5 Email Marketing Tips for Retailers

Email is a great marketing channel for retailers. It helps consumers build a relationship with your brand and drives traffic to brick and mortar stores and eCommerce shops. So, it’s not something you want to take lightly. 

Your email marketing strategy should be a cornerstone of your overall marketing approach. If you can get your customers to have a unified experience from your store to their inbox, you’re on the road to success.

So, how can retailers improve their email marketing? We’ve got a few email marketing tips specifically for retailers to help you make the most out of your approach. 

Think about the omnichannel experience

One of the significant opportunities retailers have is carrying messaging throughout various touchpoints during the customer journey. For example, as part of the checkout process, gather customer emails and add them to your loyalty lists. From there, you can continue engaging them just as you would on social media and through other channels. 

However, with email, you get two significant benefits that are hard to find on social media. First, it’s a channel you own, so you don’t need to worry about sudden tweaks to algorithms messing up your engagement. And second, you’re not limited to a few photos and a handful of characters. You can help bring your customer on a journey and tell a story. That matters.

Add more personalized content

Personalization is the name of the game today, and that matters both online and in-person. Where retailers can truly enhance personalized content is through email. 

Take the data you have on customers, such as their past purchases or location, and use that to create better emails that deliver personalized information, resources, and product recommendations. Smart Banners™ and Smart Blocks™ help deliver personalized information to your customers in every email you send.

Don’t ignore triggered emails

Triggered or transactional emails are a huge opportunity for retailers to add another touchpoint to connect with customers. And since these emails are opened more frequently than others, it never hurts to use that to your advantage. 

For example, add key personalized information to these emails. If a customer has bought something, make sure you include shipping data or highlight similar recommended products with high reviews. If they’ve left something in their cart, you can create an abandonment series and use a Smart Banner™ in other emails to remind them to come back and complete the purchase.

Encourage foot traffic back to stores

Even if you have an eCommerce shop associated with your brand, it doesn’t mean that customers aren’t interested in coming into your stores and buying. So create emails that encourage them to pop in and shop in person.

There are a number of ways you can do this, and guess what? Personalization comes into play here again too. Look at the customer location and invite them to special sales at your local store. Use a countdown timer to let them know about a new product launch. Or excite your loyalty members with a member’s only event.

Have a conversation

Way too many brands talk at their customers, giving them all sorts of information about the brand and products. No one wants to be a part of a one-way conversation. So instead, look at email as a way to have a conversation with your customers and learn more about them. 

Using dynamic content such as live polling in your welcome emails or newsletters can get that two-way conversation off on the right foot. Your customer will feel like they matter to you, and you’re going to get valuable information from them. With that information, you can create more targeted emails that speak to their individual interests and needs. That’s a win-win.

It’s all about adding value

Customer experience matters more than ever, and every brand needs to find ways to stand out. The retailers that take the time to understand customer needs and interests and deliver will help create a loyal customer base and boost engagement. 

That’s why it’s more important than ever for retailers to take email marketing seriously and look for ways to use it to enhance the customer experience. Building positive relationships now will only pay off down the road.