Email marketing has been the old reliable when it comes to marketing online. It could even be older than you! Here’s a trivia to find out:
Digital Equipment Corp sent the very first commercial email in 1978.
It’s that old that some people have been predicting its death saying, “Email is dead.”
But fast-forward to 2022, email marketing continues to reign supreme amid all the new digital marketing toys coming to the market.
Facebook, Instagram. Youtube. Tiktok. Even paid ads. They’re all useful in their own right. They come in handy to promote brand awareness and to generate leads. But when it comes to sales and conversions, no new marketing channel on the block has toppled email’s reign. No wonder brands and businesses across industries use it to generate sales and scale their business.
What companies use email marketing? From coaching programs like those of Scott Laidler, Ramit Sethi, and Miguel Campaner, to big brick-and-mortar brands like Nike, Chipotle and DeBeers.
You might say:
“Okay, email marketing is effective for these big brands and service industries. But what about ecommerce stores like mine?”
Well, be inspired by some top ecommerce stores like ColourPop, Boom Cosmetics and Tease Tea. They are leveraging the power of email marketing and enjoying the following benefits. . .
Here are 8 reasons why email marketing is important for ecommerce:
Ubiquitous Usage: Play where people play
Unless your target market lives in a cave, email marketing for your ecommerce website is essential.
Number one reason is this figure:
4.6 BILLION.
This is the forecasted number of email users all over the globe in 2025 alone according to Statista. This is more than half the forecasted population of the world.
Another important figure to note?
300 BILLION.
This is the estimated number of emails sent and received in 2020.
If your ecommerce business doesn’t have these marketing emails zipping across the email marketing ether, you’re not just lagging behind, you’re missing out a lot, and as they would often say . . .
You’re leaving money on the table, my friend.
How?
Let’s leave the money talk to the next two sections. . .
Highest ROI: Sell where you can profit the most.
Let’s not beat around the bush.
You’re an entrepreneur. It’s safe to say you’re an extremely busy person. So let’s dive right into one of the most, if not the most, important concern for any business.
Profitability.
Here’s a fact:
DMA and Litmus report that $42 is generated for every $1 spent on email marketing.
How much returns are your emails generating? Ideally, your emails should be fetching 40% of your sales. If yours isn't as much, then the good news is there may be room for improvement. Do a Klaviyo account audit to detect cracks in your email marketing and discover lost sales opportunities.
If you need help doing a Klaviyo account audit, you may want to schedule a FREE audit which I offer to select ecommerce stores. Join the list here.
What’s an account audit? Click here to find out.
Now, you may wonder, how is email fetching this impressive ROI? One reason for this is Reason#3 why email marketing is important for ecommerce . . .
Cost Effective: Sell more without having to spend more on ads
Customer Acquisition Cost has been soaring the past few years. Paid ads are becoming more expensive than ever.
With more advertisers crowding Facebook’s auction-based advertising platform, your ad isn’t just vying for FB users’ attention, it’s also competing for ad space against other advertisers. This means higher demand for ad space, but the same ad space supply. And in Economics class, we know this translates to higher price. Thus, the soaring ads spend.
It’s much cheaper (and easier) to retain an existing customer than to acquire a new one. And this is where email marketing shines.
You don’t need to spend every time you want to generate sales. You just automate your Core Flows. Based on customer behavior triggers, these emails automatically send to targeted subscribers and site browsers. Once these automations are set up, you can continue raking in sales via these channels without lifting a finger or increasing ad spend.
The cost of setting up a campaign doesn’t dramatically increase when sending to more recipients. With emails, you don’t pay per click, unlike with paid ads, where the more people showing interest in your product, the more you spend on ads.
So with emails, you don’t just get higher conversion rates, you also incur lower marketing expenses. What’s not to like?
Control and Freedom: No one’s dictating what, how, when and why you can contact your subscribers.
Beyond monetary costs, paid ads are also giving ecommerce entrepreneurs some heartaches and heart attacks.
If you ever had your Facebook ad account suspended, you know what I mean. For those who haven’t (yet?), imagine this:
Your ecom store is on a sales roll, thanks to your ads, when suddenly the social media giant decides to suspend your ad account. With no warning and explanation.
It’s as if someone pushed the Pause button to your business. Not you, but the Facebook peeps. Imagine the lost sales opportunities.
It’s not just the crippling ad suspension that’s taking away your control. With Facebook’s stricter detailed targeting options, you can only do so much in your Facebook ads to catch the attention of your already distracted target audience.
Now the ad suspension is just a sample of the worst. I don’t want to be a doomsayer here, but what if Facebook (or any other social media channel you’re using to acquire customers) suddenly decides to halt operations?
What would that look like for your ecommerce store? What control do you have over this?
If you’re not in control, it’s because you don’t have . . .
Ownership of First-Party Data and Email List: Your Biz, Your Party
In case you don’t know it already, you don’t own your Facebook likes, friends and followers. You don’t own your Instagram and Tiktok followers. Not even your Youtube subscribers and Twitter followers. You don’t even own your Facebook page, group or any of your other social media accounts where you’ve poured so much effort to put value into.
If Facebook can easily suspend your account, it’s just as easy for them to deny you access to your customer data over at your Facebook ad account. Remember that.
But do you know what you can own? Your email list, your emails, and your first-party customer data - with all its segmentation and analytics splendor.
And since you own these digital assets, no one’s dictating what, how, when and why you can contact your subscribers (well, maybe your email marketer in the interest of selling). It’s your party, you get to call the shots.
Segmentation, Targeting, Personalization: Send the right message to the right people at the right time.
Since you have control, you can segment and do detailed targeting of your list and create more personalized emails, allowing you to send relevant messages at the right time to the right audience.
Customer Retention & Loyalty: Turn your buyers into repeat buyers & loyal customers
This targeting and personalization capability gives you a powerful tool in retaining customers. Since you understand your subscribers better, you know how to approach them and build and nurture a relationship with them. This established connection through your emails will help you sell to them again much easily.
You don’t believe me?
Then believe Oberlo.
Oberlo says:
“Each email you send can aid customer retention — even when you’re sending emails that aren’t really about retaining customers.”
Plus here’s a fact:
80% of small and medium businesses bank on email as their main customer retention channel. (Emarsys, 2018).
Longer Sales Cycle: Sell even to non-impulse buyers
Are you selling an impulse-buy product? Then paid ads must be working fine for you, except maybe for the ad spend and data control challenges mentioned earlier. But not all products can be marketed as impulse buys.
If you’re selling a relatively high-ticket product requiring a longer sales cycle, such as luxury items, then you’ll definitely benefit from email marketing. Through your emails and email sequences, you can guide your prospective customer through their buying journey towards a buying decision.
Speaking of decision . . .
It’s now your time to decide:
Your choice.
I'm not saying you totally ditch paid ads. What i'm suggesting is to complement your ads with emails.
If you're serious about scaling your ecommerce business, give some serious thought to the 8 reasons I’m giving you to leverage that email list your online store has been collecting from your buyers and turn it into a profitable asset through email marketing.
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