In fact, the past few years have been particularly good for email marketing. Especially in light of numerous disruptions on social media platforms and a renewed focus on private, personal and owned media channels. 

So with email still reigning supreme among merchants’ marketing strategies, what does the future hold? 

To ensure your store’s email marketing strategy remains competitive, we reached out to 10 experts with a few questions: 

• What’s your top email trend for 2023?
• What are the 3 most effective strategies you used in 2022?
• Ideally, what percentage of sales should email be generating for merchants?
• What are some all-too-often overlooked email automations?
• What are the subject lines that yielded the best results in 2022?
• What are some challenges with email that merchants commonly face?

Here’s what they came back with. 

Giles Thomas

Giles is the CEO of Whole Design Studios, a Shopify marketing agency that’s helped fashion and luxury businesses for over 10 years. 

Top email trend for 2023

AI has been talked about for several years now, but in the past year it has exploded into popular discourse with new apps like ChatGPT and DALL·E revolutionizing AI chat and art generation. 

Giles also sees the possibilities this opens up for email:

“AI content ideation and drafting, qualitative data collection with quizzes further segment lists.”

Most effective email strategies

As for the most effective email marketing strategies Giles has seen at his Shopify agency, he mentions plain text emails, personalizing their emails with emotive content such as founder stories, and doubling down on personalization and segmentation. 

“Plain text narrative driven emails, using founder stories or emotional drivers to sale, dynamic personalization, and advanced segmentation.”

Ideally, what percentage of sales should email be generating?

While it’s hard to put a figure on an overall average for all merchants, Giles says that if your email strategy is driving up to 30% of sales, you’re doing well. 

“30% of revenue from email would be killing it, IMHO.”

What are some all-too-often overlooked email automations?

Even if your email marketing is driving 30% or more of sales, Giles reckons there’s a fair chance you’re not taking full advantage of post-purchase campaigns. 

One of the reasons post-purchase campaigns are so important is that it’s 5-times more expensive to acquire a new customer than make another sale to an existing customer. So nurturing your new customers and encouraging them to make repeat purchases is incredibly important. 

And while many merchants may have a basic campaign set up, Giles nominates “customizing post-purchase to improve customer lifetime value” as one of his top tips. 

One way you can customize your post-purchase campaign is by creating different flows based on which product a customer buys. If you have too many products for this to be feasible, you can instead customize it at a product category level. 

What subject lines yielded the best results in 2022?

It’s not easy trying to constantly come up with new ideas when writing subject lines.

One subject line idea Giles had success with in 2022 that you may not have tried yet are fake ‘we made a mistake’ emails. 

Whole Design Studios would set up these emails for some of their clients that claim a mistake was made (such as accidentally sending the email to the wrong customers, or not including a code in a previous email). 

In reality, the goal was just to spark people’s interest in finding out what happened and opening the email. Once they open the email, they’d find a discount code as an ‘apology’ which drove sales.

What are some challenges with email that merchants commonly face?

When it comes to common challenges Giles’ clients routinely face, he nominates the following: 

“Topic ideation for newsletters, seeing the value of deleting emails and list health, being willing to send a lot of emails during seasonal peaks.”

When you’re regularly sending newsletters (which is best practice), you can quickly run out of ideas. That’s why we put together a list of 101 newsletter ideas that should cover you for at least a couple of years. 

When it comes to deleting emails and list health, we’ve also got a handy guide to email list cleaning for merchants. It’s well worth a read as maintaining a healthy list plays a big role in campaign performance. 

Annette Palmieri

Annette Palmieri is a Growth Marketing Specialist at BEE Content Design. In addition to her expertise in email marketing, Annette is also highly skilled in content creation and social media marketing. 

Top email trend for 2023

While Apple has supported dark mode emails in their desktop email client since 2018, with Google following suit a year later, the feature is yet to see mainstream adoption among marketers. 

Annette reckons we will start to see this happen in 2023:

“Dark Mode: It’s been on the rise for some time (for a good reason): these kinds of emails are relaxing for the eyes and help to save the battery on devices. But, most important, sending emails compatible with dark mode will boost your sender reputation.”

Most effective email strategies

What are some of the most effective email strategies that BEE Content Design saw last year? Annette nominates “re-engagement campaigns, segmentation, and event-based (not time-based) emails.”

