With so many social media platforms to focus marketing efforts on, one might think that email marketing is on its way out. The truth is actually the opposite: email marketing is delivering higher ROIs and revenue increases than other marketing tactics. For example, 59% of people surveyed have said that marketing emails hold influence over their buying choices. Some segmented email marketing campaigns have increased revenue by as much as 760%.
Initiations & welcomes
Part of what makes email marketing so important for dropshippers is the ability to differentiate yourself and build rapport. Email marketing allows you to build a relationship with your customer. This starts with initiation emails. Your new customers will come from a few places: abandoned carts, new customers who made a purchase, or someone who signed up for your email list.
- Abandoned cart emails: offer a discount or ask for feedback – these are customers who have already shown buying interest, so this campaign is key.
- New customers who’ve made a purchase: say thank you and give them a small taste of what you stand for as a brand.
- People signing up for your newsletter: offer a freebie to get them to sign up, then send that freebie as the initiation email.
These welcome emails are your chance to introduce your potential customer to your brand. The initiation email campaign should happen with three emails spaced out over three days.
Promotional
People love discounts and sales. Decreases in price actually have the best conversion rate for marketing emails. Whenever you’re running a promotion, notify your customers! These promotions can be to announce exclusive discounts, sales, end-of-season or holiday sales, or new products. The goal is to grab your customer’s attention and get them to come back to shop with you again.
How Does Dropshipping work?
4. Prepare for launch
Once your store is up with products and key pages added, you need to prepare for launch. Before launch, you should:
- Have a marketing plan in place. How will people find your store? Will you share it on social media or use paid advertising? Make sure you know how you’ll market the store so you can have a successful launch.
- Set up email marketing and adjust templates so they’re ready to go at launch. You should plan on having email templates centered around these themes: welcome, abandoned cart, e-receipts, order confirmation, and shipping notifications.
- Add an analytics tool, like Google Analytics, so you can track your results and adjust your marketing plan as you go.
- Step away for a day, then come back and audit everything you’ve inputted. Check for spelling, grammar, photo quality, and broken links.
- Test everything – go through the motions for ordering, refunds, cancellations, and fulfilling orders. By testingnow, you can avoid potential customer complaints down the line. Make sure tax and shipping calculate correctly. Test each page and button. You might grab a trusted friend to assist you with this process.
How to Start an eCommerce Business with Dropshipping?
Engagement & loyalty building
As dropshippers, once we’ve made a sale, it’s crucial that we stay relevant to the customer. This is where you focus on engaging with the customer and winning them back after some time. You might reach out to them because:
- It’s their birthday and you want to offer a birthday discount
- Enough time has passed and they’re likely running out of their product and need to order another
- You have a similar product to the one they already purchased in stock
- You want to welcome them back with a discount on their next purchase
Request reviews
Have you ever bought something on Amazon and gotten a review request email? That’s because reviews build credibility for your product! Wait for one to two weeks before sending this email so the buyer has time to use your product. When you send a review request email, you can incentivize the customer by entering them into a giveaway or offering a small discount on their next purchase. You can even request that they share photos of the product.
Having a strong email marketing strategy is key for dropshippers to differentiate their business and build rapport with customers. When done correctly, you can draw customers back for their abandoned carts, restocks, and new product launches. As with most marketing strategies, the key is consistency. So, set your intentions, use a scheduler to keep you on track, and keep score on your results.
Written by
Jane Hardt
June, 13th June
