Learn how to create a Shopify email marketing strategy in 2023.

If your first response to having an eCommerce email marketing strategy for your Shopify store is,

“Email doesn’t work anymore!”

Then you need to stop whatever you are doing. Re-think your marketing strategy.

Email has an average expected ROI of 40%. And more than 80% of businesses still rely on email for customer acquisition and retention.

And so, if you don’t already have it, you first need a detailed Shopify email marketing strategy for your business. And that’s what we have focused on in this blog. You can get started with 12 simple and actionable strategies shared here.

12 eCommerce email marketing strategies for your Shopify store

Emails marketing can be used across a buyer’s online shopping journey at crucial events in the sales cycle. Let’s look at some of the key eCommerce email marketing campaigns you should be setting up.

1. Welcome emails

With an average open rate of 68.6%, you’d agree that welcome emails are essential to your marketing arsenal. When customers sign up on your Shopify store, you should be ready to make them feel welcome, engage them, and start building the foundation of your relationship. A simple welcome message via email can go a long way.

Here are some tips for your welcome emails:

• Create personalized welcome emails to bring relevance
• Automate emails by using an app such as Flits customer account page app
• Share an incentive in your welcome email so customers have a reason to come back to your site and shop more
• Have one clear call to action (CTA) in your welcome email. For example, follow on social media, sign up for a newsletter, shop more, etc.

2. Thank you email after the first purchase

You could combine your welcome email and first-purchase thank you email into one, depending on the situation. For example, if a first-time customer signs up and makes a purchase at the same time, you could combine the two emails. Sending too many emails could leave a wrong first impression and come across as spam.

Conversely, you should include a CTA to sign up for customers who make guest checkout. To make the sign-up process easier for them, enable social login. This will also help you open a new communication channel with them.

Here’s how you can optimize your thank you emails:

• Include a discount in it for the next purchase
• Personalize the message
• Include a clear CTA
• Include other information to spread awareness, for example, social media links, information about a new product launch, an upcoming sale, etc.

3. Thank you email after every purchase

While you might be sending a quick thank you over SMS or WhatsApp, it’s also important to say thank you over email. Emails tend to stay in customers’ inboxes. Messages sent on the phone give a quick recap or confirmation. But with emails, you could do so much more. For example, here are some cues:

• You can send a discount coupon
• Share links to other channels, for example, social media, WhatsApp, etc.
• Send customer service contact details to make them feel confident about their purchases
• Encourage them to join your loyalty program if they haven’t
• Introduce other features of your customer account page, such as wishlist, store credits, etc.

4. Abandoned cart email

Abandoned cart recovery marketing has a high return—they have an average open rate of 41.8% and a rate of 9.5% for internal clicks. However, abandoned cart emails have to be relevant and timely.

Here’s how you can do so:

• Personalize the emails
• Remind customers which products they have left in their carts
• Inform customers if the item is selling out fast so that they purchase it faster
• Create a drip campaign for abandoned cart recovery
• Three to four reminder emails would be ideal
• Send one email a few hours after they leave the cart
• Automate emails so that they are always timely

5. Send store credit updates and reminders

Another area you can use eCommerce email marketing strategies is for the store credit or loyalty program. You most probably have a rewards program or store credits feature on your Shopify store. But so do your competitor sites. With so many rewards programs from different brands, customers may find it hard to keep track of all the programs. That gives you an opportunity to connect with your customers via email.

Here are some ideas for creating store credit emails:

• Remind them how many store credits they have accumulated
• Motivate them to make purchases using store credits by also sharing product recommendations in the same email
• Send them an email every time they gather store credits
• Make store credit a part of your Shopify customer account page so you can add a link to guide your customers

6. Re-engagement emails

Marketers tend to lose 25% of their email list every year. And there are many reasons for it. For example, customers could forget about brands or could be on a shopping freeze. When they forget about your brand or website, it helps to remind them and bring them back.

Follow these tips to make the most of re-engagement emails:

• Segment your email list based on customer engagement levels so that you can make the emails relevant
• Create a drip campaign instead of sending a one-off email
• Add an incentive in the email to motivate customers to revisit your Shopify site
• Convince them about the value you bring to them/ other customers
• Highlight anything that’s new in your store. For example, new collections, new features on the website, etc.
• Use the FOMO tactic to pull them into your brand again
• If they do not revisit after multiple attempts, let them unsubscribe easily from the list
• Automate emails of your drip campaign by using an efficient Shopify customer account page app, for example, Flits

Example:

Source

7. Cross-selling and upselling emails

One of the best ways eCommerce email marketing strategies to increase sales is via cross-selling or upselling. And for these marketing strategies, using email has added advantages. For example, email would give you more space to share detailed information about the product if you are upselling.

