Table of Contents

Chapter 1 – Why is Email Marketing Crucial for eCommerce?

Chapter 2 – How to Build Your Email List – Tips from the Pros

Chapter 3 – How to Boost Your Open Rates

Chapter 4 – How to Write Emails that Convert

Chapter 5 – How to Create and Perfect Automated Email Workflows

Chapter 6 – Conclusion

Why Email Marketing

is Crucial for

eCommerce

Why is Email Marketing Important?

Running an online business, you probably have an email list. You probably send out emails every now and then, make announcements, and send messages to customers, but with all

the other marketing outlets available do you really utilize email to its fullest potential?

Email might be an older medium, but it definitely is not outdated! It boasts high click

through rates, conversion rates, and ROI, and though it is behind organic search in terms of

conversions, as SEO becomes more competitive, email provides an excellent alternative.

The Preferred Method of Communication

As of today there are over 2.5

billion email users in the world

using a whopping 4.1 billion

email accounts!

Compare that with the world

population!

That’s right, there are more than half as many email addresses as there are people in the World!

Preferred for Marketing Too

Now to give this information an eCommerce spin – 91% of consumers use email at

least once a day, and U.S. consumers on average interact with 11 brands via email per

day (Captera)! That means that your target customer is almost certainly actively using

their email and actively engaging with brands already.

Ok, but people don’t actually like to get marketing

information to their inbox, right?

Wrong! Email is actually the preferred medium for marketing information! According to

a study conducted by Exact Target, 77% of people prefer to receive opt-in marketing

information via email.

Clearly email is a fantastic place to be marketing,

because so many people use it and so many

people like to be marketed to on it.

The King of Customization

There’s more than just convenience and familiarity behind consumer’s appreciation of email marketing – they love it because it can be customized just for them!

How so?

Well, just about every email platform that you would use for your business comes standard with list segmentation and analytics features.

By using these features you can send targeted and relevant emails to the people on your mailing list.

Here’s how…

Customization With Segmentation

Let’s say you sell sports gear and you want to send out an email promoting men’s

(American) football pads, you can go through your segmented lists in order to pick out the

right targeting options.

In this case you may want to send your email to men living in the U.S. between the ages of

14 and 30.

Another thing you could do is to send this email out with even more specific locations and

then mention the local football team for each specific location – so people living in

Philadelphia would get an email about the Eagles, people in New York would get an email

about the Giants and the Jets, and so on.

You can see how by using segmentation your emails can be far more personalized, and

would certainly be appreciated much more by your customers.

Customization With Analytics

To take the segmentation example to the next level you can dive into the analytics.

By doing this you can see what types of content your customers have interacted with most, or what products they seem to prefer.

You can then create lists based on this information in order to send even more highly targeted emails.

Customization With Segmentation

Clearly people who received highly personalized emails would prefer over less relevant advertisements.

Need a little proof? Take a look at these stats from a study done by MailChimp comparing emails sent from segmented lists with general ones:

The targeting and

personalization abilities that

email provides for you really

make it a very powerful tool.

And hey, if the people receiving

your emails are happy, then you

will definitely be happy too.

The Perfect Partner to Content Marketing

Content marketing is one of the hot topics in the wide world of marketing these days. It provides tremendous opportunities for companies to gain exposure organically and through social media while also helping to establish brands as “authorities in their field.”

All of this contributes to a brands potential for direct and indirect sales. After all, organic search still accounts for the lion’s share of all online sales.

This sounds great, what’s the problem?

Why Content Marketing Needs a Partner

Gaining organic recognition is becoming increasingly difficult as more and more businesses compete for the same space.

On top of that, even if your SEO strategies are top notch, and you’re sure you will be ranked well (because you found the secret to success by breaking into the Google vault…) it will still take a while for your content to actually rank.

This is where your mailing list can really help you out. By building an opt-in mailing list for your blog you are essentially building a guarantee that your content will in fact be seen, because the people that sign up for your list, actually do want to read your content.

This can give you a huge boost!

How Email Can Help with Content

Click through rates (CTR) from email is 3% for eCommerce stores (and varies for other industries).

That means if you send out an email to 1000 people, 30 people will be clicking through to your content, reading it, and potentially sharing it with their friends on social networks, giving your content an added boost.

Are you ready for those numbers to be blown out of the water?

How Email Can Really Help with Content

According to a study which tested the difference in CTR for emails that included social share buttons vs. those that didn’t, CTR increases by 158% when share buttons are included!

That brings your CTR up from 3% to 7.74%, meaning around 77 people will now see your content!

WOW!By utilizing email for your content marketing and combining it with your social networks you can really give your content a boost.

The Most Bang for Your Buck

After everything that we have discussed so far, it should come as no surprise that the ROI on email marketing, both in terms of customer acquisition and in terms of sales, is excellent!

Lead Generation: Email is second only to organic search in customer acquisition, accounting for about 7%.

Sales: Email has an impressive ROI of around $44.25 for every $1 spent! (iContact)

Needless to say, your money can go very far with email, and it is more than worthwhile to invest in building your email marketing.