If you think your email strategy could improve in any of these areas in 2023, or you’d just like to learn more about them, then check out our following guides:

• Guide to winback emails to re-engage once loyal customers who have gone cold
• Everything you need to know about email segmentation
• 5 Event-based automations that every store should have enabled

Ideally, what percentage of sales should email be generating?

While Giles said that generating 30% of all sales from email “would be killing it,” Annette reckons the average merchant should be aiming for about 20%. 

If your email marketing strategy isn’t achieving this, consider booking a free consultation call with SmartrMail to see how we can help you achieve more sales. 

What are some all-too-often overlooked email automations?

As for email automations that Annette notices merchants regularly overlook, she lists: “Welcome emails, abandoned carts, and cross-sell emails.”

It’s concerning that Annette sees merchants lacking a decent welcome email strategy. Often being a customer’s first impression of your email marketing, these emails are arguably one of the most important automations. If you want to learn more about them, and why they’re so vital, check out our guide on welcome emails here. 

Abandoned cart emails are an incredibly effective solution to the all-too-common problem of cart abandonment. With the ability to recover over a third of the tens of billions of dollars in lost sales every year. 

It’s a bit more understandable that merchants may not have set up cross-sell automations, given that they require a bit more effort than welcome and abandoned cart emails. But they’re well worth the effort, as we explain in our guide on how to cross-sell like a pro.

What are some challenges with email that merchants commonly face?

Three ongoing issues Annette sees merchants face are: 

• Having a consistent brand identity across all the messages they create
• Being afraid of staying simple in the communication
• Choosing the wrong tool that doesn’t allow for collaboration in a proper way

Unfortunately, there are no easy- or quick-fixes to these challenges. 

We’ve previously talked about the importance of having a consistent brand identity across all your marketing channels in our guide on email design (spoiler: your emails should look like your website). As for staying simple in your emails, you might want to check out our guide on email length best practices. 

Alfredo Aguanta

Alfredo is the Digital Design Lead and EDM Specialist at Blank Theory, an agency offering a broad range of services from website development to email and social media marketing. 

Top email trend for 2023

Alfredo’s top trend for 2023 concerns email segmentation. More specifically, microsegmentation: 

“Segmentation has been a big part of email marketing for many years, but, in 2022, a big trend has been microsegmentation. This focuses on specific buying habits, age groups, genders, professions, travel histories and more. We have then been able to create data-driven, extremely personalized campaigns.” 

Most effective email strategies

While segmentation might be getting more specific in 2023, Alfredo nominates some long-standing best practices as the most effective email strategies merchants can utilize:

“Three strategies that we always aim to follow up on year after year for maintaining effectiveness in our email campaigns are: 

• Keeping healthy email lists
• Analyzing our clients’ customers to understand what users are looking to align ourselves with the vision and mission of our clients
• Making sure that we review and update all automations to make sure we stay on top of any trends there might be in the clients’ industries”

The start of the new year is a perfect time to revisit your email list health to ensure it stays clean. Especially after the busy sales period in November and December. 

Being on the lookout for new email strategies (by reading articles like this) is always a good idea. Again, the start of a new year is a good time for this as it tends to be a quieter time. 

Ideally, what percentage of sales should email be generating?

As an industry average, Alfredo suggests that email marketing should be generating between 25% to 30% of total online sales. However, he points out that you shouldn’t expect to realize this straight away:

“We always let our clients know, that email marketing is a process and a journey. We take them through this, explaining how we want to convey to users the core brand personality and messaging to both improve this percentage while growing the brand’s presence and recognisability.”

What are some all-too-often overlooked email automations?

Similar to Giles and Annette above, Alfredo also says that abandoned cart and post-purchase emails are routinely overlooked by merchants. He also says that merchants can often make better use of personalized product recommendations. 

“At Blank Theory, the majority of the time we see that clients like to engage via email marketing with their clients, but often do not follow up the conversation or give them that extra nudge to make that final click and make a purchase.”

Making better use of personalized product recommendations is one way to give customers that ‘extra nudge.’ This can be as simple as including recommendations in your existing email automations.

What subject lines yielded the best results in 2022?

