Omni-Channel commerce - Email marketing for success part 2

A couple of weeks ago, I covered the basics of getting started with email marketing. This week I will touch on the basic types of emails and recommending ways to use them.

I will cover 3 of the main types of emails that are effective in retail:

• Promotional

• Informational

• Transaction Based

Promotional Emails

Promotional emails featuring new products, special pricing, seasonal sales, etc. tend to clutter our inboxes. However, there IS a reason why retailers inundate us with them: They Work!

As much as we all despise pure spam (emails we never signed up for touting things we don’t care about), getting contacted by retailers offering products we are interested in doesn’t generally irritate us as a customer. I do try to keep it manageable so I will unsubscribe from retailers that send more than 1 email a week if they don’t offer me the option to limit the number of emails I receive from them. With that in mind, let’s talk about some promotional email best practices.

1. Frequency
   I personally don’t want more than one email a week at most from a retailer unless there is truly something interesting that they couldn’t tell me in the first email I got that week. Many retailers do send one or more emails a day to keep themselves front and center in your world. For me and many other customers, that is too many and if you don’t allow them to opt to receive fewer emails, they (I) will unsubscribe completely. For most small retailers, there aren’t the resources to create that much content so too many emails is generally a non-issue. Much more likely the problem will be not enough emails. If you aren’t sending at least one email a month, you are missing sales that your more active or higher search ranked competitors are going to poach as you won’t be the first place your customer looks for your products. I really prefer once a week if you have the resources to create new and interesting content each week.

2. Content
   For promotional emails, subject lines that convey value, excitement, and/or urgency will help with opens. Promotional emails generally have a banner graphic to announce the promotion with details in the body. If the promotion is product oriented, images and direct links to product pages on your ecommerce site for ease of purchase is a must. If the promotion is more general in nature (like 20% off a category or even site-wide), have images and links to landing pages created on your site to emphasis the promotion and to quickly go to featured products. A consistent format/layout is helpful for your team in creating the emails but not necessary from a marketing standpoint.

Informational Emails

Informational emails are used to position you and your company as experts in your field and as a resource for answers about the products/services you provide. The most common form of informational email is the newsletter. Newsletters are emails your customers subscribe to in order to learn more about some type of products or the activities related to a set of products depending on your vertical.

1. Frequency
   Informational emails such as newsletters are generally sent weekly or monthly. You can also send out special bulletins when something important happens in relation to your industry. The resources you have to generate interesting content will help you determine how often to send your informational emails. It is better to send informational emails less frequently if it will give you time to create better content.

2. Content
   News that your customers will value and relates to your product line and your customer’s interests is the key to successful informational email campaigns. With an outdoor sporting goods store for example, you might have an article about the pros and cons of popular local campsites or mountain bike trails. Product can also be a focus if you are offering unbiased reviews of new products on the market, etc. but the thrust needs to be informational, not promotional. Another effective way to get a product into the mix is to express how it works in the situation you are writing about. If I were writing about the popular local campsites I mentioned above, I could say something like, “Our XYZ tent is our go to tent for this trip because…” and have a link to the page on my ecommerce site that is offering that tent. Keeping your informational emails separate from your promotional emails is a good way help keep your customers from unsubscribing.

Transaction Based Emails

Transaction based emails are the emails you send as a result of a customer’s interaction with you. Order confirmations, order completion emails, tracking number emails, out of stock emails, abandoned cart (a special case), rate your product or experience emails, etc. are all opportunities to tighten your connection with your customers.

1. Frequency
   Transaction based emails are initiated by a customer action such as adding an item to a cart or actually making a purchase on your ecommerce site. These emails tend to be automatically sent by the ecommerce system you are using (although some types of these emails may require add-ons to your platform in order to be sent). Most systems worth using will send an order confirmation and an order shipped email with tracking number. Many will also let you send order received and order processed emails between the confirmation and shipped emails to keep your customer informed of where their order is in your process. In any case, these emails are typically one shot emails relating only to a particular order and, as such, frequency isn’t determined by you. The exceptions are the abandoned cart email and the rating email. Abandoned cart emails are generally sent 24 hours after a customer adds one or more products to the basket while logged into their ecommerce account with you. Most systems will let you set additional follow ups if the items are still in the basket for set periods of time after the first email is sent. Similarly, emails requesting customers to rate a product after purchase are generally sent 1 week after the product should have arrived, with follow on emails possible if they don’t respond initially.