How to Build Your

Email List

How to Build Your Email List

Now that you understand how profitable and effective email marketing is let’s move on to the first practical step in improving your email strategy – how to actually build up your mailing list.

After all, if you can’t build up your list, then you won’t be able to tap into that potential for sales.

There are a lot of great ways of accomplishing this, and in order to provide you with the best methods possible, we went to the pros for their advice.

Here’s what they had to say…

Get Emails from Social Media

“My best tip for creating an email list of value is to

cross pollinate with social. Use your social

presence and blog, to drive email sign-ups, and

vice versa. Then be sure to provide value from

both. If you simply sell, people will turn you off

and stop listening. If you create valuable content,

and not just about what you are selling, your

open rate, and click-throughs, and ultimately

your sales, will thrive.

”

Ted Rubin is the acting CMO of

Brand Innovators and author of

the book Return on

Relationship.

“Make sure to think through how you can use your social media presence to add email subscribers. Most email service providers now have plug and play apps that make it easy to capture email addresses right from Facebook application tabs. Produce some short but helpful video content, add a strong call to action to subscribe and integrate your form. Next, invest in campaigns of highly-targeted Facebook ads that drive users directly back to your tab.

”

Nate Riggs is the founder and

president of NR Media Group,

a blogger, and a teacher at

Ohio University.

Use Content to Get Emails

“Communication is essential for success. If your customers, friends and fans don't know what's happening in your world, they won't likely engage with you. Combining a list of your customers, friends and fans with a strong communications plan will help ensure your success.

The plan should not just include specials and opportunities to buy, but also share the story of your company, share the story of some of your customers, friends and fans! Give them content they'll be interested in and they'll be interested.

Using your communications to build relationships will strengthen your list as it grows. Value and authentic caring about your community will cause them to want to offer you value and authentic caring as well.

”

Lori Ruff is the Lead Social Media

Coach and Sr. Trainer for Integrated

Alliances, a social media consulting

firm with a specialty in LinkedIn.

Use Every Method at your Disposal

“My best tip for merchants to build up their email list is cover all the bases. Offer discounts to customers in exchange for joining their mailing list. Collect email addresses at checkout with an opt-in button. If the store has a physical location also, ask for email addresses at check out. If they have a Facebook page, add an app button to sign up for the store newsletter. People usually only sign up if there is some clear benefit, so use a clear CTA and state the benefit.

”

Kimberly Reynolds is the founder of QwikR.me and the co-founder of SocialNotz and Praxez. Most recently, she began working as the social media strategist for the Left Behind Movie.

“One of the best ways to build a list is through the use of incentives. You give something (a reward of some type) to get something (permission to email the person).

Incentives can include things like exclusive offers, discounts, loyalty club membership, contests, sweepstakes, rebates, product samples, and so forth.

”

Offer Incentives to Get Emails

“I've found the most effective way to build up an email list is to stay away from "Join Our Mailing List." Rather, uncover something your ideal customer would find valuable. Maybe it's a white paper, or a checklist, or discounts to your online store. To access this information or special discounts, they need to register for your mailing list. We increased our signup rate from 2-3 signups a month to several hundred with this technique.

”

Rich Brooks is the founder and president of Flyte New Media. He also founded the Marketing Agents Podcast and Agents of Change Conference.

Paul Chaney is the principal at Chaney Marketing Group and author of four books on social media.

Make Sure your Incentives are Relavant

“Provide something of irresistible value to your target audience - a lead magnet that encourages them to opt in to your email list and receive great content from you. Your lead magnet should be highly relevant and useful to your ideal customer.

”

Donna Moritz founder of SociallySorted, is a social media strategist and visual marketing expert.

“A valuable and RELEVANT opt-in giveaway is my best method for building up an email list. With EntrepreneurOnFire, my guests recommend resources on each show. I have compiled the most commonly recommended into a top 12 list, and my listeners and website visitors LOVE this PDF and sign up in droves!

”

John Lee Dumas is the founder of Entrepreneurs on Fire, a daily podcast that features interviews with some of today’s most successful entrepreneurs.

Use Pop Ups to Get Emails

“Drive people to your site and offer them something useful (free) in exchange for their email. Provide a nifty popup that's tolerable to visitors and builds your list well.

”

Kathi Kruse is an automotive social media marketing expert, blogger, consultant, author, speaker and founder of Kruse Control Inc.

“Popups work to capture emails. But if you're going to use them, don't be intrusive. Use a tool to capture leads with a customized pop-up right as your site visitors are about to exit your website. This has worked wonders for us at SteamFeed.

”

Daniel Hebert is marketing lead at InNetwork Inc. He is also the co-founder of Steamfeed.com, a resource for business owners to learn how to start marketing.

Use Relevant Pop Ups to Get Emails

“The best way to get a potential customer to sign up for your mailing list is by offering them something in return. If you want to make sure that you get only quality leads, then you have to make sure to offer something brand related --something that only someone who would buy from you again would want in the first place. A great way of doing this is by using our Coupon Pop tool. This tool pops up coupons to your site visitors which are redeemable in exchange for joining your mailing list.

