From acquisition to retention: mastering email marketing for ecommerce
Posted: Tue Dec 03, 2024 10:45 am
The lifecycle of an ecommerce customer journey is like a symphony orchestra. Just as an orchestra conductor needs to understand how each instrument works and how it fits into the overall composition, marketers must also understand their customers’ journey at each stage – from acquisition to retention – and how best to use email to engage them at each stage.
>> Read more: What is and why invest in the customer journey
That’s what email marketing in the in-store customer cycle is all about: creating a personalized journey for each customer that leverages the power of data-driven insights and targeted messaging to maximize conversions and build lasting relationships.
>> Read more: CRM for e-commerce: how to choose the best platform
To help you get started with email marketing in your customer journey, let’s take a look at the different stages of the customer journey and the types of email campaigns that can be used at each stage.
Content
Acquisition: Gather customer information and drive interest
6 Best Practices for Email Marketing in the Acquisition Phase
1. Offer discounts
2. Free Shipping
3. Personalization
4. Encourage referrals
5. Use Relevant Content Marketing
6. Run contests and giveaways
Engagement: Nurturing Leads and Building Trust
Best Practices for Nurturing and Building Customer Trust
1. Use email automation
2. Send personalized product recommendations
3. Adopt a mobile-first mindset
4 Best Practices to Convert Customers and Encourage Repeat Purchases
1. Remind customers when their favorites are back in stock
2. Loyalty programs
3. VIP Experiences
4. Cross-sell and up-sell with dynamic content
Reactivation – Win-back Campaigns in Email Marketing
Conclusion
Acquisition: Gather customer information and drive interest
The acquisition phase is all about finding new customers. This is where businesses capture leads and nurture them into customers. It’s important to have a strategy in place that drives people to your website, generates interest in your products, and encourages signups for newsletters or other offers.
Email is one of the most powerful lead generation tools. It allows you to reach potential customers with highly relevant offers and content. To maximize your success, it’s important to create sales magnets that attract people to your website and generate leads. Examples of sales magnets include discounts, free shipping, or free samples when signing up for a newsletter.
>> Read more: How to generate traffic for your e-commerce
6 Best Practices for Email Marketing in the Acquisition Phase
When it comes to creating effective acquisition campaigns, there are a few important best practices you should keep in mind.
1. Offer discounts
Offering discounts is one of the most effective strategies for acquiring new leads. Discounts provide an incentive for potential customers to sign up and commit to a purchase, which can be especially useful when launching a new product or service. By offering discounts, companies can create excitement around their offerings and encourage people to take action, lowering the cost of customer acquisition.
Additionally, discounts can help build loyalty by giving existing customers an extra incentive to continue purchasing from your business over time. For example, in your welcome email, you could offer a discount code that customers can use on their next purchase.
2. Free Shipping
Studies show that customers tend to be more receptive to free shipping offers than to discounts. Offering free shipping is a great way to increase the perceived value of your product, as well as build customer trust and loyalty. Additionally, free shipping can be used as a sales tactic to encourage customers to increase their average purchase price .
3. Personalization
Everyone loves to feel special, and personalizing your email campaigns is one of the best ways to do just that. Personalized messages show customers that you know them, understand their needs, and can provide tailored solutions to meet those needs. Personalization also helps grab the attention of potential customers and makes them more likely to engage with your emails.
Some examples of email marketing personalization include:
Send birthday emails with special offers
Use customer data to make product recommendations
Offer discounts based on past purchases
Send personalized greetings with every email
By using personalization alongside other acquisition tactics, you can nurture leads and turn them into customers.
4. Encourage referrals
Offering incentives such as discounts or cash rewards to customers who refer their friends and family to your site can be an effective way to acquire new leads. However, studies show that it should be used interchangeably with price promotions. However, when this strategy was combined with price promotions, it raised questions about the quality of the products. We recommend using this acquisition strategy selectively to acquire high-quality leads and customers.
5. Use Relevant Content Marketing
Content continues to reign supreme in the world of marketing, and it’s no different when it comes to lead acquisition. Using relevant, targeted content is an effective way to generate interest in your product or service, resulting in lead capture. Additionally, content can be used to educate potential customers about the features and benefits of your offering, which will help convert leads into paying customers.
6. Run contests and giveaways
Contests and giveaways are fun and engaging ways to acquire leads. They can be used to generate buzz and interest while also giving customers an incentive to take action. Additionally, contests and giveaways are great for increasing customer engagement, as customers are more likely to share the contest/giveaway with their friends and family if they have a chance to win something.
For example, you could run a contest where customers submit photos related to your product or service for a chance to win a prize. Not only will you generate positive buzz on social media, but you’ll also get some great user-generated content in return.