2. Content
   Since transaction based emails a generally automated, they will be template based which may limit your ability to modify them. At the least, these emails should be branded for your store with your logo, contact information, a link to your main site as well as helpful links to places like customer service info. More sophisticated systems will allow you to include product suggestions based on the customer’s current purchase or just feature products that you choose. Offering coupons for the customer’s next purchase from your site is also a popular option to encourage repeat business or offer them for completion of the product rating email requests.

Most successful retailers make use of at least 2 of the 3 main types with many using all 3. Coordinated with the email marketing schedule I discussed in my previous article, your email marketing strategy can be the rocket boost you really need to succeed online.

Omni-Channel commerce - Email marketing for success

In this week’s article, I am going to discuss email marketing which, in my mind, is the second most important tool for omni-channel success behind only your ecommerce site.

If you happened to read the article by John James that I linked to in this post, you can easily see that improving your conversion rates, number of site visits per each new customer, and average number of lifetime purchases per customer drives much higher lifetime value per customer. Email marketing is the most consistent driver of growth for number of visits and purchases over the course of a customer’s lifetime for almost all retail verticals.

Step 1 to a successful email marketing strategy is acquiring your customer’s (or potential customer’s) email address. There are several effective techniques that you can use to encourage your customers to give you their email addresses both online and in-store. I will list a few here that you have probably encountered yourself while shopping:

In-Store

• Offering paperless, emailed receipts at checkout

• Discount coupon good for next visit on signing up

• Simply asking if they would like to join at checkout

Online

• Popup banner offering discount on first order for signing up

• Checkbox during checkout offering notifications of deals and specials

• Back in stock notification offers

• Email signup box on every page of your website

Step 2 to a successful email marketing strategy is creating a marketing calendar. How often you email your customers and the content involved depends on your product lines and your resources. Many retailers are prepared to email their customers on a daily basis basis but most small retailers don’t have the resources to create and send emails that often. I recommend a minimum of 1 email per month with additional emails in months where seasonal sales, etc. are happening. A weekly email supplemented by special events emails is what I consider ideal for most small businesses if they have the resources to generate the content needed for that many emails.

There are also several automated emails that need to be implemented. Many of the obvious ones such as order confirmation, order shipped, order delivered, and abandoned cart emails can be generated by most modern eCommerce platforms and can be customized to include marketing. Others such as a welcome email for signing up for newsletters, etc. can be generated by most bulk email services like Constant Contact or MailChimp.

Step 3 to a successful email marketing strategy is sticking to your calendar! A lot of retailers I have worked with get everything in place and diligently stick to their schedule for a few months but then start to miss dates until they might only be sending out the occasional sale email. One excuse that has I still can’t believe I heard is that they are too busy dealing with orders to keep up with the email campaign that was generating them. Have a plan to grow if you start becoming successful or you won’t be able to keep doing the things that are making you successful in the first place!

Next week I will go over the different types of emails you can use to promote your business and how best to utilize them.

Good luck selling!

Jim

Omni-channel commerce - The eCommerce Foundation

In today’s article, we are going to look at eCommerce in the traditional sense with a retailer having their own eCommerce site. We will explore the other online channels in future articles.

For most retailers, traditional eCommerce should be the center piece of an omni-channel strategy. Not only does it allow your customer to buy from you at their convenience but it can be the focal point of all of your marketing initiatives, regardless of channel. Your eCommerce website can be the driver of new business, a way to interact with current customers, and even used to drive foot traffic into your brick and mortar store.

The Pros of having your own eCommerce website:

• You are in control of your customer

• Promotions, New Product Lines, Seasonal Offerings, etc. can all be easily featured on modern eCommerce sites

• New customers searching for the products you carry can find you and confirm that you have what they are looking for and make purchases

• You can cross promote between channels using your eCommerce site as the final link to complete purchases

• You can drive foot traffic into your brick and mortar store

There are many more but let’s look at these primary ones in a little more detail.

