Recently, with the big changes in the way paid traffic works – one important lesson has been made abundantly clear:
We must never rely entirely on always having access to audiences on platforms we don’t own (even if they are fans or followers of OUR social media pages or youtube channels).
It is essential to OWN our own audience by getting our fans and followers to subscribe to our email list!
By building our own email list (and, alongside it, an SMS list), we have a database of “customer first” data that we can then use to drive our marketing across all channels.
How does an email list help you make more money?
- Because an email list represents ‘customer first’ data – it enables you to track and analyse the browsing and purchase behaviour of your customers at a level of detail you can’t now do using 3rd party cookies (like the Meta Pixel).
(Note: you do need to be using a tool for the job though – we recommend Klaviyo as the most effective and impactful email marketing tool for eCommerce.) - You can then use this data you’ve collected to segment your customers, create audiences to market to across platforms, and to send relevant offers to customers at the right time. (I’ll explain more below…)
I’ve often said – there are literally only 3 ways you can make more money in a business:
- Get more customers to buy from you,
- Increase the amount of money customers spend per transaction, or
- Increase the frequency of times a customer buys from you.
Regardless of how big or small your email list is, you can achieve all 3 of those using email marketing. I’ll explain below.
Here’s how email marketing DOESN’T work
Much like advertising on social media, marketing emails that are literally just putting your products in front of your email list’s eyes without any story or without communicating any specific value, just won’t work.
Likewise, if you are constantly sending out incentive after discount after incentive, you will burn out your list and they will lose interest fast.
Nowadays, consumers want to shop from brands they feel an authentic connection with.
That means we need to share stories that communicate about our brand’s values and how we’ve been able to impact our customers’ positively.
Social proof is still incredibly effective because it demonstrates that positive impact and adds credibility to what the brand says about itself.
But what other stories can you share that might connect with and inspire your audience?
Here are 5 ways you can make more money from your Email marketing
1. Always be list building. This means, don’t just have one pop-up on your website and leave it at that. I’ve seen too many cases of email lists shrinking through unsubscribes faster than they’re growing, despite the emails actually converting at a really high rate.
Use different opt-in forms in different locations. A popup soon after visiting the website; an embedded form further down the home page; a product selection quiz; forms embedded at the end of popular, high-traffic content pages (About Us and blog posts); and an exit-intent popup, particularly at the cart stage.
2. Split test your opt-in forms so that you can increase the rate that people join your list. Change up the design, the heading, the incentive. Again, I’ve seen lists that convert really well when emails are sent, but the size of the list is growing slowly.
Note – the benchmark average for opt-in rates on eCommerce forms is approximately 3% (although our clients usually experience 5% or higher).
3. Test different offers or incentives to your new subscribers to see what converts best. I’ve seen soooooo many brands put up a discount incentive, tick that task off their to-do list and never look at it again, only to find months (if not years) down the track that it’s not converting at all.
It’s essential to keep reviewing how well this sort of marketing strategy converts, and try to optimise and improve.
For example, offering a % off incentive to new subscribers will really only appeal to people who are ready to buy right now, but probably won’t help someone on the fence to make a decision.
What might work better? If you can find an incentive that protects your average order value and converts at a higher rate, you’ll be onto a winner.
Consider a free gift with purchase, or a discount bundle or value pack only available to new subscribers. You’ll need to think it through (and maybe survey your list to find out where they’re stuck!)
4. Send multiple post-purchase offers in your automated flow. It’s one thing to get a customer to buy once, but you’ll never truly grow or become really profitable with one-time buyers. You need to increase the frequency of repeat orders, and try to increase the percentage of customers who come back to buy.
So, as an example in your post-purchase flow, you might initially invite someone to upgrade from a starter-pack to a full-size pack.
Then, you might cross-sell them to a different but related product line.
And then, you might offer them a free shipping coupon, or you might send a replenishment offer if you sell consumable items.
Ultimate, if you can encourage more customers to buy a 2nd or a 3rd time, you will become a much more profitable business.
5. Segment your list when sending regular broadcast emails. For instance, you might have a segment of your list who are more engaged than others. You can send the more engaged subscribers a higher volume of emails than you might send to less engaged subscribers.
Or, create a segment of people who’ve bought 3 or more times in 12 months, vs those who’ve purchased only once. The more frequent shoppers are your VIP customers – these are the ones you’d give advance notice to with any new products or promotions you’re running.
Or, create a segment of people on your list who have never bought before or are lapsed customers (ie haven’t purchased in over 12 months). You can send these customers a really exciting, enticing offer to try and win them back to buy.
Or, create a segment of people who are due to replenish their stuff. Maybe you sell skincare or makeup – how long does it typically take to use up the bottle? Send out a small incentive or just a simple reminder email to re-purchase before they run out.
If you can only do 1 thing, do this…
I completely appreciate that the above list might be a bit overwhelming, and I certainly wouldn’t expect you to implement it all at once.
But what you CAN do is this: start recording your current results from email marketing.
As Dr Phil used to say, “You can’t improve what you don’t acknowledge”. And that’s as true for your marketing as it is for anything else.
Once you know your baseline, then you can start implementing new things bit by bit and you’ll be able to track and measure whether your results improve.
What’s the potential upside?
We have many clients who regularly generate 35% of their revenue from their email list. When you consider that traffic from your list is essentially free, that opens up the potential to generate highly profitable revenue for your business!
Need some help?
We love to work with clients who want help setting up effective email marketing in their business, whether it’s writing and designing those automated funnels or nailing your newsletter game!
If that’s you, and you need some help – my team and I would love to work with you!
First step is to book a free Brand Growth strategy session with us to discuss your requirements.
Updated: 9th March 2023