By using these best practices, businesses are more likely to acquire high-quality leads and customers who will be loyal to their brand over time. Additionally, it’s important to continually monitor the success of your lead acquisition campaigns and adjust them based on your customers’ needs so that you can continue to grow your ecommerce business.
>> Read more: 5 Ways to Personalize Your Email Campaigns
Engagement: Nurturing Leads and Building Trust
After the initial acquisition, the next step in the customer journey is engagement. Engagement is all about nurturing leads and building trust so they’re more likely to buy from your business. It also includes staying in touch with existing customers and providing them with personalized content and offers.
Engagement campaigns should focus on delivering value to your customers so they understand why they should choose your product over the competition. To do this, you need to ensure that you have content that is relevant to their needs and interests. Content like blog posts and customer testimonials provide the perfect opportunity to showcase your expertise and educate potential customers on why they should choose you.
>> Read more: 4 interactive email tips to increase engagement
Best Practices for Nurturing and Building Customer Trust
Engaging with your customers through email marketing takes work. Here are five best practices to help you get the most out of your engagement campaigns:
1. Use email automation
Email automation is like a trusty tour guide on your customer journey. It helps navigate the winding paths of customer acquisition and engagement, guiding them to where they need to be. Email automation can be used to send personalized, timely emails that will help nurture leads and build trust with your customers. It can also be used to send promotional offers or discounts that will help increase sales.
For example, nurturing email automation will create personalized content tailored to the customer’s needs and interests. Blog posts can be used to educate customers about your product or service, while testimonials can be used to showcase the benefits of your product with the help of social proof. Case studies can also be effective in the B2C industry. With the help of case studies, you can provide your customers with a more structured report on how a previous customer used your product to achieve success.
2. Send personalized product recommendations
We’ve already covered how personalization can make your emails more effective, but you can also use it to provide your customers with personalized product recommendations. By collecting first-party customer data, such as their purchase history , you can make personalized product recommendations based on their interests and needs.
Software like Prax offers cross-platform attribution data . With this data, you can visualize your customers’ interests and movements across their various devices and marketing channels. Then, armed with this knowledge, you can deliver content and offers that customers are more likely to respond to positively. Using Prax opens up a wealth of data-driven insights into the customer journey that you can use to your advantage.
3. Adopt a mobile-first mindset
Start by making sure your email president email lists campaigns are optimized for mobile devices and also ensure you have a good mobile checkout flow . Then, consider adding push notifications to your campaigns to increase engagement and keep customers updated on new sales or product launches.
Retention : Customer Conversion and Incentive to Repurchase
Now that you’ve mastered the acquisition and engagement stages, it’s time to focus on retention. Retention is all about converting customers and encouraging repeat purchases. The goal of any successful email campaign should be to build trust with your customers so they want to come back again.
The retention stage tends to be overlooked by many e-commerce businesses. However, according to Harvard Business Review, increasing your customer retention rate by just 5% can translate into a dramatic jump in profits of 25% to 95%. With that said, investing time and effort into customer retention is crucial to your long-term success.
4 Best Practices to Convert Customers and Encourage Repeat Purchases
To do this, you need to create campaigns that nurture relationships and provide customers with personalized content and offers. Here are some best practices for creating effective retention campaigns:
1. Remind customers when their favorites are back in stock
When customers make a purchase and then run out of the product, they may forget about it until you remind them. Send an email when their favorite products are back in stock to encourage customers to make repeat purchases.
2. Loyalty programs
As of now, the customer loyalty management market is estimated to be worth over $5.5 billion worldwide and is expected to grow exponentially to $24 billion by 2028. Loyalty programs are an effective way to reward customers, build trust, and encourage them to buy more frequently.
Creating loyalty programs with incentives like points, discounts, and exclusive offers is a great way to reward customers and keep them coming back for more. This is a great way to convert customers and encourage repeat purchases.
3. VIP Experiences
Building on loyalty programs, VIP experiences are a great way to reward customers and make them feel special. Offer exclusive events, deals, or discounts to your most loyal customers to show them that you appreciate their loyalty. These events can be virtual or in-person, depending on the situation. With Prax, you can analyze who your best customers are in terms of both number of orders and amount spent in the store.
>> Read more: Who are VIP customers and how to reward them
4. Cross-sell and up-sell with dynamic content
Cross-selling occurs when you offer related products or services to existing customers. Up-selling occurs when you encourage customers to upgrade their current products or services to more advanced versions.
Both tactics play a vital role in the engagement stage and help increase average ticket and LTV. Leverage dynamic content to deliver personalized cross-sells and upsells relevant to each customer.
Reactivation – Win-back Campaigns in Email Marketing
Customers who are inactive or have not made a purchase for more than sixty days should not be forgotten. You should implement recovery campaigns to reactivate these customers and bring them back. With Prax, you will be able to visualize who these customers are.
