eCommerce email marketing has been a winner for our clients. Here’s a quick update about trends in 2017 and some best practices.
eCommerce Email Marketing Trends 2017
Litmus Marketing did some research in January about upcoming trends. Their results are thought provoking. There seem to be a lot of smaller trends moving email marketing forward, but no mega trends.
I’d group both interactive emails (hamburger menus, image sliders, quizzes, reviews, search bars) and HTML 5 as improvements in the customer experience. For our clients using email marketing (should be about 100%, but isn’t), we urge you to take some time to explore ways to deliver more info, in the email itself, using newer tech. Email marketing has a very high ROI, these new tools will continue to keep it productive and make your messages stand out.
Big Data personalization uses order history and contact info to send more relevant messages to the customer. This isn’t new at all, our Email Marketing plugin for AbleCommerce has done it for years. Personalization is a great way to deliver uber relevant messages to your customers. For example, if you sell clothing, target a special email selling wool socks to customers in states hit by the first winter snow storm.
Personalization and automation can be combined. A great example is our partner, emarsys. They pull your stores order history into their database. Using that data, distinct groups can be identified, buying patterns discovered, and targeted, automated campaigns created.
When to Send Email Marketing
Another interesting trend – the improvement in open rates, clicks and conversions for email sent late in the week. The consensus has been to send email midweek. However, it could be a case of everyone piling on at the same time. Consumers are busy in the middle of the week. The flood of email marketing messages may be leading customers to more quickly delete those emails.
A couple quick conclusions: First, if you’re selling to firms, Friday might be the best day for your blast. Second, if you’ve got an ecommerce site, test Saturday for your email blast.
In Conclusion
Business sometimes seems like a game of inches. In addition, you need to keep trying new ideas to gain small gains. Try spicing up your email messages with newer tech like HTML 5. You should also test the days and times you send your email marketing blasts out.
Finally, looking for more digital marketing expertise? Contact us! We can probably help you grow your sales.