”

Yariv Dror is the co-founder and CEO of StoreYa.

A Brief Review

There are a lot of different methods for growing your email list. You can use social media, content, competitions, and more!

Among the pros that we interviewed (not all were listed in this eBook) more than half suggested using incentives essentially to bribe your customers into connecting with you.

Many of them stressed the importance of offering a relevant incentive. This is crucial, because only a relevant incentive will get you relevant email addresses.

If you are looking to build your email list with relevant users we strongly suggest you check out our Coupon Pop and Exit Pop tools.

How to Boost your

Open Rates

Boosting Email Open Rates

Now that you know how to build your email list, you’re probably going to want to start sending out emails right now. We know you’re excited, but you’re going to need to wait a little first – trust us, it’ll pay off!

Before we get into writing your actual email copy, we’re going to start with something just as important – getting your email opened in the first place!

In this section we’ll discuss a few key methods for boosting your email open rates.

Open Rate Benchmark Stats

Before we get started, we’re sure many of you are wondering how your open rates stack up against the standard, so here’s a list, provided by Constant Contact, of email open rates by industry, as well as some other email marketing benchmark information.

Clear Opt-ins = Relevant List

Probably the simplest way to improve your email open rate is by filling your email lists with relevant people. Rather than trying to sneak an email subscription box into your site, build your opt-ins according to the tips from the previous section in order to ensure that you get the emails of people who are interested in your business.

This makes sense – someone who intentionally signed up for your list will probably open your emails. Poof! Just like that you boosted your email open rates.

You should clearly convey the benefits of signing up for your email list, this way there will be no surprises. Your readers will know what to expect from your emails, and by agreeing to receive them, show that they are interested. Of course you have to hold up your end of the deal, and only send emails that fit into what you promised.

Write Killer Subject Lines

Nothing can help you boost your open rates like a good subject line. This is where you can set the tone for your email, grab your potential reader’s attention, and stand out.

There are a number of different strategies for how to write killer subject lines for emails –we’re going to go over seven of them in this section.

Guide to Subject Lines

1. Be Clever: A subject line that is funny, witty, or in any way clever is definitely a break from the norm. This kind of subject line is always a great way to make your email seem a bit more personal, catch the reader’s attention, and make your email stand out.

2. Ask Questions: Relevant questions are good for piquing curiosity or for reminding

people of something they’re missing.

For example, if you sell cameras, you could ask a question like, “Do you have the gear you

need to capture the memories from your next vacation?” This is relevant to your readers

and leads into the products. It also addresses a potential need.

Guide to Subject Lines

3. Use Negative Words: This may sound counterintuitive, but using negative words can definitely get your readers to open your emails. No one wants to do anything wrong, so it’s much easier to grab someone’s attention by telling them what they might be doing wrong vs. telling them how to do it right.

4. Use Teasers: Teasers have always been amazing at grabbing people’s attention, and they can be very effective in email subject lines. You could write something like, “T-shirts for just $6. More deals inside!” or “Are you working out correctly? Read this to find out”

Guide to Subject Lines

5. List Your Information: Often when people are going through their email they are doing it quickly, and don’t necessarily have time to read what you have to say. A fantastic way of getting around that is by mentioning a numbered list in your subject line in order to show them that it will be a quick and organized email. (Top 5 lists are always very effective.)

6. Include Action Words: Action words generally lead to actions. By using action words in your subject lines or including a call to action to open the email, you are likely to increase your email open rate.

Guide to Subject Lines

7. Create Anxiety: If you include a deadline or mention limited availability in your subject line, suddenly your email switches from being just another email, to being something which is urgent and must be read now. Of course if you overuse this it will quickly lose its effect, but it can be very effective if used sparingly.

A/B Test Your Subject Lines

Now that you’re sending out emails with better subject lines you need to monitor which subject lines get you the highest open rates.

The best way to make the test objective is by A/B testing the same email with different subject lines. This will help you really see what kind of subject line your readers respond to best.

Using an email tool like MailChimp makes it super simple to A/B test your subject lines.

A/B Test Your Subject Lines

Keep in mind that even if you see that one type of subject line does better than another, you shouldn’t use just one style of subject line.

If you keep sending emails with the same type of subject line, people will get bored, and very quickly you will see the open rate fall.

The best thing for you to do is to choose the three or four best types and use them in a rotation in order to keep your readers on their feet.

Don’t Forget About the Preview Text

When you send an email, of course the subject line is the first thing that your readers will see, but if you caught their attention with a stellar subject line the very next thing they will probably look at is the email’s preview text.

Preview text, for those of you who are a bit unclear on it, is the text that can be seen after the subject line which gives a preview of the email. This text is the first line of the actual email.

How can you use this? Obviously you shouldn’t sacrifice the coherence of your email for the sake of a good preview line, but if you can set up your email in a way that you can use the first line as a preview of what’s to come in the email it can be very helpful.

Preview Text Example

Crazy Egg sends out emails for their new blog posts. The subject line is the title of the post and the preview text mentions that it is the latest post from Crazy Egg.

This enables them to use a catchy subject line while still making it clear what the content of the email is.