Your are in control of your customer

When a customer makes a purchase on your eCommerce site, you capture essential information about them. Name, address, phone, and email are the basics that will help you turn a new customer into a repeat buyer. On shopping platforms like Amazon, the customer belongs to Amazon, not you. Being able to market to your customer and increase their lifetime value to you is critical to success. An article by John James of Engine Commerce illustrates this point quite clearly: How we built a $100 million eCommerce business using 8th grade math He shows how increasing your margin and reducing expenses, while nice, isn’t the key to explosive growth. Marketing to your customers and turning new customers into repeat customers is and it applies to in-store as well as online customers. If you don’t control your customer, you are losing sales.

Promotions, New Product Lines, Seasonal Offerings, etc. can all be easily featured on modern eCommerce sites

One of the cornerstones of a good omni-channel strategy is to be able to give your customers the same experience wherever and whenever they interact with your store (there are rare exceptions which I will discuss in a bit). Just as you feature items in your shop window to draw in people walking by, the home page on your eCommerce site should entice browsers to click further. Featuring promotions, new products or brands, and popular items and keeping them fresh, just as you do those items in your store window, is crucial. Modern eCommerce platforms have made it much easier to change the content featured on your home page yourself so you should strive to have your home page reflect what you are doing in-store.

New customers searching for the products you carry can find you and confirm that you have what they are looking for and make purchases

As I mentioned in last week’s post, up to 80% of customers research online before walking into a store (or while in-store) to make a purchase. If you don’t have a quality eCommerce site utilizing proper SEO techniques, perhaps augmented with search engine marketing, those customers won’t know you exist and someone else can get the sale you should have had.

You can cross promote between channels using your eCommerce site as the final link to complete purchases

Featuring products in emails, on social media, or through other channels that allow you to link back to your eCommerce site can allow your customers to purchase from your site in as little as two clicks. Making it easy to buy from you is one of the primary purposes of an eCommerce site. Using other channels to drive your customers there only makes sense.

You can drive foot traffic into your brick and mortar store

Even though a consistent experience across all channels is extremely important for a solid omni-channel strategy, there are times when it makes sense to favor one channel over another. Perhaps you have just remodeled your brick and mortar store and would like to encourage people to come in. In that case, offering a coupon on the website that can only be redeemed in-store can help you achieve your goal. In the same vein, you can offer coupons to your in-store patrons that they can only redeem online to drive new visitors to your site.

The Cons of having your own eCommerce website

• Cost

• Management

In my mind, eCommerce is so crucial to today’s retailer that cost and management aren’t really cons but things that need to be addressed in a way that makes sense for your business.

Cost

Typically, there are two types of costs directly related to running an eCommerce site: The upfront costs of getting a website setup and running and the ongoing costs associated with maintaining the site.

Setup costs can include software, design and development, and data entry. These costs can range from $0 to $50,000+ depending on the platform and features desired. In reality, no site can be setup for $0 since there is always the business owner’s time involved and even though it may not be out of pocket, it is still an expense that should be considered. How much you should spend on setup depends on your vertical, number of items, long term goals, and the resources (both human and financial) that you have available.

Ongoing costs include fees for hosting for your site, the costs associated with maintaining the database and home page, and any other fees you may incur like credit card processing fees. If you do most of the work yourself and don’t do many online transactions, you might get by for as little as $50/month in out of pocket expenses. Using employees to maintain the database, using a more feature rich eCommerce platform, and including a marketing budget to promote the site can drive monthly costs easily into the thousands of dollars. That is fine if the sales you are making (or planning on making) support those kinds of numbers.

Management

Hand in hand with the ongoing costs is the effort it takes to maintain the site properly. Item entry, inventory accuracy, ability to coordinate marketing efforts across channels, customer addition and maintenance and ease of home page maintenance all play a part in a successful eCommerce effort.

eCommerce platforms that integrate directly with your in-store POS can make a huge difference by essentially automating items, inventory counts, and customer data but tend to be more expensive than non-integrated options on a monthly basis. In my first post, I go into more detail about considering integrated eCommerce and why.

Marketing should be planned and executed according to that plan. With the competition in today’s eCommerce landscape, just because you build a great website doesn’t mean it will succeed.

Like your shop window, your home page will need consistent attention. Whether you are hiring someone to do this or doing it yourself, you will still be the one determining what sales, products, and brands to feature.

The bottom line is an eCommerce site can require (and should receive) as much of your time and energy as a new brick and mortar location.

With a solid eCommerce website presence, you will be able to grow your business utilizing the website and other channels in concert.

