. Back-in-stock or restock emails 
While selling out of stock is a sign of success, it also puts e-commerce brands at risk of losing potential sales. To help mitigate this risk, allow customers to subscribe to restock notifications and automate emails to send them as soon as you replenish. By sending back in-stock or restock emails, you can show your dedication to customer service and close the sale!

9. Solicit customer feedback
Obtaining customer insights can be invaluable to e-commerce success, so consider email marketing campaigns! Product review request emails are an excellent way to learn how customers feel about their purchases and your products. Typically sent a few days after confirmed delivery, these emails can help you gauge how customers feel about product-specific features, including quality, sizing, or fit. Customer feedback emails are also effective as they help you better understand how customers think about your brand, online shopping experience, and products.

We wish you all the best in your email marketing and e-commerce business!