Personalization is Key

Generic emails don’t stand out.

They’re…well generic.

If you personalize the email that you send, then that already makes it different from the standard advertising/sales emails that your readers are probably getting every day.

There are two main ways to personalize – by using names and by segmenting lists.

Personalizing Emails With Names

Personalization by including names makes your email feel personal.

If you start an email with “Hi _____” rather than with just “Hi,” even though your reader knows that your email list is automated, it makes the email to them specifically rather than to everyone on your list.

In addition to mentioning your reader’s name, something that a lot of businesses have started doing is personalizing their own email address as well.

For example, at StoreYa, rather than sending an email from Info@StoreYa.Com we could send an email from Zack@StoreYa.com and suddenly the email is coming from a person rather than a business.

Name Personalization Example

Here’s an example of an excellent email from HubSpot

This email did a number of things very well:

It addresses the recipient personally in the subject line

It addresses the recipient personally in the preview text

It is from Andrea Francis rather than just being from HubSpot

Personalizing Emails by Segmenting Lists

You can take your personalization to the next level by segmenting your email addresses into different lists. According to MailChimp emails from segmented lists have a 14.44% higher open rate than non-segmented emails.

Ways to Use Segmented Lists

Geography: If you segment your list based on the location of your readers then you can send out emails that mention specific locations.

For example, if you have brick and mortar stores in addition to your online business, you could send emails about sales at specific stores near where your reader lives.

Gender: By segmenting for gender you can send out emails that would appeal to each gender.

For example one email might be promoting the new line of makeup that you carry, while in another you might also want to promote men’s shaving cream. Segmenting by gender means you can send out these emails and not have to worry about them not being relevant.

Ways to Use Segmented Lists

Purchase History: A great way of sending personalized emails is by setting them up based on how each specific reader has actually interacted with your company. Based on what your customers have purchased you can infer their interests. This way you can send emails that should really appeal to what they like.

Interest Level: Not everyone on your list actually reads what you send them. If you segment your lists according to open rates you can send targeted emails both to those who open a lot of emails and to those who open very few.

There are many more ways you can segment your lists. These are just a few examples to get your creative juices flowing by showing you some of the possibilities.

Advanced Segmentation Tip

Segmenting is even more effective if you use multiple groups together. Meaning, the more specific you get in your targeting the better.

For example, an email to men in New Jersey that bought hockey equipment from your store, can be much more personal than an email to just men, just people in New Jersey, or just people who bought hockey gear.

Timing Matters for Open Rates

The same way you wouldn’t have your sales team call up a potential customer at one in the morning, you shouldn’t send them an email then either.

To drive home that point, 23.63% of emails are opened within the first hour after they’re sent, so you really want to send your emails at the right time.

So what is the best time to send an email? This is a hot topic of debate.

Let’s take a look…

When is the Best Time to Send Emails?

Most marketers believe that emails should be sent on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. A study by MailChimpconfirmed that in fact Tuesday and Thursday have the highest volume of emails sent, but interestingly that same study discovered that the highest open rates were actually between 2-5 pm.

A study conducted by Experian on the other hand found Monday to be the best day to send emails. Get Response claims that the best times for getting your emails opened are between 8-9 am and 3-4 pm.

HubSpot actually discovered open rates to be highest on the weekends and in the mornings

So…When is the Best Time?

It’s hard to give a cut and dry answer for when the exact best time to send an email is. And even if there was an answer, every business would know it, and people’s inboxes would be so saturated with emails at that time and day that your email probably wouldn’t be seen anyway.

The best thing you can do is to use this information as a guide, think about your timing logically (when will your readers most likely be checking their email), and then test your results. Pretty soon you will have a good idea of which time and day gives you the best open rates.

Remember that your email list is also spread out over multiple time zones, so you should always segment your lists in order to send out at the correct time for each location.

A Brief Review

There are essentially three aspects to improving your open rates:

1. Ensuring that mostly relevant people are signing up for your mailing list

2. Catching your readers’ attention with amazing subject lines and preview text

3. Personalizing your emails – meaning personalize everything from the subject line, to the email topic, even to the timing of when you send the email.

How to Write Emails

that Convert

Beating the Average ROI

Email marketing, as you now know, is a huge sales driver for eCommerce and is highly effective. Just to review a bit, we’re talking about $44 in sales for every $1 spent effective. That’s an ROI of 4400%!

Sounds good, right?

Get this, that’s just the average -- meaning you could do much worse OR much better than that depending on how well you execute your email marketing!

Do you want to beat the average, and start bringing in the big bucks with your email marketing? Of course you do!

In this section we will explore 10 simple ways to do just that!

1. Optimize your Subject Line

We’ve already discussed how to compose the perfect subject line and preview text to get your emails opened, but now we’re going to add a layer on top of that.

You can be as creative as you want with your subject line, but there is one BIG rule, and that is -- always make sure that your subject line and your email content correspond!

Under no circumstances should you write up a crazy subject line that has nothing to do with your actual email.

The boost you see in open rates will definitely not make up for the number of people who will immediately leave your email when they see that it is not related to the subject line.