Alfredo has a couple of tips to get the most out of your subject lines in 2023. The first is to keep things simple: 

“We have found that keeping subject lines straight to the point does get higher conversions, for example: “30% OFF Storewide | XMAS Sale Now On”, but at the same time we do not bombard clients with this strategy all the time.“

Additionally, Alfredo recommends balancing these out with more friendly ones that make good use of emojis in subject lines.

Kathryn Browning

Working for Justuno, an app providing a suite of conversion tools for merchants, Kathryn Browning is now their Senior Marketing Manager. So it’s fair to say she knows the ins and outs of ecommerce email marketing.

Top email trend for 2023

Driven by both customer concerns and regulatory changes, privacy and respecting consumer data is something that has increasingly been on the minds of marketers. Kathryn sees this trend continuing in 2023, including for email marketers. 

“We see many customers start placing a greater emphasis on zero and first-party data collection and then using that to personalize their email flows. This is a trend that will continue in 2023 since continued privacy regulations and cookie changes will force marketers to rely on this owned data. Not to mention—it’s just good marketing!”

What are some all-too-often overlooked email automations?

Answering this question, Kathryn shares a couple of email automations that haven’t been mentioned yet: Holiday anniversary emails and review follow-ups. 

Holiday anniversary emails target customers who purchased during a particular event (such as Valentine’s Day) in the lead up to the same event in future years. In a way, you can think of this as a particular kind of post-purchase follow-up campaign. 

“Creating an automation targeting customers who purchased during the holiday season previously brings them back into the fold. These once–a–year purchasers are a prime segment to activate annually and build rapport.” 

Additionally, Kathryn also recommends following up with customers who have left negative or neutral reviews to better understand how you can improve your customer experience. 

“Almost every brand has an automated flow to ask for reviews but many lack a secondary branch to it. The follow-up, specifically those targeting low ratings (3 stars or below) or keywords indicating dissatisfaction. Reach out to those customers for more info automatically and to turn around the relationship.”

What subject lines yielded the best results in 2022?

When it comes to increasing your open rate with better subject lines, Kathryn recommends making them personalized and injecting some personality. 

“Subject lines with personalization and personality have the best results. We love an emoji in the subject line it drives up open rates and spruces up the box.”

What are some challenges with email that merchants commonly face?

Returning to Kathryn’s pick for the top email trend in 2023, she said that collecting and using data properly continues to be a challenge for merchants. As well as making the most of the data they have.

“Collecting and using data properly—many collect zero and first-party data but aren’t using it to its full potential. Or simply can’t figure out the best way to build out this profile for customers.” 

Related to using data to its full potential, Kathryn sees that although merchants are personalizing their campaigns, it can often be challenging to find a scalable approach. 

Jeanne Jennings

Jeanne Jennings is an email strategy consultant and speaker who helps medium- and enterprise-sized organizations get more from their email marketing. She currently also runs Email Optimization Shop. 

Top email trend for 2023

Like Giles, Jeanne sees AI playing an increasingly large part in email marketing. 

She’s already seen people use AI tools to help generate subject lines and preheader text. She says that “we’ll see this extend into calls-to-action in 2023” before we can expect full emails written by AI to be commonplace by 2025. 

Based on recent changes in privacy regulations and industry practices, such as Apple’s iOS 15 update, Jeanne also notes the shift away from more traditional metrics such as click-through rates toward conversion tracking and revenue will continue.

“Looking beyond diagnostic metrics, like opens and clicks, and focusing on business metrics, like conversions and revenue generated per email sent, became much more widespread in 2022. This will continue into 2023 and beyond, as more companies realize that it’s conversions that matter, not opens or clicks.”

Most effective email strategies

The email strategy that Jeanne puts as her top most effective has not been mentioned yet: Resends. 

Some merchants like to resend emails to those who didn’t open them the first time, but this can potentially annoy customers and harm your sending reputation. Instead, Jeanne recommends testing out resending to those who engaged the first time.

“Resending an email only to those who clicked seven to ten days after the initial send. Unsubscribes and spam complaints on these resends are almost non-existent, while conversion rates show a median lift of 950% over the initial send.” 

You’ll still want to change up the content so you’re not sending the exact same email. However, if you notice someone opened a sale email but hasn’t made a purchase after a few days, it’s worth testing whether a follow-up works for your store.

What are some all-too-often overlooked email automations?

Jeanne’s top three neglected email automations are: browse abandonment campaigns, follow-up campaigns based on clicks (like those mentioned above), and re-engagement campaigns. 

