Don’t kill: newsletters for the online store
Mailing lists are one of the cheapest and, when applied correctly, effective marketing tools. You can do it with your own company, without resorting to external service providers. You can combine it with research of your client sector. As a result, you can dramatically increase sales and the number of loyal customers. It is very simple, if only to follow the already established good practice of mailing. Unfortunately, as a rule, they think little about this practice, as a result of mailings they literally kill the business, scaring away customers. How not to kill your business with newsletters? What should be done in order not to use a useful marketing tool to your own detriment?
The segment of sales on the Internet, or e-commerce, is now developing very quickly. If only because almost everyone can create their own store. It’s also easy to create a newsletter, especially if you use the Unisender service . But most often, things do not go further than spam mailings or simple mass mailings, which are also poorly thought out and organized. As a result, dissatisfied and lost customers. But each of your newsletters is a point promotion, which, with the right approach, can significantly increase ROI. Let's see how to approach your newsletters competently?
Base collection
The quality of your base is more important than its quantity. Of course, the temptation is great to buy someone else’s base and send it out, but if you didn’t wait for your letters and did not subscribe to them, this is spam . And spam primarily causes rejection: it has become too much. In addition, spam is actively fought.
Internal base collection method
Spamming is not our method. Work on creating your own customer base that is specifically interested in you. To do this, you need to establish the process of collecting contact information about the client (the process of collecting leads). You need to stimulate in any way possible - offer to indicate your data in exchange for a discount, bonuses, a discount coupon, participation in a draw or a special promotion, offer a club card. In addition, in order to make a purchase, customers will need to register on the site, and thus get into your database. And finally, do not neglect those customers who started the purchase and payment process, but did not complete it - this is also a leader, to which you can later be reminded that for some reason he did not make a purchase, but you are always ready to him will help.
External base collection methods
You can use CPA networks to recruit subscribers. In this case, the cost of attracting a subscriber, as a rule, ranges from 20 to 50 rubles. The quality of the subscriber must be discussed in advance and prescribed in the contract.
You can resort to partner mailing systems . By doing an affiliate newsletter, you can also, in theory, reach your potential customers. As a rule, the quality of such subscribers is higher, but the cost of attracting such a lead is also higher - about 50 rubles.
However, with this method of collecting leads, you must remember that these are the most “cold” leads, that is, the least interested in you: you will need to do some work in order to “flare up” them and interest you. Literate conversations will help you here.
Base segmentation
Just mass mailing without segmentation of the base is the basics. However, if you want to significantly increase ROI, you need to do a deeper job with your base. First of all, segment it according to where your lead came from. Next, select segments by date of registration or lead collection. Segment customers by conversion - made purchases, did not make any purchases, did not open any letters. If you conduct focused work with each individual segment of the base, you are more likely to bring them to the stage of sale or re-purchase.
Conversations
Chain of letters is a method of working with the received contact, which is most effective if you provide separate chains for each of the strategically important segments of your database. Set up for each segment an automatic chain of trigger messages based on the level of interest and loyalty of this segment to you.
Purchase history
An extremely useful tool for segmenting your database can be a mechanism for tracking purchase history. Having such information about your lead, you can offer him products from the same or related category, offer to buy a new product from a new collection, offer security for the purchased product or “exchange” the old model for a new one. In addition, based on the entries in the purchase history, it is possible to segment leads as having made only one purchase, two, or more - thus identifying base segments according to their loyalty level.
Email Frequency
It often happens that a customer makes one purchase in an online store, and a careful mailing list manager sets up for him a completely “insane” mailing list with 3 letters per day, where each time it is suggested to buy something else. But what if I bought, for example, a thermometer in an online pharmacy when I was ill, and now they have been offering me everything for almost a week - from diapers to an artificial respiration apparatus? That's right, the question is in poor database segmentation and in incorrectly configured chains. In addition, the basic rule is that the frequency of letters should not exceed once a week. And it’s good to remember that each of your letters may be the last - if you did not please the client, he can simply unsubscribe. Therefore, make each of your letters thoughtful and at least hypothetically necessary for your client.
Letter template
It’s good if you don’t create your every letter from scratch. Receiving letters in the standard of one brand template, the client gets used to your colors and the information delivery system, which should also contribute to loyalty. Do not forget to include the required lines in the template indicating where the client appeared in your newsletter and how he can unsubscribe. Think over the html and text version of the letter. Make your letters easy, pay attention to the simplicity of layout and make sure that letters are displayed on mobile devices without any problems.
Test
Test absolutely everything: every letter before sending, every link in the letter. Go through the registration process on your site yourself and go through it every time after making changes to it. Put yourself in the shoes of your client: how convenient is everything? Are there any error pages? Are the links leading the wrong way? How quickly can I register and will I lose any interest in the purchase due to the complexity of registration?
Test not only letters, but also letter options. You can use split testing for this.. Test each segment: what does it respond better to? What language do you like for a particular segment? What is more interesting from your assortment? What letter headers, links, content, the location of buttons and pictures make each segment come to life individually?
Only in this way will you be able to see the quality of your letters and the qualities of your database. Therefore, test everything and always.
Key indicators
What KPI indicators do you evaluate during the mailing process? Each business defines them for itself. However, the key indicator for the online store will be sales. You can also analyze the number of open letters, the number of unsubscriptions, the number of clicks to the site. But they all give you nothing if there is no sales. Use a sales funnel, optimize for its algorithm not only your newsletter, but also the usability of the store. Your goal is to attract and monetize your traffic.
To summarize, we select a small list of requirements that each of your newsletters must meet. Once again, when planning a newsletter, remember, each of your newsletters should be:
- potentially needed by the client
- easily displayed by email services and mobile devices
- easy to read, call to action
- containing only correct links and data about your goods and services
- selling
The purpose of your newsletter is sales. However, you need to achieve this goal without losing customers, so follow the sending schedule, use testing, conversations, and database segmentation.