2. Establish Your Relevancy

People sign up for all kinds of lists and leave their email addresses in different places.

What does that mean?

Well, it means that even if you have someone’s email address, they may not necessarily recall when they gave it to you. (Unless of course they left it because of a Coupon Pop )

By giving a brief introduction as to how you are connected you can accomplish two things:

1st you show who you are and how you got the reader’s email address and 2nd you create a much more personal connection with your reader.

Example of Relevancy

For example, you could start your email like this: “Hi Zack, You recently participated in our photo competition on Facebook, we thought you might be interested in another competition we’re running.”

This way your email sounds more natural and gives context to what you are sending.Even if you have people who have been on your list for a while, you might want to consider adding a line of text in the footer explaining how you are connected.

KissMetrics does a nice job of this

3. Keep it Simple – Focus on One Topic

Too often eCommerce emails become over crowded due to lack of focus.

People get tens or hundreds of emails a day. They don’t have time to wade through everything you have to say (no matter how important you think it is).

For that reason you have to make your emails simple to read and understand, and easy to scan quickly. The best way of accomplishing this is by having just one focus for your email.

In that regard, you can think of your email like a landing page – there is one focus, because you want to be sure that it is absolutely clear what you want from your users.

Example of Keeping it Simple

There are plenty of other things that Shopify could have put into this email –company announcements, new deals, special offers, etc., but the point is this email focuses on one specific goal and uses very clear and direct language.

This email can be read in 20 seconds, and within 22 seconds the reader will have made a decision as to whether or not they will click on the call to action.

This is the kind of simplicity you should employ in your marketing emails.

4. Know Your Audience

A major part of keeping your content short and to the point is knowing your audience, their level of knowledge about your field, and what they’re familiarity is with your products. In addition to keeping your content concise, this will also make it more understandable and show your readers that you are on the same wave length as they are.

VS.

This email, sent by a company that runs conventions for start-ups, uses common business jargon without explaining what it means, because anyone receiving this email would be someone who would use the same jargon

Whereas this email from Microsoft Office gives some explanation for the jargon, because Microsoft is very aware that not all Microsoft users know what a terabyte is

5. Discuss Benefits NOT Features

When trying to convince someone to purchase your products or look at your content, the main thing that people are thinking about is WIFM (what’s in it for me).

So don’t waste time and space talking about all the cool new things that your products have, because that isn’t what people want to see.

Rather, spend your time showing how your product can benefit your readers and what sets your product aside.

Essentially, you should try to come up with a unique selling proposition for each email that you send.

Example of Benefits NOT Features

Obviously the new iPhone has all kinds of crazy features that the folks at Apple are probably pretty excited about

but they know that everyone else is not necessarily as interested in that

so they went straight for how they can benefit the reader – “Why you’ll love buying an iPhone from Apple.”

6. Personalize Your Emails

Even if the majority of people to choose to receive their opt-in marketing information via email, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they want to read everything they see.

One great way of making your emails more appealing is by personalizing them.

There are two ways you can personalize an email – according to the time of year and current events, or according to the readers themselves.

Personalization – Be Timely

Use current events and approaching holidays to your advantage.

As Christmas season approaches, you can start sending out emails related to buying gifts.

Here’s a great 4th of July Email

Personalization for Your Readers

Just as importantly, if not more importantly than sending timely emails, is personalizing the content of your emails to your individual reader’s. Personalized content can really make your emails stand out in the crowd.

And by the way, there is a lot of room to stand out, as only 70% of marketers are using personalized emails!

What’s more, personalized emails have seen tremendous success with 29% higher open rates and 41% higher click through rates.

Here are a few great ways to personalize your emails…

Use Your Customer’s Names

Use your customer’s names: In this day and age there is absolutely no reason whatsoever that your emails should not include a name.

Although it won’t seal the deal for you, adding in a name rather than using a generic greeting goes a long way in making your readers feel closer with your brand.

Segment Your Email Lists

We talked about email list segmentation earlier, but we can’t begin to stress how import segmenting your mailing list is!

This is an easy (somewhat) way to really personalize the messages you are sending to your customers.

To give you a brief review, you can segment your lists by geography, age, gender, purchasing history, engagement rates and more!

By doing this, and layering your lists, you can create hyper-specific lists to send extremely personalized emails.

Retarget Your Customers Via Email

By tracking your customers browsing history, shopping carts, and purchasing patterns you can get a very good idea of the kinds of things your customers like. This can help you to send much more personalized emails.

This tactic is great because it not only ensures that the content you send will be relevant to your readers, but it also helps you with shopping cart abandonment.

Amazon sent us this email after we searched their site for the perfect company shoe

Check Your Email Without Images

One thing you need to watch out for if you are using images, is how your email will look if the images don’t load.

You have to make sure that the email will still make sense, and that the point will still be delivered clearly.

Here you can clearly see that “Old Navy” should have been a logo, and there were probably accompanying images with this email.

The beauty of this email is that even without all the imagery, the point is still made –there’s a sale, you can shop now!

Design for Image Free Emails

If you use text for your email design then be sure to keep your paragraphs short and to highlight important text in order to guide your readers.

