One Marketing Channel Ecommerce Businesses Should Not Skip in 2021

While 2021 has brought some huge changes to one of the biggest marketing channels used by most marketers (Facebook), it has only further strengthened another marketing channel that has stood the test of time—and it’s only getting bigger and better! 

I’m talking about email marketing.

Truly, no other marketing channel out there right now offers the same personalization and automation capabilities for digitally connecting with your customers, much less for such an affordable price. 

I’m not here to tell you to forget about other present-day marketing channels, like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube. Instead, I suggest using those more contemporary channels in unison with email marketing because doing so will skyrocket your business and put you leaps and bounds ahead of the competition. 

Don’t believe me?

Let me share some email marketing statistics I’ve pulled together for you!

• There are 4 billion daily email users—and this number is expected to hit 4.6 billion by 2025.
• On average, email marketing generates $42 for every $1 spent. That’s an average return on investment (ROI) of 4,200%, which is significantly higher than other marketing channels. And we know that to be true because it makes up for 30 to 60 percent of our clients’ total revenue every month.
• Marketers who use segmented campaigns note as much as a 760% increase in revenue. (If you’re not sure what segmented campaigns are, I’ll touch on that soon!)
• 78% of marketers have seen an increase in email engagement over the last 12 months.

So, what does that tell me? It tells me that email has the highest ROI of any channel out there and it’s growing each and every year. 

My recommendation for you: Do not neglect this for one more day.

If you’ve gotten this far, you may be wondering, “OK, Jacob, you’ve convinced me. What do I need to have in place to take advantage of this?” 

Well, next comes choosing the right ecom-specific email platform, implementing some important email flows and campaigns, and putting an effective email capture strategy into action.

So, without further ado, let’s get into it!

Best Email Platform for Ecommerce

There is an increasing number of email platforms available to you, such as Mailchimp, Klaviyo, ActiveCampaign, Drip, Privy, and many others. But which one should you use?

Our unwavering choice at Build Grow Scale is Klaviyo, and we recommend it to all our students and clients without hesitation.

It’s specifically designed for ecommerce and offers a wide range of attractive features: 

• Easy integration with the most popular ecom platforms
• Its own pre-built forms, templates, and automations to get your campaigns and flows running in just a few minutes
• A high level of personalization based on your customers’ interactions with your brand (another huge selling point)

To put it simply, you will not regret choosing Klaviyo.

Automated Flows

Flows, as they’re called in Klaviyo, are automated sequences of emails that are triggered by behaviors like adding an item to your cart or leaving a site without making a purchase.

There are a number of flows you need to have in place if you want to be successful with email marketing, but where should you start?

If I were to pick one, it would undoubtedly be the “Abandoned Checkout” flow. This flow is usually our biggest revenue generator. It’s triggered when a user adds a product to their cart, proceeds to the checkout, then abandons the checkout. These users are your warmest prospects!

However, there are also several other important flows that you should consider implementing as soon as possible. They can be separated into two main buckets: pre-purchase and post-purchase. 

Here’s a list of my favorite flows that I recommend setting up:

Pre-Purchase Flows

• Welcome Series: Prospect subscribes to your newsletter via a pop-up or form
• Site Abandonment: Subscriber visits your site but does not view product
• Browse Abandonment: Subscriber views a product but does not add to cart
• Abandoned Cart: Subscriber adds to cart, but does not reach checkout
• Abandoned Checkout: Someone abandons checkout after entering their email

Post-Purchase Flows

• First-Time Buyer: Customer purchases from you for the first time
• Repeat Buyer: Customer makes a repeat purchase
• VIP: Your most loyal customers based on conditions you set
• Win-Back: Customers who previously engaged with your brand but have not interacted with you for a long period of time

Luckily, Klaviyo does a lot of the heavy lifting and has created templates for all of the flows I mentioned above. You can find these in the “Flows” tab under “Browse Ideas.”

Campaigns (Broadcast Emails)

Campaigns are often a one-time send, like letting your subscribers know about a special sale, product release, newsletters, announcements, etc. These can be sent to a predetermined list of subscribers instantly or scheduled at a later date. 

You can create a new template or choose one from the template library. Klaviyo includes their drag-and-drop editor that automatically optimizes your email for mobile and makes it easy to create powerful on-brand emails in minutes.

You then have the option to A/B split test subject lines, preview text, content, and more before sending campaign emails to your subscribers. This will allow you to learn what your audience responds to the most. 

Email Capture

Implementing an effective email capture strategy is the starting point for building an email list and maximizing your revenue through email marketing. Not only should you be collecting your buyers’ email addresses, but you should also be trying to collect your visitors’ emails as early as possible to retarget them within your campaigns and flows.

So, how can you do that? Answer: with pop-ups! That’s right … those irritating things that disrupt you as you’re attempting to browse a website. You’re probably thinking, “Why would I use them, don’t they annoy some of my customers?” Well, the truth is, yes. They will. But they also work! And you can create them directly in Klaviyo.

Below is a prime example of a very compelling pop-up from the popular ecom store Artifact Uprising.

Pop-ups work best when they provide value to your customers. For instance, a small discount, or a gated offer like a free resource, e-book, case study, etc. Whatever it is, make it something your customers would be willing to hand over in exchange for their email.

Tip: Want to learn more about crafting an effective email capture? Check out this in-depth article from one of Build Grow Scale’s top Revenue Optimization™ experts.

Wrap-Up 

We’ve only scratched the surface of what’s available to us through email marketing! It is continually growing year by year, so there’s no better time to start. And the potential for ecommerce businesses is huge! You really don’t have anything to lose—it’s low-risk and ridiculously cheap. My one hope for you is that you start applying what you have learned as soon as possible, so you can start reaping the benefits!

Resources

Kirsch, K. (2021). The Ultimate List of Email Marketing Stats for 2021. [online] Blog.hubspot.com. 

Klaviyo. (2021). E-mail Marketing Newsletter Templates & HTML. [online] Klaviyo.

Klaviyo. (2021). Guide to Creating and Sending an Email Campaign. [online] Klaviyo.

Zywien, J. (2021). The Right (and Wrong) Way to Use Popups in Ecommerce [online] Klaviyo.