We’ve already talked about re-engagement campaigns, but Jeanne is the first to mention browse abandonment.

Browse abandonment emails are a type of automation that sends to customers who have visited your online store, but never made a purchase or added a product to their cart. Because they target customers right when they show an intent to purchase, browse abandonment emails are a great example of a well-timed and targeted email strategy.

What are some challenges with email that merchants commonly face?

Here Jeanne lists two challenges: email deliverability and revenue attribution. 

Jeanne says that if you are experiencing trouble with your emails landing in subscribers’ spam folders, you “need to get serious about deliverability, which usually means shifting to industry best practices to grow your email lists.” 

Following on from what Jeanne mentioned earlier about shifting toward better business metrics, she points out that this will also help with revenue attribution: 

“Opens and clicks aren’t good proxies for conversions and revenue. You need to track and report on your bottom line metrics to know how successful your email program is–and that requires a sound attribution program for tracking revenue and conversions.”

Hussein Adra

Hussein is an experienced ecommerce specialist with a history of helping small- to medium-sized businesses with email, analytics, and paid ads. He is currently an eCommerce Growth Specialist at Web Bridge.

Top email trend for 2023

Believing that the reduction in targeting options on social media will drive marketers to place more emphasis on email, Hussein’s top trend for 2023 is greater use of automation.

“With social media losing its targeting capabilities, smart marketers are going down the route of personalized email marketing. As business owners, our job is to ensure that we send emails that act like a constructive conversation. Automation can play a good role here if planned and executed properly.”

If you’re not sure where to get started with email automations, check out our list of essential email automations for ecommerce stores.

Ideally, what percentage of sales should email be generating?

Hussein says that this depends on what kind of emails you’re sending.

If they’re just your standard email newsletters without many (if any) discounts or sales promotions, then 5% is the minimum you should be achieving. However, if you are regularly sending sale emails and offering promotions, then Hussein reckons you should be looking at 20% as a target.

What are some all-too-often overlooked email automations?

Here Hussein mentions two automations: welcome emails and abandoned cart emails.

“A welcome series of emails is crucial but often marketers and business owners just promote a coupon code and call it a day. The fact that someone subscribed to your email list means that they’re interested in hearing and learning more about your business and they expect more from the emails they’ll receive.”

As for abandoned cart emails, Hussein says: 

“There is nothing wrong in offering a coupon code in the abandoned cart flow but some examples of product uses, case studies or customer testimonials will also help in nudging the checkout.”

What are some challenges with email that merchants commonly face?

Expanding on his comments about welcome emails above, Hussein says that creating an actual welcome email series, instead of just a single email is where most merchants struggle.

“Creating a welcome series of emails that goes beyond the first week after a customer places an order or signs up to the email list.”

If you’re not sure what content you can include in your welcome series beyond the initial email, take a look at our collection of welcome emails for some inspiration.

Becky Beach

As the Founder and CEO of Mom Beach LLC, Becky is a mompreneur who has been featured in Business Insider, Forbes, and The Huffington Post. 

Top email trend for 2023

Short-form videos (under a minute) have become incredibly popular in the world of social media. Becky predicts we’ll see this type of content start to filter through and appear in email campaigns in 2023. 

If you haven’t tried it already, adding videos to your emails is one way you can experiment with creating more engaging content. One advantage of short-form videos is that the product quality doesn’t have to be professional either. Something candid shot on your phone can be quite powerful. 

Most effective email strategies

Video. Following on from her top trend for 2023, Becky again says that video has helped grow her business immensely in 2022. 

Ideally, what percentage of sales should email be generating?

Not wanting to set the bar low, Becky has set the highest target you should be aiming for: 40%.

Of course, this will vary based on your industry and customer base, but it can be good to set your targets high. Especially if you’ve become too comfortable with where you’re currently at.  

What subject lines yielded the best results in 2022?

Sometimes the simplest subject lines yield the best results, and Becky’s top-performing subject line of 2022 followed this strategy.

“The best subject line I wrote that got several responses was ‘how are you today?’” 

Phrasing subject lines as questions is another strategy you can use to pique your customers’ interest and help boost open rates.

What are some challenges with email that merchants commonly face?

Becky’s picks for the most common challenge she sees merchants face are: finding new customers, getting enough sales, and improving email open rates.