This Email does a great job of highlighting important text, and making the call to action stand out

8. Make a Great Call to Action

At the end of the day the emails that you send to your customers are not just to say hi. You’re sending them because you want your customers to take some sort of action.

Now, even if you say “go visit my store” in your email, unless you make it ridiculously easy to do that, then most people probably won’t.

That is why call to actions (CTA) are so important in email marketing. The CTA in your email is the little nudge that people need in order to get them to actually do something. For that reason I’m sure you can understand why it is absolutely crucial that your call to actions are excellent!

How do you make a good call to action?

There are three main rules to follow to be successful…

The 3 Rules of CTAs

1) Make it stand out: You want your call to action to be nice and visible. It should be blatantly obvious that it is a call to action, it should be placed in a logical place in the email, and it should really stand out.

2) Make it clear what will happen: In addition to the copy of your email, you actually need to pay attention to the copy of your CTA as well. A call to action that just says click here is not a good call to action.

You want your CTA first to make it abundantly clear what will happen when people click on it, and second you want it to encourage action. Click here encourages action, but doesn’t explain where it will take the reader. Good examples of CTA text are “View Deals” or “Redeem Offer.”

3) Limit yourself to one CTA: The most effective way to get people to act is by providing one option. Think about it like a menu – the more choices there are, the harder it is to decide what you want.

Call to Action Example

This call to action is big and bright, it is very well placed, it clearly states what it will do, and it’s the only CTA on the page!

9. Match Your Email and Landing Page

In order to complete your email you should have an optimized landing page ready and waiting for your readers to arrive at. This little extra step of optimization can be a huge boost for your campaign.

The reason this is so effective is because it ties together the email and the website.

It makes your landing page an obvious extension of your CTA, which in turn makes your customers more comfortable.

There are many ways to accomplish this, for example you can reference the email itself, create a similar design to the design of your email, or maintain a similar thematic referencein both your email and your landing page.

Example of Matching Email and Web PageEmail about SodaStream Optimized Landing Page

This landing page is clearly optimized. It has a SodaStream banner, and even highlights the orange theme of the email by featuring the orange flavor in front.

Click Thru

Compare With Non-Optimized PageOptimized Landing Page Non- Optimized Landing Page

The regular (non-optimized) page has none of the references to the email.

VS.

10. Check How Your Email Looks on Mobile

Before you can call it a day on your email you definitely must check how your email looks on mobile.

Why you ask?

How about because 65% of all emails get opened first on mobile and only 6.3% of readers will actually read an email on their phone that is not optimized for mobile.

With any major email platform you should be able to check how your email will look on many different devices.

How to Check the Mobile Design

MailChimp provides the Inbox Inspector tool, powered by Litmus, which enables you to do this for free with a paid plan, or for a relatively low cost with the free plan.

Another option is to use Litmus’ services directly to optimize your emails. This route is a bit more expensive though, with plans starting at $79/month.

One More Thing…

Now that you have finished optimizing all aspects of your email it’s time to take a good long look at what you did. You want to review everything to make sure it is all just right. You don’t want any typos or design errors to ruin all your work!

Once you’ve finished reviewing (review one more time for good measure) it’s time to start sending your emails!

As you send more and more emails you will begin to see which emails work the best for you – emails with images or without, emails with a hyperlink call to action or with a button.

It’s a good idea to keep track of how well your emails have performed and A/B test everything in order to be able to improve and optimize your strategy.

How to Create and

Prefect Automated

Email Workflows

Turn Your Email into a Sales Machine

At this point you’ve built your email list and you know how to compose emails that convert, now it’s time to make it all more efficient with email marketing automation!

Think about it, you could sit at your computer all day composing countless emails attempting to bring your potential customers along through your conversion funnel in a seemingly never ending process, OR you could map out a structure that you follow each time and simply create an automated email flow that will do the work for you!

There are all kinds of things you can automate, from your welcome flow to your shopping cart abandonment flow.

In this section we will explore how to actually create an automated email workflow, and we’ll take a look at a few sample workflows to get you going.

Why Email Automation is Important

Before we get into how to build a workflow, first we need to establish why it’s so important to use email automation (aside, obviously, for the ease).

According to a study by Silverpop, automated email campaigns have a 15% higher open rate than regular emails and 79% higher click through rates!

Additionally, by creating workflows, A/B testing them, and always improving them you can create a highly optimized machine that will work for you to continually boost your sales and build your business.

How to Build an Email Workflow

Now that you understand the importance and significance of email marketing automation, let’s discuss how to go about creating an automated workflow.

Step 1: Set Your Goals

The first thing you should do when planning out a workflow is determine your goals.

What do you want this series of emails to accomplish for you?

There is no purpose in creating a workflow if you don’t know what you’re trying to achieve.

There are any number of goals you could be shooting for – sales, returning customers, building trust, generating excitement, and more.

Step 2: Plan Out How to Reach Your Goal

Once you have your goal set, the next thing to do is to figure out how you will get to that goal. Within this step there are a few things you will need to actually do:

First, you should think about each email workflow like a mini sales funnel. You want to bring your users from awareness to interest to desire to action.