Use personalized, data-driven emails to reach out to these customers and offer them an incentive to come back and buy again. For example, you could send an email with a limited-time offer or discount, free shipping, or a surprise gift.
>> Read more: What is and why invest in the customer journey
That’s what email marketing in the in-store customer cycle is all about: creating a personalized journey for each customer that leverages the power of data-driven insights and targeted messaging to maximize conversions and build lasting relationships.
>> Read more: CRM for e-commerce: how to choose the best platform
To help you get started with email marketing in your customer journey, let’s take a look at the different stages of the customer journey and the types of email campaigns that can be used at each stage.
Content
Acquisition: Gather customer information and drive interest
6 Best Practices for Email Marketing in the Acquisition Phase
1. Offer discounts
2. Free Shipping
3. Personalization
4. Encourage referrals
5. Use Relevant Content Marketing
6. Run contests and giveaways
Engagement: Nurturing Leads and Building Trust
Best Practices for Nurturing and Building Customer Trust
1. Use email automation
2. Send personalized product recommendations
3. Adopt a mobile-first mindset
4 Best Practices to Convert Customers and Encourage Repeat Purchases
1. Remind customers when their favorites are back in stock
2. Loyalty programs
3. VIP Experiences
4. Cross-sell and up-sell with dynamic content
Reactivation – Win-back Campaigns in Email Marketing
Conclusion
Acquisition: Gather customer information and drive interest
The acquisition phase is all about finding new customers. This is where businesses capture leads and nurture them into customers. It’s important to have a strategy in place that drives people to your website, generates interest in your products, and encourages signups for newsletters or other offers.
Email is one of the most powerful lead generation tools. It allows you to reach potential customers with highly relevant offers and content. To maximize your success, it’s important to create sales magnets that attract people to your website and generate leads. Examples of sales magnets include discounts, free shipping, or free samples when signing up for a newsletter.
>> Read more: How to generate traffic for your e-commerce
6 Best Practices for Email Marketing in the Acquisition Phase
When it comes to creating effective acquisition campaigns, there are a few important best practices you should keep in mind.
1. Offer discounts
Offering discounts is one of the most effective strategies for acquiring new leads. Discounts provide an incentive for potential customers to sign up and commit to a purchase, which can be especially useful when launching a new product or service. By offering discounts, companies can create excitement around their offerings and encourage people to take action, lowering the cost of customer acquisition.
Additionally, discounts can help build loyalty by giving existing customers an extra incentive to continue purchasing from your business over time. For example, in your welcome email, you could offer a discount code that customers can use on their next purchase.
2. Free Shipping
Studies show that customers tend to be more receptive to free shipping offers than to discounts. Offering free shipping is a great way to increase the perceived value of your product, as well as build customer trust and loyalty. Additionally, free shipping can be used as a sales tactic to encourage customers to increase their average purchase price .
3. Personalization
Everyone loves to feel special, and personalizing your email campaigns is one of the best ways to do just that. Personalized messages show customers that you know them, understand their needs, and can provide tailored solutions to meet those needs. Personalization also helps grab the attention of potential customers and makes them more likely to engage with your emails.
Some examples of email marketing personalization include:
Send birthday emails with special offers
Use customer data to make product recommendations
Offer discounts based on past purchases
Send personalized greetings with every email
By using personalization alongside other acquisition tactics, you can nurture leads and turn them into customers.
4. Encourage referrals
Offering incentives such as discounts or cash rewards to customers who refer their friends and family to your site can be an effective way to acquire new leads. However, studies show that it should be used interchangeably with price promotions. However, when this strategy was combined with price promotions, it raised questions about the quality of the products. We recommend using this acquisition strategy selectively to acquire high-quality leads and customers.
5. Use Relevant Content Marketing
Content continues to reign supreme in the world of marketing, and it’s no different when it comes to lead acquisition. Using relevant, targeted content is an effective way to generate interest in your product or service, resulting in lead capture. Additionally, content can be used to educate potential customers about the features and benefits of your offering, which will help convert leads into paying customers.
6. Run contests and giveaways
Contests and giveaways are fun and engaging ways to acquire leads. They can be used to generate buzz and interest while also giving customers an incentive to take action. Additionally, contests and giveaways are great for increasing customer engagement, as customers are more likely to share the contest/giveaway with their friends and family if they have a chance to win something.
For example, you could run a contest where customers submit photos related to your product or service for a chance to win a prize. Not only will you generate positive buzz on social media, but you’ll also get some great user-generated content in return.
By using these best practices, businesses are more likely to acquire high-quality leads and customers who will be loyal to their brand over time. Additionally, it’s important to continually monitor the success of your lead acquisition campaigns and adjust them based on your customers’ needs so that you can continue to grow your ecommerce business.
