Most blogs and businesses that use WordPress are already ahead of the curve, especially when it comes to online visibility.
Yet, as online shelves grow, more is demanded of the eCommerce marketer and retailer. They’re expected to capture and maintain digital market share.
Email marketing and automation are gaining in popularity with WordPress users. When done correctly, email marketing can increase traffic and purchases on your website.
Understanding the impact of email marketing tools
Efficient communication with prospects and customers is essential for an online business.
However, while there are tons of WordPress tools and plugins available to do this, there are also hurdles in the digital marketplace:
1. Short audience attention spans
2. Incompatible tools
3. High-expense
To be able to overcome these challenges, you need an actionable marketing campaign.
Email marketing tools give your customers a more personalized experience with your website.
At the same time, they promise to free up your time so you can handle more demanding tasks. Such tasks might include running ads on Facebook, Q&As, podcasting, and partnering with other businesses.
With the right email tools, you’ll be able to –
Deliver the right content at the right time
Sending the right content at the appropriate time is bound to enhance the audience’s reception and your open rate. In particular, when combined with a clear call-to-action. The research also shows that 74% of customers expect to hear from companies within a few hours of disclosing their email addresses.
Build deeper relationships with customers and subscribers
Most times, it’s not possible to correspond with each subscriber. Luckily, regular automated engagement will do the trick as well. It will make sure that your audience knows your online shelves are accessible at all times.
Sustain a strong client base through hands-on customer support
Ecommerce users that make use of WordPress email tools are better poised to thrive. They ensure customers receive a swift reply in a personalized and reassuring tone.
Enhancing your WordPress site – where and how to start
Below we present a few tried-and-tested methods used by eCommerce website owners. These methods all lead to impactful email marketing campaigns.
Adopt the use of an email marketing service
For a thriving small or eCommerce business, you might need to send thousands (even tens of thousands) of emails weekly. The most convenient and time-efficient way to do this is to use an email marketing service.
There are tons of tools available that you can use to make an awesome marketing strategy. Among them are popular providers like Constant Contact and OptinMonster.
These simple email services are perfect for WordPress users looking to:
1. Create forms
2. View detailed analytics
3. Bulk send emails
Create a personalized message template
You should have client email templates that include customizable fields. The advantage is that you can change the names of the customers or adapt the template to suit a specific situation.
Emails with generic salutations such as “Dear Sender” end up in your customer’s spam folder.
On the other hand, emails that are well-personalized appeal to the customer and email spam filters.
Make your emails visually appealing
To develop a long-lasting relationship with your customers, you need captivating emails that represent your brand at first glance.
1. Use conspicuous and personalized headers
2. Use a single font throughout. A standard/official one. (Think Arial or Garamond)
3. Homogenize your business’s logo color scheme to the email background
4. Balance out swaths of text with gripping images
These tricks will help you capture and sustain your subscriber’s attention. Also, modern email marketing tools such as ConvertKit allow you to:
1. Use background images
2. Use customized fonts
3. Include graphics
Use stories in your email marketing campaigns to appeal to customers
It has been argued that at the core of good marketing is storytelling. However, the ability to tell a compelling story, one that appeals to an audience, is an innate gift held by few.
How does one fit a story into a short, concise email?
The key is to make a trustworthy promise. First, to summarise a problem in a way that fits easily to common intuition. Then use a narrative to show your target audience how your business solves this problem.
Target customer segments to increase engagement
Segmentation is the practice of curating emails in batches. Each batch (or segment) represents a specific subsection of your subscribership.
This kind of demography-based segmentation is popular with eCommerce websites. It allows you to gather information about your audience and classify them according to their needs.
Segmentation can help you get more details about your visitor’s specific behaviors. It can also help with preferences and interests (sort of like a quick survey). It is these analytics that will help you curate the most compelling and relevant content.
Be strategic in the time & frequency of emailing
The most crucial area of an effective email campaign is scheduling.
How often do you plan on sending out emails to your subscribers? Once a month? Twice a day? The exact frequency will, in a large part, depend on the specific nature of your business. Generally speaking, you want to hit the right spot with your emailing frequency — not too often that your customer reaches for the spam button, yet, not too rarely that your email can be overlooked.
To do this, you should include a field in your opt-in forms that asks the visitor to fill in their email frequency preference.
If you haven’t yet decided on your preferred email marketing tools, here are some we’ve collated. These are according to their specific marketing purpose.
Tools for capturing an email list
SendinBlue subscribe form and WP SMTP
Key features:
1. Set emails to send after a user clicks a specific button
2. Send anniversary, birthday, and welcome emails
3. Send emails after a user visits specific landing pages on your site
4. Custom design workflows based on actions, conditions, and triggers
ConvertBox
Key features:
1. Full-page slider — horizontally scrollable image that can be embedded in your email
2. Callout (as with a slider) — a small embedded message that works best for your CTA
3. Modal popup — a small window that must be interacted with before returning to the main webpage
4. Notification bar — to inform you of the latest clicks, purchases, queries, etc.
Tools for managing an email list
Thrive Leads
Key features:
1. Welcome mats — a fancy full-screen welcome email
2. Slide-ins — a small window that pops in once an email is opened
3. Lightbox popups — a small form that appears above an active webpage
4. Notification bars
Convert Pro
Key features:
1. New v. repeating visitors —can log relevant stats to help you track visitation and subscription numbers
2. Can log in WP users — using custom WordPress integration
Plugins for sending newsletters
Constant Contact
With Constant Contact, you can personalize and control your marketing calendar, email templates, email lists, and more.
Each account gives you access to:
1. Unlimited emails
2. Easy tracking and reporting
3. Built-in social media sharing tools
4. A free image library
5. List segmentation
6. Facebook ads integration
7. A powerful eCommerce integration for Shopify stores
OptinMonster
With OptinMonster, you can manage a wide array of lead forms, all high-converting. These include opt-in forms, personalizable lead forms, slider scroll boxers, overlayed welcome mats, floating bars, and pop-ups.
External ESPs for sending newsletters
Drip
Drip’s email functionalities enable you to integrate your site’s builders seamlessly. This way, you will be able to capture leads, display signup forms/pop-ups, and send emails to your subscribership with ease.
ConvertKit
ConvertKit’s main selling point is that it allows incentives and upgrades. In addition, it allows for easily customizable email forms for signup.
It also offers easy-to-use autoresponders, allowing you to send and create drip emails from ConvertKit’s service.
Conclusion
Email marketing is easily your most measurable channel — with the right tools.
Your website acts as your digital storefront and a point of interaction with prospects and customers.
In a traditional retail outlet, the owner or manager would carefully plan the customer touchpoints to ensure maximum contact with staff. However, once you go online, emails become your digital call-to-action and a valuable communication tool.