Obviously there will be some differences in each workflow depending on your goal, but this is the general formula you should follow.

To accomplish this you can use a mixture of useful information, reviews, blog posts, coupons, and whatever else you have at your disposal.

Step 2 Plan for Possible Failure

Next, keep in mind that you will not have 100% success in guiding your users through the funnel, so you should have a plan in place for every possible scenario that your users could present to you.

For example, if you send out an email as part of a welcome series inviting your readers to sign up for your blog, some will sign up and some will not. Obviously you’re not going to send the same email to the people who do sign up as you would to the people who don’t.

You can set different emails as responses, resend emails, or even transfer people into different workflows. No matter what you do, make sure that while mapping out your workflows you take into account all possible contingencies.

Step 2 Plan Out the Timing

Finally, determine the amount of time that will pass between each email that is sent out.

The best way of doing this is by putting yourself in the customer’s shoes and thinking about how you would react when receiving the email.

This is a tough balance to find, because on the one hand you don’t want to bombard your customers, but on the other hand you don’t want to lose the flow of your correspondence.

Step 3: Write Your Emails

Now that your flow is planned out and all possible contingencies are accounted for you should write up your emails according to our Ten Email Marketing Tips and follow our Tips to Boost your Open Rates mentioned earlier.

Step 4: Test and Tweak Your Emails

As with any other marketing scheme that you implement you should always test out the success of your email workflows.

See what is working and what isn’t. Test out different designs, copy, or subject lines. By doing this you will be able to find the formula that works best for your business.

The other thing you should keep your eye on is if there are people that get lost in your workflows.

It’s possible that your email copy is perfect, but you’re sending the wrong email at the wrong time. So keep an eye on which flows work best as a whole and try to optimize that as well.

Workflow Example – Welcome Workflow

In order to help you to truly understand how a workflow works and how it can benefit your business, we wanted to give you a few examples of workflows that you can implement in your business today!

The most classic email workflow is the welcome workflow. You can use this type of flow any time someone creates an account at your website – whether they made a purchase or not.

Let’s build this workflow together by following the steps mentioned just now.

As we go through the steps we will analyze the equivalent emails from HootSuite’s welcome flow.

Building a Welcome Workflow in Detail

Step 1: The goal of a welcome workflow generally speaking is to take someone who expressed interest in your products and gets them to make a purchase, with the idea that they will become a returning shopper.

Step 2: In order to get this person to move along the sales funnel you could create a flow like the one that will be detailed in the coming pages.

Ready?

Let’s do it…

Email 1 – Welcome Email

The first email in the flow is the welcome email.

This email should welcome the new member. Make it nice and friendly. You should include a bit of information about your company culture as well.

• Goal of the email: Educating your potential customers about your business by creating a sense of familiarity.

• Call to action of the email: Should be something simple like a link to your homepage, or to a page about your business (testimonials, press releases, etc.)

• Timing: Immediately after registration.

(HootSuite performed this email and the next one at the same time, so the example will be in the next section)

Email 2 – Assistance Email

The second email in this flow is the assistance email. In this email you can ask if your reader needs more information or assistance. This could be either related to your products or related to the broader culture of your business.

For example, if you sell cameras, this email could say something like “Do you need help choosing your next camera?” or, “Could you use some photo taking tips?” You should also prominently display your customer support information.

• Goal of the email: Raising the level of familiarity between your customers and your business, while also educating them about the products in order to create trust.

• Call to action of the email: This should link to something educational like your blog or one or two introductory level articles.

• Timing: 3-7 days after the initial email.

HootSuite Email

HootSuite uses the welcome email to both introduce themselves and to provide assistance.

Call to action brings users to an educational page. No attempt to sell yet.

Email 3 – Products Email

The next email in this flow is the products email.

Now it’s time to start sending some information about your actual products. In this email you can say something like, “Check out our newest collection of ______.”

• Goal of the email: Moving your customers along the funnel from awareness to interest in your products.

• Call to action of the email: You should send your readers to an optimized landing page with some of your highest selling products in order to draw in your potential customers.

• Timing: Give your users some time. This should be sent about two weeks to a month after the last email.

HootSuite Email

In this email HootSuite starts promoting one of it’s products, and includes a link to an optimized landing page

Email 4 – Product Booster

The fourth email in this flow is the product booster.

In this next email you are going to want to make your products sound very appealing. You can use some great reviews, press mentions, case studies, free trials, or whatever else you can think of to make your products look great!

• Goal of the email: Moving your customers from interest to desire by showing how good your products are.

• Call to action of the email: You can send your users to any number of places. One option is to keep things on your site by sending them to an optimized landing page dedicated to a specific product or line of products that displays benefits and shows real testimonials. Another option would be to go off-site and send your readers to a recent article or review about your products.

• Timing: 3-6 weeks after the previous email.

HootSuite Email

Now HootSuite really starts to give its product a boost by providing more information as to how it can benefit the reader.

Email 5 – Coupon Offer

The final email in this flow is the coupon offer.

