Email campaigns are one of the oldest and most reliable online marketing tools. The opening rates across industries and internationally are around 25 percent. In individual sectors such as the financial sector even up to 40 percent. But as well-known as e-mail as a marketing tool, many marketers don’t even know what it can do. Advertising email has developed significantly, especially since big data and AI solutions have been integrated. Below are ten email campaigns that you should be sending out.
1. Transaction emails: Initiate the next purchase process when you complete the purchase
Many shop operators believe that as soon as the customer has ordered, the customer journey is first completed. That is why they make their transaction emails, i.e. sending invoices, order, and shipping confirmations, relatively simple. As the last duty, so to speak, before they go back to the freestyle and woo his attention again. If you do it right, the customer journey simply continues here.
To do this, marketers need to take a closer look at the transactional emails and enrich them. For example, it is worthwhile to make this emotional: In the order confirmation, a picture that teasers the product group in which the customer has made a purchase makes sense and the specific products can then be shown with photos. That increases the anticipation.
However, other collected user data can also flow into the transaction emails. For example, if the customer has looked around in another category, bestsellers from this category should be shown to him in the transaction email.
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2. Trigger emails in the event of abandonment: Make it easy for your customers to get back on track
Triggers are defined actions by the customer that trigger an automatic reaction. Here: the automatic sending of an email. This proves to be particularly effective when the purchase process is canceled.
There are many times when customers cancel the purchase process: during the search process while they already have products in their shopping cart or even in the checkout area. This is common and works well for trigger mail.
An important goal of these trigger mails is to make it easier for the customer to get back to work. In the case of the shopping cart and checkout dropouts, there were already items in the selection. So reminder emails should be sent at regular intervals. Not too often, even basically relevant emails can annoy customers at some point.
In such cases, the customer is not only reminded of the incomplete purchase via the e-mail but he is also allowed to continue it seamlessly via a link: “Continue shopping here”. So he doesn’t have to look up all the articles again.
Another function of the trigger mails is to find out the reasons for the termination and to eliminate them. A checkout dropout may have a technical problem. Someone who stops searching may not be able to use the search function.
In such cases, offers of help such as the link to the support chat in the mail can be helpful. Or the request for feedback. In any case, a customer who had a disappointing shopping experience feels taken seriously when they receive an email in which someone cares. Even if only because he got a “Thank you for your visit!” To read.
3. Trigger emails according to internal criteria: Send every discount campaign automatically
Trigger emails can of course also be sent out according to internal criteria. The simplest form is to send offers or a price alert after a fixed time frame. Or send an email as soon as discounts are set up.
Of course, a mixture of external and internal factors is also possible: If a customer has viewed an item that was sold out and it is back in stock, a trigger can be set up for it.
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4. Automated welcome campaigns: Design the entry for new customers in a targeted manner
Similar to the trigger mails, e-mails are sent automatically in a welcome series. There is also a trigger here: usually signing up for the newsletter. The difference is that several emails are often sent according to defined criteria – keyword: marketing automation.
There is a kind of welcome email. But then email marketers should analyze exactly what works best: Often it is not advisable to send welcome offers on the day of registration.
The customer still clicks on the double-opt-in link on the day himself, but he often logs out of his email program. So it is better to wait a few days before receiving the next email.
5. Follow-up campaigns: Remind the customer of your offer
The follow-up campaign can build on the welcome routes. If the customer has clicked on the category city trips in a welcome email from a travel agency, for example, such offers can be sent to him with a follow-up email.
There are also many design options here. And if you haven’t clicked on a link, you will also receive a follow-up email with more general offers.
6. Cross- / up-selling campaigns via post-click: Offer additional articles
Shop operators use post-click tracking to collect information about their customers’ user behavior. For example, the shop operator can find out what a newsletter subscriber has clicked on and thus viewed. The behavior on third-party websites can also be tracked.
Typical example: A customer books a trip and a travel agency sends an email in which it offers the customer to book the hotel or rental car at the same time. And it goes even further: When the vacation is over, you can find out how the vacation was. If the review also lands on your website, all the better.
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7. Follow-up campaigns after product purchase
Follow-up campaigns work similarly to cross- or up-selling campaigns, but can of course be sent automatically. For example, if someone has bought a new camera, a follow-up could be to offer the customer a hard drive to archive the images. So there are suitable articles that complement the purchased products in a meaningful way.
8. Anniversary and anniversary campaigns: First, analyze what works
Doesn’t sound new, but anniversaries and anniversaries are still great email campaign opportunities. Not in the way many marketers believe, however: For birthdays, for example, it turns out that the ideal shipping time is not the birthday itself, but about a week before the actual date.
Many recipients do not shop for themselves on the birthday itself. They have already received a lot of presents that day. So it is better to point out beforehand that the customer should treat himself to something on his special day.
9. Reactivation campaigns: Bring back customers who were believed to be lost
This is the supreme discipline of email marketing: If a customer has not bought anything for a long time or has been on the site, he can be brought back via reactivation campaigns.
This works, for example, via regular vouchers, via feedback requests (“We miss you! What can we do better?”), And via a request to confirm the subscription.
10. Highly personalized email campaigns: Surprise the customer with tailor-made content
Over time, shops collect a lot of data about their customers: opening times, order values, travel dates, birthdays, etc. If they combine them sensibly, they can put together a highly personalized campaign.
An example: An airline has summarized its travel data for the fifth anniversary of the day on which the consumer became a customer. How many kilometers did he fly, where did his first and last trip go? This, enriched with emotional images, increases customer loyalty. And of course, the next trip can be suggested here.
Conclusion
Email campaigns are and will remain an effective tool for customer contact. Especially through big data and automatisms up to AI processes, they can be used today in a very versatile way at all points of the customer journey. The key is that marketers have to try to figure out what the customer wants. Thanks to the intelligent handling of data, this works better than ever today. And with the right tools, it can also be implemented very effectively and monitored at any time.