Let’s face it, few merchants are going to turn down ways to find new customers. That’s what our epic list of 107 ideas to promote your Shopify store is for (also applicable if your store isn’t built with Shopify). 

Thanks to the effectiveness of email marketing, improving your open rates and getting more sales go hand-in-hand. And by reading articles like this, you’re on your way to improving the performance of your email marketing. 

Roberta Phillips

Roberta is the Marketing Manager at EmailToolTester, an online review site of various email marketing tools.

Top email trend for 2023

Email campaigns becoming increasingly interactive is a trend Roberta says we’ll see in 2023. 

“Interactivity is a trend set to grow this year, with more email marketers encouraging user engagement through quizzes, surveys, videos and more.”

Including surveys in your campaigns is a great way to gain more insights into what type of content your customers want. Which you can then use to segment campaigns. For example, if you’re selling pet supplies, you could run a survey asking what animals your customers have, and then segment by animal.

Most effective email strategies

Roberta’s number one strategy is giving your new email subscribers a great first impression.

“Welcome email series continue to be an effective strategy. We also use lead magnets in the form of a short quiz to collect subscribers. Ultimately, it comes down to offering users timely, tailored and useful content.”

What are some all-too-often overlooked email automations?

Here, Roberta talks about the importance of recovering otherwise lost sales with an abandoned cart automation. 

When two customers abandon their cart for every customer who completes the checkout process, not having abandoned cart emails set up is only costing you money. This is made worse when they’re incredibly quick and easy to set up. 

What are some challenges with email that merchants commonly face?

Generating leads and being authentic in your email marketing are two challenges Roberta says a lot of merchants are unsure of how to address. 

If you find yourself in a similar situation with lead generation, you might want to check out our list of ways to capture email addresses of your website visitors. As making the most of website traffic is one of the most popular ways to grow email lists and generate leads.

Authenticity is something you should always keep in mind when creating your campaigns. It can be tempting to get a sales sugar hit with a simple discount code, but building a loyal customer base is the more profitable long-term strategy.

Danavir Sarria

Founder of Drop Mogul, Danavir helps ecommerce brands drive sales with email marketing.  

Top email trend for 2023

Earlier Giles Thomas from Whole Design Studios nominated plain text emails as the strategy he saw the most success in 2022. It’s clear that Danavir also sees the power of plain text as it’s his top trend for 2023. 

“A lot of brands are realizing that emails don’t always have to be highly produced to drive tons of revenue. In fact, plain text emails can perform even better.”

Most effective email strategies

One strategy Danavir has found particularly effective is using minimum spend discounts to boost average order value (AOV). 

“Our favorite promotion is to pick a product and allow customers to get 15% off if they order $X+ of our products. We also make it so they can get 15% off any other SKU they want, as long as they achieve the AOV we set for them.”

Ideally, what percentage of sales should email be generating?

Danavir breaks down what percentages you should be aiming for into two categories: smaller consumer-packed goods (products that customers consume regularly such as food and cleaning products), and larger hard goods (such as furniture). 

For consumer-packed goods, Danavir says you should be aiming for between 20-30%, while between 15-20% is doing well for larger hard goods.

What are some all-too-often overlooked email automations?

One thing Danavir reckons many brands can improve on gain more value out of customers who visit your online store but don’t convert. That is, setting up browse abandonment automations.

“Every brand needs to have product-specific browse abandonment flows to convert low-intent subscribers into paying customers. It’s not uncommon for browse abandonment to drive the most revenue from any abandonment flows.”

What are some challenges with email that merchants commonly face?

Execution of ideas. In Danavir’s own words:

“Most merchants have great ideas about how to grow their business, but they can’t do it themselves.”

When you’re running your ecommerce store, you’ve got plenty of different tasks and responsibilities to juggle. 

If you find yourself unsure of how to set up and implement an email marketing strategy for your store, consider booking a free consultation call with SmartrMail. Our easy-to-use email and SMS app has helped thousands of merchants achieve more sales. 

Juliana Weiss-Roessler

Juliana is the Founder and Managing Director of WR Digital Marketing, a women-run agency that helps women-run businesses. 

Top email trend for 2023

More of a tip than a trend, Juliana wants business owners to consider email’s incredible resilience as a marketing channel and what you can learn from this and apply it to your marketing.

