It’s no secret that email marketing produces incredible returns.
But with all the strategies, tactics, templates, and tips available, you’ve likely found yourself wondering what you should really be focusing on to see noticeable success in your email marketing.
Besides creating a consistent sending schedule that continues to nurture and engage your subscriber list, there are three high-impact, low-effort tactics that you should be prioritizing this year.
In this email marketing webinar, Ignite’s email experts Kelly Olson and Lauren Rugge walk you through each tactic and the specific strategies that will help your business grow, engage, and convert your customers – all through email marketing.
What We’ll Cover:
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The Power of Email
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On-Site Email Acquisition
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Email Automations
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Welcome Email Automations
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Abandonment Automation
The Power of Email
It’s hard to keep up with the pace of innovation these days as the number of resources available to marketers continues to grow. However, one category, in particular, seems to perform well year after year—email marketing.
While it’s an older marketing tactic, it remains a popular medium for brands to engage with their consumers.
Let the numbers speak for themselves:
- For every $1 you spend on email marketing, you can expect to see an average return of $44.
- Email is 40 times more effective at acquiring customers than Facebook and Twitter combined.
- Compared to batch sends, 320% more revenue is driven by automated emails.
- Shoppers spend nearly 140% more after receiving marketing emails as opposed to those who don’t receive email offers.
- Segmented email campaigns drive 14% higher open rates than non-segmented ones.
Email is also the catalyst for cross-channel acquisition and retention—in other words, bringing first-time visitors to your site and bringing consumers back through re-targeting efforts.
On-Site Email Acquisition
No matter how incredible your email content, it’s worthless if you don’t get it in front of the right people. That’s why focusing on on-site email acquisition is a critical first step in converting your web traffic into web leads.
Luckily, there are tons of email capture strategies you can use to supersize your pool of email subscribers, including:
Email Capture Pop-Ups
Email pop-ups are one of the highest converting opt-ins, with the average rate falling between 3% and 10%. Pop-ups (or slide-ins as they’re sometimes called) are separate boxes that appear when a user is scrolling through a web page. We recommend including incentives to add value in exchange for an email address.
Feel free to get creative with these—Try offering free shipping, a percentage off first purchase, a free eBook or guide download, or a free webinar sign-up.
With this tactic, you’ll want to keep fields and data requested to a minimum if you want to see higher conversion rates. Remember—no more than 2 or 3 fields. Don’t forget to also include any necessary disclaimer/privacy policy text.
Welcome Mats
A welcome mat is essentially a full-screen version of an email pop-up that’s built to grab a user’s attention the moment they land on your website.
It’s less intrusive than a squeeze page since a visitor is able to continue scrolling out of the mat.
With an expected conversion rate of 5%-7%, welcome mats work so well because they isolate the call to action while fading out the rest of your content. With a can’t-miss message that takes over your whole screen, it’s no wonder the conversion rates are so high.
Nanobar Captures
Also referred to as a sticky bar, a nanobar is the less disruptive cousin of the email pop-up that’s best used in conjunction with a pop-up upon close.
This notification stays at the top or bottom of the page and appears across the site no matter which page the user is on, making it an ideal way to capture traffic that has closed the pop-up. The email capture field is also embedded within the bar to reduce extra steps to sign up.
With nanobars, you can expect to see a conversion rate of 1%-2%.
Footer Captures
While not the highest-converting at less than 1%, the footer will give you incremental conversions over time. Opposite to the header, this capture is located at the very bottom of the page, providing critical information you want your site visitors to see again without needing to scroll back up or navigate to a different landing page.
As a best practice in this email marketing webinar, be sure to align the incentive offered on other captures across the site with the incentive offered on the footer capture.
Triple-check to make sure your footer capture field is set up correctly to add sign-ups to the correct email list within the email system provider (ESP) to ensure sign-ups are funneled into the correct welcome automation.
To boost your conversion rate, we suggest pairing footer opt-ins with an offer or two-step opt-ins for more success.
Gated Content
This is one of the strategies that works exceptionally well in the B2B space, with conversions upwards of 5%.
With gated content, you provide prospects with high-quality, value-driven information in exchange for their email address. Content can include white papers, videos, eBooks, case studies, product demos, on-demand webinars, guides, meal plans, and more.
When someone across gated content on your website, it’s a huge win for your sales and marketing team. Why? These are stronger leads since they had to actively search for you on Google and enter more information than they would have with other email captures.
Similar to footer captures, you want to make sure your form is integrated with your ESP in order to immediately trigger an email automation that provides that lead with the content they opted to receive, as well as offering a download link on the success screen.
Squeeze Pages
With a staggering conversion rate of 20%-40%, the squeeze page is the real winner when it comes to the results they generate.
These are landing pages that are designed to persuade or “squeeze” visitors to provide their email addresses. In order to collect this information, users will be presented with either a special offer or a piece of valuable content, often accompanied by a headline that clearly communicates the benefits of signing up, supporting text that contextualizes the offer, and an embedded form with two fields or less.
You can even link directly to your squeeze page from paid ads, social profiles, or your website.
The goal is to keep visitors from overthinking, allowing them to take action without having to leave the page.
Email Automations
Now that we’ve covered the ways in which you can grow your email list during this email marketing webinar, we’re going to shift gears and discuss what happens once your lead has signed up.
What is a Welcome Automation?
The welcome automation is likely to be one of your top revenue and engagement-generating email series. The purpose of these emails is to (as the name suggests) welcome new subscribers, establish strong branding, engage during high-interest periods, and encourage the first purchase.