>> Read more: 5 Ways to Personalize Your Email Campaigns
Engagement: Nurturing Leads and Building Trust
After the initial acquisition, the next step in the customer journey is engagement. Engagement is all about nurturing leads and building trust so they’re more likely to buy from your business. It also includes staying in touch with existing customers and providing them with personalized content and offers.
Engagement campaigns should focus on delivering value to your customers so they understand why they should choose your product over the competition. To do this, you need to ensure that you have content that is relevant to their needs and interests. Content like blog posts and customer testimonials provide the perfect opportunity to showcase your expertise and educate potential customers on why they should choose you.
>> Read more: 4 interactive email tips to increase engagement
Best Practices for Nurturing and Building Customer Trust
Engaging with your customers through email marketing takes work. Here are five best practices to help you get the most out of your engagement campaigns:
1. Use email automation
Email automation is like a trusty tour guide on your customer journey. It helps navigate the winding paths of customer acquisition and engagement, guiding them to where they need to be. Email automation can be used to send personalized, timely emails that will help nurture leads and build trust with your customers. It can also be used to send promotional offers or discounts that will help increase sales.
For example, nurturing email automation will create personalized content tailored to the customer’s needs and interests. Blog posts can be used to educate customers about your product or service, while testimonials can be used to showcase the benefits of your product with the help of social proof. Case studies can also be effective in the B2C industry. With the help of case studies, you can provide your customers with a more structured report on how a previous customer used your product to achieve success.
2. Send personalized product recommendations
We’ve already covered how personalization can make your emails more effective, but you can also use it to provide your customers with personalized product recommendations. By collecting first-party customer data, such as their purchase history , you can make personalized product recommendations based on their interests and needs.
Software like Prax offers cross-platform attribution data . With this data, you can visualize your customers’ interests and movements across their various devices and marketing channels. Then, armed with this knowledge, you can deliver content and offers that customers are more likely to respond to positively. Using Prax opens up a wealth of data-driven insights into the customer journey that you can use to your advantage.
3. Adopt a mobile-first mindset
Start by making sure your email president email lists campaigns are optimized for mobile devices and also ensure you have a good mobile checkout flow . Then, consider adding push notifications to your campaigns to increase engagement and keep customers updated on new sales or product launches.
Retention : Customer Conversion and Incentive to Repurchase
Now that you’ve mastered the acquisition and engagement stages, it’s time to focus on retention. Retention is all about converting customers and encouraging repeat purchases. The goal of any successful email campaign should be to build trust with your customers so they want to come back again.
The retention stage tends to be overlooked by many e-commerce businesses. However, according to Harvard Business Review, increasing your customer retention rate by just 5% can translate into a dramatic jump in profits of 25% to 95%. With that said, investing time and effort into customer retention is crucial to your long-term success.
4 Best Practices to Convert Customers and Encourage Repeat Purchases
To do this, you need to create campaigns that nurture relationships and provide customers with personalized content and offers. Here are some best practices for creating effective retention campaigns:
1. Remind customers when their favorites are back in stock
When customers make a purchase and then run out of the product, they may forget about it until you remind them. Send an email when their favorite products are back in stock to encourage customers to make repeat purchases.
2. Loyalty programs
As of now, the customer loyalty management market is estimated to be worth over $5.5 billion worldwide and is expected to grow exponentially to $24 billion by 2028. Loyalty programs are an effective way to reward customers, build trust, and encourage them to buy more frequently.
Creating loyalty programs with incentives like points, discounts, and exclusive offers is a great way to reward customers and keep them coming back for more. This is a great way to convert customers and encourage repeat purchases.
3. VIP Experiences
Building on loyalty programs, VIP experiences are a great way to reward customers and make them feel special. Offer exclusive events, deals, or discounts to your most loyal customers to show them that you appreciate their loyalty. These events can be virtual or in-person, depending on the situation. With Prax, you can analyze who your best customers are in terms of both number of orders and amount spent in the store.
>> Read more: Who are VIP customers and how to reward them
4. Cross-sell and up-sell with dynamic content
Cross-selling occurs when you offer related products or services to existing customers. Up-selling occurs when you encourage customers to upgrade their current products or services to more advanced versions.
Both tactics play a vital role in the engagement stage and help increase average ticket and LTV. Leverage dynamic content to deliver personalized cross-sells and upsells relevant to each customer.
Reactivation – Win-back Campaigns in Email Marketing
Customers who are inactive or have not made a purchase for more than sixty days should not be forgotten. You should implement recovery campaigns to reactivate these customers and bring them back. With Prax, you will be able to visualize who these customers are.
Use personalized, data-driven emails to reach out to these customers and offer them an incentive to come back and buy again. For example, you could send an email with a limited-time offer or discount, free shipping, or a surprise gift.