“Email marketing has never been very trendy. But it’s much more reliable in producing results than many other digital marketing strategies, including social media. In 2023, we hope to continue promoting the message that it isn’t worth chasing trends. Instead, you should look at what works for your specific business.”

Most effective email strategies

Segmentation, but Juliana realizes that proper segmentation can be challenging for small businesses to effectively implement. 

So she has a few tips for small business owners to still reap the benefits of segmentation, without having to invest unfeasible amounts of time and resources in setting it up:

“Instead of trying to produce multiple unique email campaigns, you can often produce content that is relevant to your customers. Then you can tweak the way you introduce that content and alter the call-to-action in the email to specifically speak to each audience. This can make segmentation more manageable for a small business and can help them to stay consistent with their email strategy.” 

Ideally, what percentage of sales should email be generating?

Falling in the middle of suggested percentages from experts we reached out to, Juliana says you should ideally be aiming for 25-35% of your sales to be email-driven. 

What are some all-too-often overlooked email automations?

Here’s an email automation that’s even been overlooked in this article so far: Replenishment emails. 

Replenishment (or refill) emails are a type of post-purchase automation that simply reminds customers when it’s time to reorder a consumable product they previously purchased. And they’re one that Juliana says that merchants often don’t implement despite their effectiveness. 

What are some challenges with email that merchants commonly face?

Again mentioning the strength of email, Juliana says one of the most common mistakes she sees merchants make is “not taking email marketing seriously enough and instead focusing on social media, which typically has a lower ROI and takes a greater investment of time and resources to produce results.”

Wrapping up

There you have it–expert insights into email marketing in 2023. 

Email has come a long way since its inception in the 70s and as you’ll now appreciate, it remains a dynamic and evolving area. That’s partly why it still generates the best return among all digital marketing channels. 

Armed with the knowledge of what the major upcoming trends and strategies are in 2023, you’re well on your way to achieving new goals with your email marketing campaigns. 

If you think we’ve missed any noteworthy trends or strategies, feel free to mention them in the comments below! 

The post Email Strategies in 2024: 10 Experts on the Future of Email appeared first on SmartrMail Email Marketing Blog.

But with 68% of online carts being abandoned, a huge remarketing opportunity presents itself. In a recent study, Business Insider estimated that about 63% of abandoned products can be recovered by savvy e-commerce marketers.

Being a savvy e-commerce marketer doesn’t mean sending the default abandoned cart email that comes with Shopify, Neto, or other ecommerce platforms. To get more sales, you need to use an advanced email marketing app that allows you to send a series of emails. People are too busy, and inboxes are too full for one email to get you sales.

To craft the perfect abandoned cart email series, you must first consider that customers abandon their carts for a variety of reasons. A study by UPS and comScore found the top 5 reasons why customers abandon their online shopping carts were:

• Unexpected shipping costs or conditions at checkout
• Browsing for a better price elsewhere
• Didn’t want to create an account to purchase
• Preferred payment was not offered
• Got distracted and forgot to complete the order

As you can see, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all email that will solve your cart abandonment issues. By sending a series of emails, you’re able to customize and combine offers to win back customers who could have left for different reasons. We recommend sending these 3 emails to increase your abandoned cart recovery and boost sales for your store:

Email 1: Reminder

72% of customers who buy from abandoned cart emails convert in the first 24 hours, so don’t waste any time! Send your first abandoned cart email 1 hour after your customer leaves your site.

Many ecommerce marketers make the mistake of offering a discount in their first email. When you’re using the default single abandoned cart email, that might be your best shot at getting a sale. But if you have the ability to send a series, you’ll be throwing away your profit unnecessarily.

When constructing this email include a photo of the product, a link back to their cart, and your customer service contact information. When including you contact information, ask the customer if they have any questions or need assistance. You’ll find that responses uncover pain points in your sales funnel such as shipping costs or payment options.

Email 2: Free Shipping Offer

Shipping costs are the top reason why customers abandon items in their cart. If you’re able to offer free shipping on an order, do it on this email. For orders that don’t meet a minimum free shipping threshold, you’re not out of luck. Use this email to cross-sell and encourage customers to increase their order value to meet your free shipping threshold.

Amazon (the best email marketers in the world) attributes 35% of their revenue to cross-selling recommendations. Cross-selling in your abandoned cart emails will recover lost sales, increase your average order value, and boost revenue for your store.

