As the owner of an ecommerce business, you likely rely on email campaigns to reach your target audience. However, if your messages aren’t captivating, your open and click-through rates can suffer, resulting in missed upsell, cross-sell, and repeat business opportunities. Not only that, but you could be perceived as unprofessional or even spammy, and that’s never a good look! And let’s not forget the fact that customers who don’t find your emails engaging are less likely to make a purchase. The good news: there are several things you can do to ensure your email campaigns are catching people’s attention. So, let’s dive in!

1. Keep it short and concise

Long, drawn-out emails are quickly passed over (because who has the time?), and even the most well-crafted message will miss the mark if it’s too lengthy. On the flip side, the more succinct your emails are, the more likely they are to be read and understood, and the less likely they are to trigger spam filters.

You have a lot to offer your audience, be it valuable information or great promotional content, so focus on keeping your marketing emails as brief and to-the-point as possible to help ensure people actually open and read them!

2. Write catchy subject lines 

The success of any email marketing campaign depends on its ability to captivate the reader and persuade them to take action. Here are a handful of quick tips for writing hooky subject lines that inspire people to open your emails:

• Use open-ended questions, cliffhangers, or other teasers that require opening your email to learn the answer or find out what’s next.
• Make them as short as possible.
• Concentrate on the benefits your products or services offer.
• Include a deadline.
• Avoid using generic terms like “newsletter” or “update,” as these are likely to be met with indifference by the reader.

Taking the time to craft compelling subject lines will help your emails stand out not only from the competition, but also from the other potentially hundreds of emails in your audience’s inboxes.

3. Use eye-catching images

As anyone who has ever opened their inbox to a barrage of emails can attest, it takes more than just a generic subject line to captivate an audience. To really grab people’s attention, it’s important to use images that are both relevant and eye-catching. Product photos are always a good choice, but try to mix things up by featuring lifestyle shots or behind-the-scenes images as well. You also want to be sure your images are optimized for mobile devices; more and more people are reading emails on their phones, so it’s vital that your images look good on small screens. With a little effort, you can create email marketing campaigns that are informative as well as visually appealing, giving your customers everything they need to make a purchase.

4. Personalize your content

Email is one of the most important tools in an ecommerce business owner’s toolkit. It’s a great way to stay in touch with customers, promote new products, and drive sales. However, simply blasting out generic emails is unlikely to result in a high degree of engagement. To really engage your recipients, you need to personalize your email content. This means including the recipient’s name, using relevant images, and customizing your message to fit the customer’s needs. Making the content in your emails personal will create a more engaging experience, which will in turn increase the likelihood of conversion (which equals more money in your pocket!).

5. Make unsubscribing easy 

In the online world, especially ecommerce, it’s important to make it easy for people to unsubscribe from your mailing list if they no longer want to receive emails from you. There are a few reasons for this:

• First, if people are getting emails from you that they don’t want, they’re likely to mark them as spam, which can negatively impact your deliverability rate.
• Second, keeping people on your list who don’t want to be there can eventually lead to them becoming disgruntled and leaving negative reviews or comments online.
• Third, it’s simply good customer service to make it easy for people to unsubscribe from your mailing list if they don’t want to hear from you anymore.

So, to ensure people have an easy out, either include an unsubscribe link in every email you send and/or provide a way for them to manage their subscription preferences on your website. Whichever method you choose, it needs to be prominently displayed and super easy to find. 

6. Test different strategies

With so many email marketing strategies out there, it can be tough to know where to start. That’s why it’s important to test different methods to see what works best for your audience. Try out various subject lines, images, and call-to-action copy versions to see what gets the most opens, clicks, and conversions. And don’t be afraid to split test your campaigns—send one version of your email to half of your list, and a different version to the other half. This way, you’ll be able to compare results and fine-tune your strategy for maximum impact. So, don’t wait … start testing ASAP! 

Wrap-Up

Effective email marketing that hooks the target audience is an absolute must for any ecommerce business. It’s an inexpensive way to reach a large audience, allows you to target your messages to specific groups of customers, and lets you track the results so you can make changes accordingly. Plus, it gives you the opportunity to build relationships with your customers, and that can go a long way in getting them to buy from you (and keep coming back for more). So, be sure to implement the expert tips outlined above to create your own captivating—and lucrative—email marketing campaigns … and prepare to reap the benefits!