You could share multiple links within the email and explain in detail the value the recommended product could add to the customer’s life, among other things. Cross-selling and upselling are also excellent ways to strengthen your relationship with customers. When customers feel like you (the brand) are interested in helping them in their shopping experience, their loyalty and trust grow.

Here are some tips to remember:

• Know your customer before upselling or cross-selling them
• Analyze data about their past purchases to make relevant recommendations—use information from your Shopify customer account page
• Map out their customer journey so you know when to upsell and cross-sell
• Think about problems, solutions, and how you could make customers’ lives better

8. Back-in-stock emails

One of the biggest reasons eCommerce businesses lose sales is when products go out of stock. Customers looking for those specific products tend to leave the site and maybe check competitor sites for the same products. And this is where email can help you bring back customers. Enable the ‘Notify Me’ button when products stock out so you have customers’ email addresses. Then, when the products are restocked, send them emails. Here are some best practices to follow:

• Personalize the emails, for example, by addressing customers with their names, reminding them that they had asked to be notified, etc.
• Add product image in the email for better recall
• Include FOMO tactics to entice customers to buy the product
• Share incentives, such as, discounts
• Create a drip campaigns with a series of 2 or 3 emails
• For a better open rate, send the email at the right time—automate emails by using an efficient customer account page app

9. Discounts and offers emails

When done well, sales emails have a 60% higher open rate. And when it comes to sending an email with discounts and offers, there are many aspects you need to get right. For example, you must keep it focused, share the offers clearly, and keep it simple yet ensure the recipients click.

Consider this: 47% of people open emails based on the subject lines. That’s just one of the many factors. Here’s how you can improve the chances of your eCommerce email marketing strategy to bring results—get emails noticed, clicked open, and end in sales.

• Personalize the email
• Keep it simple. Don’t try to squeeze in too much information in one email
• Include clear CTAs to guide them to take the next actions
• Focus on the subject line. Try A/B testing
• Create a drip campaign and send follow-up emails based on different customer responses/actions

10. Pre-order, new collection announcement emails

New product launches and new collections are the best times to push sales. However, the truth is, to make it a success, they require a lot of marketing efforts.

And an excellent method to launch collections and open pre-orders is via Shopify email marketing. With emails, you can avoid being salesy, boost personalization, and create a narrative around your value proposition in a better manner than other short-messaging platforms.

Here are some tips to follow:

• Include a countdown timer to increase anticipation
• Provide all details and information about the collection/product
• Include a good image/s of the products
• Create exclusivity via the email copy
• Share exclusive offers to particular customer segments

Example:

11. Emails for festive, annual, BFCM sales

Another profitable time for eCommerce businesses is the festive, annual, and BFCM sales. But again, the internet is full of different brands promoting their best offers. And so, you’ll have to try really hard to get noticed. That’s where eCommerce email marketing strategies help.

Here too, the email comes to help.

• Plan your email campaign in advance to get a headstart
• Create a drip campaign with a series of 4 to 5 emails
• Create emails for surprise offers that you would want to send during the sale
• Make pre-, during, and post-sale emails a part of your strategy
• Send follow-up emails to new, first-time customers after the sale is over
• Include incentives in your emails so customers continue shopping from your site

12. Emails related to sales

Once customers make a purchase, they expect brands to send them confirmations and keep them informed about their purchase status. This is where your eCommerce email marketing strategy can work best. They help ease customers’ post-purchase anxiety, keep customers informed, build trust, and provide opportunities to engage with customers.

Here’s what you can do:

• Send emails for order confirmation, payment received, order packed, order dispatched, order out for delivery, etc.
• Send delivery partner details and contact
• Combine these emails with other Shopify email marketing messages such as discount codes for next purchases, announcements of new products, upcoming sales, etc.

How to get started with your eCommerce email marketing strategies

To run successful email marketing campaigns and to automate emails, you need to be able to capture the contact details of online shoppers interacting with your brand. With online shoppers becoming wary about sharing their email address on the usual popups, brands need to innovate – and the best way we have figured is to make it naturally more useful for them to share their email address.

This is where a Shopify customer account page can come in handy. When you set up the ability for buyers to create customer account pages using their email addresses, you can tackle their concern and at the same time get the information you need for email marketing campaigns.

Explore Flits customer account page app for your Shopify store today!