Like your first email, send this one within 24 hours. Doing otherwise is throwing away a valuable sales opportunity. As a bonus, include promotional branding stating what makes your products unique, why you’re awesome, and what your customers say about your products.

Email 3: Hail Mary Discount

Still no purchase? It’s likely that your customer is price-sensitive and a discount will push them over the line. It’s time to consider how much you’re willing to give up to make a sale. We’ve found that abandoned cart emails with discount offers 10% and up or free shipping recover the most sales.

Once you’ve decided on a discount offer the next step is adding urgency. Add one or a combination of these element in your discount abandoned cart email.

• “Your discount expires on…”
• “This item sells out fast… “
• “Items in your cart are almost sold out”
• “Cart expires in 24 hours”
• “Items are low in stock so we can’t hold your cart”

It’s a good idea to include a link to a short survey in this email asking customers why they didn’t complete their purchase. Doing so will provide you with data to further optimize your abandoned cart emails in the future.

Get Free Abandoned Cart Emails for Shopify, Neto and BigCommerce

SmartrMail is the only email marketing app for Shopify, Neto and Bigcommerce that offers an abandoned cart email series with the option to automatically cross-sell personalized product recommendations.

The post 3 Emails to Increase E-commerce Abandoned Cart Recovery in 2023 appeared first on SmartrMail Email Marketing Blog.

But with the frenzy of consumers looking for the best deals, also comes merchants trying to one up their competitors and capture as many sales as possible. Whether that’s by offering a bigger discount, throwing in free gifts or ramping up their marketing budget to the max.

With over $90 billion expected to be spent this year, the level of competition during the Black Friday Cyber Monday weekend is intense to say the least. 

But you likely already know that. Instead if you’re reading this post you’re fully aware of the importance of this time of year and are looking for Black Friday campaign ideas to take full advantage of the holiday shopping.

If this is you, then you’ve come to the right place. 

To give you the best chance at making the most of Black Friday, we’ve asked 18 marketing experts for their top Black Friday campaign ideas.

Here’s what they came up with.

Don’t Leave It To The Last Minute

A common response among experts we asked for their Black Friday marketing ideas was that merchants shouldn’t wait until Black Friday to launch their campaign.

1) Felix Süllwold

Felix Süllwold is a digital marketing veteran. He suggests warming up your marketing communications in the lead up to Black Friday.

BFCM – It’s not a 4-day activity. Counting down the days to Black Friday and then shooting all your marketing cannons will likely lead to your promotions just bouncing off. 

Warm up the communications channels you will be using for your BFCM marketing. The easiest way to do so is by building hype: Announce the big deals that are coming, when the promotions start, or send content that prepares potential buyers for making a purchase: such as how-tos, testimonials, or product hacks.

2) Steve Wilson 

Steve Wilson suggests beginning to offer your Black Friday deals from early November. 

Set up a form where people can sign up for early bird specials in the beginning of November so it has some time to collect email addresses. Then send out emails to these people (as well as you list you already have) about your early bird specials for Black Friday/Cyber Monday the week before. 

Also make sure you have Retargeted ads running to capture more sales. 

3) Jon Tabbernor

Jon Tabbernor also recommends getting your Black Friday campaigns up and running well before the week arrives.

It’s all about building a buzz around your sale. By building a buzz around your Black Friday sale beforehand you can ensure that people know your sale is coming to achieve maximum traffic. 

For example by signing people up to an exclusive Black Friday email list to ensure people don’t miss out you can ensure people are engaged with your sale beforehand. 

4) David Bridburg

David Bridburg is wise to point out that you shouldn’t be just starting to collect email addresses for Black Friday even a month out. 

Marketing is a yearly event. I collect many email addresses from the public and the Sunday afternoon before Cyber Monday, I email out my best sale of the year. Making the day my most successful of the year.

5) Jennifer Moore

While it may be a good idea to be prepared and launch your Black Friday campaigns early in November, Jennifer Moore, a marketing specialist, cautions against being too early. Instead suggests sending out your first Black Friday email two weeks in advance. 

Send targeted emails two weeks before your sales begin. 

In the past, we’ve tried a month prior, but we’ve found that as our world gets inundated with flashy tech, consumers are remembering less and less after a certain period of time. 

