In recent years, the multitude of players in the digital world have chosen communication by email to exchange with their Internet users. Under the avalanche of emails received daily, they are tired and move towards a more responsible consumption of this type of communication. However, many studies show that email marketing survives despite this weariness. In particular thanks to marketing automation solutions existing. Does email marketing really represent the Eldorado of e-merchants?
Why is email so important?
It is important to specify that 89% of the French population has an email address (Appoline Reisacher, 2021). This represents unique opportunities to communicate effectively with your target to convert them into customers. Indeed, the return on investment measured by email campaigns amounts to 28.5%, which is very impressive.
Especially since the development of an email requires little technical knowledge. Using an email platform makes it easy to create and send emails with intuitive interfaces.
In addition, it is easy to monitor the performance of the emails sent thanks to the key performance indicators (the number of emails sent to all the contacts, the turnover generated by the campaign, the average basket of purchases, the rate of openness, click-through rate, etc.). In the majority of cases, these indicators are directly calculated or entered by the messaging platform used.
However, as an e-merchant, it is important to go further than simply writing mass emails, that is to say emails sent to your entire customer database. Indeed, it is essential to send personalized marketing emails.
What is email marketing?
In addition to the “basic” email, email marketing has much more specific goals. In fact, it may aim to:
- to promote a product, a service or a brand,
- to increase the loyalty of the customer base,
- drive additional traffic to your online store.
More generally, email marketing helps increase your sales. To do this, it must be personalized and therefore adapted to each of your contacts. One of the most telling examples of email marketing is the visit without purchase scenario. This type of marketing email re-engages Internet users who have not purchased from your online store despite a visit. Often sent the next day, it reminds them of your brand and encourages them to buy.
However, you need to segment your customer database in order to send them the right email marketing at the right time in order to be effective. In addition, you must be able to communicate to them really relevant products and offers according to their profile (gender, type of product purchased, number of visits according to a certain time frame, amount spent, etc.). But that takes time. The interest is then to automate repetitive and tedious tasks – such as customer segmentation – to save time and optimize marketing emails.
Automate your marketing emails
Finding the right marketing automation solution is necessary to effectively automate your marketing emails. Therefore, two aspects must be taken into account to make the right choice: the budget and the desired level of automation.
On the one hand, if the allocated budget is quite low, solutions offer a so-called freemium option, that is to say that some of the functionalities are free but they are often not very advanced. This option can therefore satisfy beginners in marketing automation.
On the other hand, if the desired level of automation is a little higher, you must take into consideration that the budget also increases. You can have access to very advanced scenarios that encourage Internet users to finalize their purchasing process and therefore increase your turnover.
Let’s go back to the example of the visit without purchase scenario. This behavior is a trigger that sends a marketing email within days of the visit. More generally, any action taken can be seen as a trigger for automating your marketing emails.
To save time
The main advantage of marketing automation is time savings. Indeed, as explained above, many tools take into account triggers to send the right email but above all at the right time to build customer loyalty. This time saving allows you to focus on other high value-added actions, such as optimizing your online store.
Beware of over-automation
Although useful in your commercial efforts, you must however be vigilant to the over-automation of your emails which can have a negative ecological impact. Indeed, a classic email, without attachments, represents 4 gCO2e (HelloCarbo, 2022). It is therefore necessary to continue to communicate but in an intelligent way thanks to a marketing automation based more on the behavior of your customers to send the right email, to the right person and at the right time. The more an Internet user shows an interest in your brand, the more relevant it is to send them your communications. This observation also works in the opposite direction: the less interested a user is, the less he is supposed to receive your marketing emails.
Artificial intelligence to automate efficiently
This type of analysis can very easily be implemented thanks to artificial intelligence using machine learning used in certain marketing automation modules. As your customers take actions on your online store, the AI is able to understand their behavior and therefore better segment them. Thus, beyond sending only the right marketing emails at the right time, the products sent in the emails are also adapted to their recipients who are finally happy to receive a marketing email. Some modules go even further by offering a complete writing of the content of your emails based on your online store.
In summary, email marketing therefore remains an effective marketing channel for e-merchants. It should be used to save time and boost sales to increase turnover. The era of personalization for better customer loyalty is at hand! Mass email is dead, long live email marketing.
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