Finally, you are trying to really push the sale by sending a coupon. In this email you can send a “limited time offer” to your readers.

• Goal of the email: Get your readers to make a purchase• Call to action of the email: Keep it simple – “Get this coupon now!” “Offer ends today.”

Anything that creates a sense of urgency and encourages immediate action.• Timing: A few weeks after the last email.

HootSuite Email

Finally, HootSuite offers a deal and provides a deadline in order to drive the readers to action.

Recap of the Welcome Flow

At this point, the idea is that you will have given your potential customer all the reasons in the world to make a purchase, and to make it specifically from you.

To review -- you started by welcoming them and then you offered them assistance. This created awareness. Next you informed them of your products which created interest. Then you sent them a product booster which created desire. Finally you sent a coupon which encouraged action!

As mentioned earlier though, it is very likely that your readers won’t follow the flow exactly as you expect them to.

In order to best display this concept, we’re going to need to really map out the options. Beware, this map can get quite complicated. Check out our sample map of the above flow including potential consumer actions and responses to the different actions

Registered Customer

Purchase No Purchase

Welcome

No OpenOpen

WelcomeUpsell flow

No convertConvert

Products Email

No OpenOpen

No ConvertOpen

Convert

VIP Customer Flow

Welcome New Subject Line

Upsell Flow

No Convert

VIP Customer

Flow

Convert

ProductBooster

No OpenOpen

No ConvertOpen

Convert

New Subject Line

Upsell Flow

VIP Customer Flow

Coupon Email

GOAL

New Subject

Line

Color Key

Customer Action

Triggered Email

New Workflow

Resent Email

End of Workflow

Welcome Flow Map

Notice how built into the welcome flow map are any number of new flows that customers can be transferred to depending on how they interact with the emails.

You can also resend the same email if it received no interaction, but you might want to change the subject line so it isn’t an exact duplicate.

These maps (as you can see) can become quite complicated, but they are very important! Only by mapping out all possibilities will your automation become truly effective and personalized.

Now that you have a more detailed understanding of how to put together a workflow we’re going to give you a few more (less detailed) examples of common workflows that you can use to boost your sales.

Cart Abandonment – Goal Sale

1. Awareness: Send an email as a reminder prompting the customer to

complete the purchase.

2. Awareness II/Interest: If that prompt wasn’t enough you can send another email with similar items as a secondary prompt. You can add in something like,

check out our top selling _____ (relevant to the department your customer was interested in).

3. Desire: Send an email with some product reviews or testimonials –“Look at what the New York Times

has to say about our _____.”4. Action: Send a coupon.

Purchase Follow Up – Goal Upsell

1. Awareness: Start by thanking your customer for their purchase. Then you can include related products by saying

something like “Congratulations on your new ________, you should

consider our _______ to enhance the experience.”

2. Interest/Desire: Send your customer useful information that will help them with their initial purchase – relevant

blog posts, articles, and videos. In this content you should display how a related

product could enhance the product which was purchased.

3. Action: Ask your customer to fill out a survey of some sort – how the purchasing process was for them, if they are satisfied with their purchase, etc. – and include a coupon

for the products you are trying to upsell as an incentive to complete the survey.

VIP Customer – Goal Brand Advocates

1. Awareness: Thank your most highly engaged customers, and tell them that they have been selected to be part of a

VIP list that will include all sorts of “exclusive information” and private

deals.

2. Interest: Mention that you would like to put together an even more exclusive list of people who will get to try and review new products

before they are released. Add an opt-in form for this in order to get the most engaged readers to

join this list.

3. Desire: Send an email to those who opted-in welcoming them to the elite club, and then get them started by asking them to review an idea that

you have for a new product, or to review an old product which they

already purchased. You can include a coupon as an incentive as well.

4. Action: Thank your customers for their review, and explain that they will be receiving more new

products at discounted rates to review, or coupons to review older products. You should

then add in that they can receive further discounts by sharing their reviews on social

media or elsewhere on the internet. Just like that you can take a customer and turn them into a

brand advocate.

Moving Forward With Automation

There are all kinds of email workflows that you can set in place for your business – re-engagement flows, event flows (birthdays etc.), blog engagement flows, and more!

If you don’t yet use workflows in your business you should definitely start slow. Begin by creating one or two flows, optimizing them, and getting them rolling before you start to create more flows. Otherwise you might not be able to track your flows as well as you should which will lead to inefficient email flows.

Once you have a few work flows down pat and you know what works for you, then it’s time to start expanding and creating more workflows.

That being said, we would still suggest mapping out all of the possibilities of flows and changes of direction in advance, and then filling them in with actual content as you move along.

Conclusion

Having read this eBook from cover to cover you should have all the tools you need to get going with your email marketing!

Give yourself a good pat on the back because you learned why email marketing is important, how to build your email list, how to boost your open rates, how to compose emails that convert, and how to create automated email marketing workflows!

Thanks for reading!

P.S. To learn more about marketing your business check out our blog.

P.P.S For more information on our pop up tools check out Coupon Pop and Exit Pop or contact us directly. Our pop up tools are available on all eCommerce platforms.