Do most people ignore your eCommerce emails?
As eCommerce business owners, you know how important it is to have successful email campaigns that help you be top of mind with your prospects and customers. But it can be pretty frustrating to spend all those hours developing content and campaigns only to have the email fall flat. Open rates can dive into the single-digits and click-through rates can fall to mere fractions of a percent.
So if this happens, what do you do?
First of all, breathe. Usually, if you spend a few minutes looking at your email data you can identify the problems pretty easily.
Determine Which Problem to Tackle First
First, take a look at where your leads are coming from. The best way to do this is to tag the leads with the source. The source can be Instagram, Facebook, etc. This will give you the ability to measure the quality of each lead. You want to make sure you have a way of determining the quality of a lead so you can invest (or not!) in those sources in the future.
Also, if the lead has been on your list for over a year, you can segment your list by when the lead first became active:
Under 6 months
6 months to 1 year
Over 1 year
It is normal for open and click-through rates to be highest for the "Under 6 Month" category, and lowest for those who have been on your list for over a year. However, there should not be a significant drop-off as people move from one category to the next.
Look for irregularities in the data
Here are a few things I look for when I'm troubleshooting an eCommerce client's campaign:
Is there a substantial drop-off after the previous email?
If the first email that a recipient gets typically achieves a 32% open rate, but the second has a 8% open rate, then the issue is not with the list source or the header data (subject line, "From" address, etc.) it is with the content of the email campaign itself. If the drop-off is 34% to 28%, then one might consider that to be normal.Has there been any change in frequency?
As eCommerce owners, you are pulled in all different directions, and one of the first things that can get overlooked is email campaigns. Unfortunately, not being in the inbox in the email marketing world does NOT make your lists’ hearts grow fonder. In fact, an extended period of non-contact is one of the leading causes of unsubscribes.Is your content relevant to the target?
It is a good idea to poll your list occasionally to ensure the content is still pertinent to your prospects and customers.
Re-Engage Your Inactive Segment
Evaluate how you communicate with those who have subscribed to your list. Remember that the permission your subscribers have given you to send emails to them is not permanent; they can opt-out at any time if they lose trust or interest in your eCommerce products.
More often than not, however, people don't actually unsubscribe. They simply stop opening your emails. I call these "inactive" subscribers. They are getting your emails, but since they are "inactive" they won’t open or click. Although there's no way to know for sure, I would guess that your "inactive" rate is probably about 4 to 5 times the size of your unsubscribe rate. So your unsubscribe rate can be an indicator of your "inactive" rate.
It is vital to understand what your subscribers think of your content. Again, surveys are a great way to get feedback on your emails. You can also provide a link in each email campaign that asks for general feedback. Very few people will take the time to provide feedback on a feedback form, but you can bet that those who do represent a large chunk of your audience. Take their feedback seriously, and learn from it.
Here are 5 Steps to Improve your eCommerce email performance
Following are five steps that have always lifted the performance of my campaigns.
Start communicating with them immediately - From the moment someone signs up for your emails, have your welcome series automation set up. If you take weeks to send something to them, then they won't remember signing up and they will mark your emails as spam.
Make it personal and entertaining - Email marketing is a one-to-one communication, it is almost always best to keep the tone personal and entertaining. For example, tell the story of why you started your eCommerce business in your welcome series. Let people get to "know" you, and feel like an "insider" with your company. This increases their personal equity in your brand.
Make all emails "high-value" - Every time you send an email it should be valuable to the recipient, not just to you. Straight promotional emails with no value can lower open rates for future emails. Train your list to view each email you send as a valuable piece of information they can’t afford to miss.
Test different types of content and promotions - You can send blogs, how to use your product guides and user-generated content in your emails. You can also send different types of offers such as Buy 1 Get 1, free shipping, and 24 hour only sales. Test these out and see what works best.
Test different designs - For example, split your list and send half your recipients a branded email with images and the other half a "text-looking" email. You can also test fewer images vs. more images, colors, and multiple CTAs.
Don’t Give Up!
All emails, at one point or another, will experience a decrease in their response rates. If this happens to you, it is important to identify the problems and fix them before you lose too much of your list to unsubscribes and list fatigue.
They say that variety is the spice of life, and it can "wake up" an inactive list by adding some excitement. Make sure each communication you send is high value and provides something new.
And keep the lines of communication open so your subscribers can help you improve the quality of your content.