Good luck selling!

Jim

What is Omni-channel commerce and does it matter to small retailers?

Omni-channel (or omnichannel) retail is the ability to offer your customers a consistent and quality experience wherever and whenever they interact with your store. It is a strategy that incorporates in-store, online, market places, social media, and all other retail channels to allow your customers to interact with you when and where they want.

In today’s mobile and connected world, you need to make your business visible and your products available where your customers are looking. In the past, that meant putting your business in a high traffic location like a mall (and paying the high rents that went with it) or being willing to spend on traditional advertising like newspaper, magazine, and yellow page ads to drive new traffic to your business or some combination of both.

eCommerce has changed all that. According to the latest Census Bureau report from May 2019, eCommerce made up 10.2% of total retail sales in the first quarter. While that percentage continues to grow strongly, it isn’t nearly as eyeopening as doing a Google search on “percentage of shoppers who look online before going into a store”. The results you will see there show consumers doing research online before buying in the 70%-80% range or even higher, depending on the vertical. The retailers that can afford to ignore those kinds of numbers are truly rare indeed.

As consumers have interacted more with retailers online, they have begun to expect the same experience from the retailer at whatever touch point they are using. Buy something online? I want to be able to return it in-store. Any inconsistency in the customer experience across your selling channels can lead to customer frustration and that is what drives Omni-channel retail.

Over the next few weeks, we will touch on the major avenues of Omni-channel commerce and how best to use them to grow your business.

Good Luck Selling!

Jim

To Integrate Or Not To Integrate... That is the eCommerce question of the week

Integrated vs Non-integrated eCommerce

So you know that you need to offer your products online in order to succeed in today’s digital retail world. As a small business owner, your next question needs to be, “should I go with integrated ecommerce or not?”. Integrated ecommerce tends to cost more than non-integrated solutions so it is an important decision to get right.

For the sake of this discussion, integrated eCommerce is when your eCommerce website is connected to your in-store point of sale system and keeps inventory counts, items, and customers updated between the two (and any other sales channel you might be using).

For many smaller retailers, keeping costs down is crucial for survival. However, you don’t want to be “penny wise and pound foolish”.

To determine if you need integrated ecommerce, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Do I have more than 30-50 items to offer for sale online?

2. Will I be handling more than 1-3 orders per day?

3. Does my current point of sale system have a built-in integration to an eCommerce website or do good 3rd party integrations exist for my point of sale and one or more of the main stand alone ecommerce options (like Magento or Shopify)?

4. What is my budget?

If you answered “Yes” to either of the first two questions and the answer is “Yes” to the third, then you definitely need to take a look at integrating your eCommerce site with your point of sale system. If you answered “Yes” to BOTH of the first two questions and the answer to the third was “No”, you need to seriously consider a different point of sale system for your business as having integrated eCommerce will be that crucial to your ongoing success.

For a small business with a limited number of items that are either a) “one of a kind” or b) will always be in stock, non-integrated ecommerce can be an inexpensive way to get started with online selling. Keeping inventory levels accurate in either situation isn’t difficult and until the daily number of online orders starts growing, the additional work to maintain the site and process the orders won’t be overbearing.

HOWEVER, if you are going to maintain more items and inventory count accuracy matters or if you are processing several orders a day, integrated eCommerce begins to be important, if not necessary, to running your business successfully. Integrated eCommerce can save you a lot of time and trouble by removing the need to maintain two databases of item information, manual entry of your online orders into your point of sale system for sales and inventory tracking, and improving your customer’s online shopping experience by virtually eliminating issues like selling items that are out of stock.

Finally, you need to consider your budget. Even if you answered “No” to the first two questions, I am an advocate of integrated eCommerce if you can afford it. If you grow your online sales over time, you won’t have to change ecommerce platforms in the future if you are already integrated. If you do choose not to use integration initially, at least try to select an eCommerce platform that you can integrate with later if your business grows. Switching eCommerce platforms is almost always painful from both a time investment perspective and from lost page ranking as your new site is re-indexed by the search engines. If you answered “No” to the first two questions and don’t plan on trying to expand your business via eCommerce then a non-integrated eCommerce website can work for you.

To learn more about both integrated and non-integrated eCommerce options, feel free to contact me.

Good Luck Selling!

Jim