Why is it Important?
Here’s how effective a well-crafted welcome email can be:
- Welcome emails have +86% higher open rates than other marketing emails.
- 75% of new subscribers expect to receive a welcome email.
- Those who receive welcome emails have shown +33% higher engagement long-term than those who don’t receive them.
- Welcome emails have a +10% higher read rate than other marketing emails.
As you can see, this is your opportunity to strike while the iron is hot and nurture your leads to conversion while they’re most engaged with your brand.
Welcome Email B2C Best Practices
The most important email you’ll ever send to a customer may be the very first one. It will set the tone for the rest of your email communications.
Here’s a more detailed look at everything your welcome email series should include:
- Include 3-5 emails within welcome automation. Monitor engagement once live to identify whether or not additional emails or resends should be added or removed.
- Trigger the first email immediately upon sign-up.
- Span the following emails over the next 1-2 weeks post-sign-up.
- Include an incentive that is consistent with the email capture. This should be the primary focus of the 1st email, have a reminder within the next 1-3 emails, and urgency messaging in the final email.
- Each email must have a clear call to action.
B2C Welcome Automation Example Content
Now let’s take a look at how you can structure your welcome series:
Email 1:
- Incentive and welcome messaging
- Unique value propositions
- Shoppable content: category banners
Email 2:
- Brand story/how products are made
- Shoppable content: best seller product grid
Email 3:
- 5-star reviews
- Shoppable content: each review paired with top-selling product
Email 4:
- Last chance: incentive reminder
- Shoppable call to action
- Social media feature and call to action
Welcome Email B2B Best Practices
At this point in the email marketing webinar, it’s time to shift gears and cover a few more welcome email best practices, particularly in the B2B space:
- Since B2B has a much longer sales cycle, we recommend coordinating with the sales team directly and including 5-7 emails within the welcome automation.
- Trigger first email immediately upon form submission.
- Send out the following emails over the next 3-4 weeks, delivering during business hours only Monday-Friday.
- Establish trust, credibility, and expertise by addressing industry pain points, featuring testimonials, and showcasing value-driven content.
- Include calls to action that allows the subscriber to engage prior to committing to a sales call. Something like “Watch a Demo,” “Free Webinar,” “Sign Up,” and “See Our Process” will work.
B2B Welcome Automation Example Content
While you’ll still be sending multiple emails to your subscribers, we’ve provided a few different options regarding the organization of each one:
Email 1:
- “Thank you for showing interest” messaging
- Establish credibility and understand pain points
- “Learn more” and “Schedule call” calls to action
Email 2:
- Let the reader feel seen—industry expertise
Email 3:
- Testimonials with “Read more” call to action
- Unique value propositions
Email 4:
- Educate with value-driven content
Email 5:
- Repercussions of waiting to take action
What is an Abandonment Automation?
Abandonment automations are top conversion and revenue-driving behaviorally-triggered automations that trigger after someone abandons their cart, a specific page, or form fill. It could be any of the following:
- Cart abandonment
- Product browse abandonment
- Category browse abandonment
- Search abandonment
- The average ecommerce cart abandonment rate is 70%.
- Emails that are sent within 1 hour of abandon have a 3% average conversion rate.
Why is it Important?
Abandonment emails help motivate customers to complete their purchase, capitalizing on the interest they’ve already expressed.
A whopping 34% of subscribers who clicked an abandoned cart email secured their order. These emails can increase conversion rates by over 50%.
The average abandonment email open rates ring in around 40%, which is more than 25% higher than the average click-through rate for emails.
Top 5 reasons shoppers abandon their carts:
- 92% because of negative peer reviews
- 80% due to lack of good return policy
- 75% due to slow loading sites
- 59% are just not ready to purchase
- 55% due to hidden extra costs
Once you find out why your customers left behind items in their cart, address those concerns within your abandonment email content:
- Showcase 5-star reviews that dynamically populate per product within the email
- Highlight or call out your return policy, especially if it’s easy and free
- Give a limited-time discount or incentive to purchase now, rather than later
- Highlight any additional features that might help build trust—24/7 customer service, free shipping, etc.
B2C Abandonment Automation Best Practices
If you want to lower your cart abandonment rate and increase sales, keep these tips handy:
- 2-3 emails per automation
- Trigger quickly—between 30 min-1 hour post abandon for first email
- Trigger second email 24 hours post abandon
- Dynamically include the cart products above the fold to catch the eye
- Dynamically link the calls to action back to the cart
- Include incentive in 2nd touch, with last chance reminder in 3rd touch
- Pro tip: Segment out high-value carts to offer increased or quicker incentive to convert more valuable carts with higher AOV
B2B Abandonment Automation Considerations
Contrary to popular belief, your abandonment automation email program will serve you well both in the B2C and B2B world. Here’s how:
- Types of B2B abandonment:
- Form fills
- Webinar/demo registration
- Payment page
- Pricing page
- Contract signature
- Subscription renewal
- Span 3-5 emails over the next 2-3 weeks, delivering Monday-Friday only
- Empathize with their busy schedule
- Offer incentive to shorten sales cycle
- Address potential roadblocks
- Create a sense of urgency and highlight why the purchase should be a top priority
Wrapping Up
Hopefully, you’ve walked away from this email marketing webinar as a better email marketer equipped with more strategic knowledge to make better business decisions.
If you want to outshine your competitors, be sure to keep these tips top of mind and continually perform A/B tests so you can determine what works best for you and your brand.
There’s no time like the present to get started!