The two week mark before Black Friday is perfect because, by that time, consumers are already thinking of what they’d like to purchase. They’re making budgets and will be sure to include your product on their list. 

Depending on when you’re reading this, the ship may have already set sail on launching your campaigns in early November. But that doesn’t mean it’s too late to collect email address to boost sales.

The Power of Email Marketing During Black Friday

As a lot of the suggestions have already alluded to, email marketing is a powerful tool to increase sales.

This is especially true given that email is responsible for driving a fifth of all online sales during the holiday season.

6) Julianna Weiss-Roessler

If you don’t have to time to properly set up email flows in preparation for Black Friday this year, don’t worry. Julianna Weiss-Roessler points out that you can still use email marketing now in a way to also set yourself up for success next year.

Set yourself up for success in 2023. Take advantage of the bump in traffic by asking people for their email in exchange for the Black Friday deal. For example, you can offer, “Sign up for our email newsletter to get our killer Black Friday deal!” That way, you have the opportunity to turn a one-time buyer into a repeat client.

7) Igor Cerjan

Igor Cerjan from Perceptiv Digital recommends setting up an email campaign to build excitement for your Black Friday offer.

Email is still king.

Prepare a drip campaign driving awareness and excitement about your promotion starting 3-5 days before Black Friday to give people time to think through their potential purchases and kick off Black Friday with a custom template that drives urgency. 

Countdowns work best and make sure you put together a compelling offer! 

You’ll find people window shopping during the days leading up to the sale and then purchasing on the day. Re-target everyone who opened your email on Facebook leading up to the sale and on the day with a separate campaign (this will be cheap since its a specific warm audience). With short attention spans, getting their attention of Facebook will increase your conversions and sales on the day. 

8) George Hartley

Email marketing has multiple features that you can use to make more sales, such as personalized product recommendations. But if there’s one type of email you definitely should set up it’s abandoned cart emails.

These are emails that are automatically sent to customers who add items to their carts, but fail to checkout.

George Hartley recommends fully utilizing these emails during the Black Friday Cyber Monday weekend. 

Abandoned cart emails are a great tool to recover otherwise lost sales regardless of the time of year, but they’re especially useful on Black Friday.

Your customers are going to be doing a lot of shopping across a lot of different sites meaning they’re inevitably going to lose track of that’s in their carts. That’s why abandoned cart reminder emails are useful at prompting them to go back and checkout.

The problem however is that your competitors are also going to be sending the same people more emails than usual, leading to very crowded inboxes. 

The key to making abandoned cart emails work during Black Friday is then increasing the frequency of the follow up emails so that you send them all within the 24 hour sales period. 

Other abandoned cart best practices like including increasingly better discount codes in your second and subsequent follow ups still apply. 

9) Wei Tan

To help make your emails stand out in people’s inboxes, Wei Tan from The Orchard Agency recommends people use structured data.

To make your email campaigns really stand out, consider using structured data to generate more visibility and engagement with your Gmail audience. 

Structured data can create a more visually impactful presence in Gmail inboxes, by allowing you to customise and promote your own image, coupon code, and promotional offer before they open up your email. 

With approximately 40% of B2C databases consisting of Gmail addresses, the application of Structured Data will give you the competitive advantage for a significant portion of your audience/database. 

Black Friday Retargeting Campaigns

Retargeting campaigns are another highly effective Black Friday marketing strategy.  They also make a great addition to your email campaigns as you can often use your email list for your list of people retarget. 

10) Matthew Post

This is exactly what Matthew Post from MatthewPost.com recommends.

I would recommend going heavy on retargeting ads and remarketing emails. It is easier and more cost-effective to engage previous clients to have them purchase. Plus, shopping cart solutions, such as BigCommerce and WooCommerce, have plugins available where shoppers can receive an additional discount by sharing your store on social media. Combining these two strategies will turn past clients into evangelists.

11) Raúl Galera

When most merchants are trying to acquire new customers, Raúl Galera from ReferralCandy is wise to point out that your efforts are often best directed toward your existing customers.

When we think about BFCM we tend to think about how to attract new customers to our store: heavy discounts, free shipping, and so on. But are these really valuable to your store?

BFCM is the time for the deal hunters and impulse buys. Most of the customers that will be landing on your store for the first time are probably just going to be looking at the numbers before the “%” sign. And that’s okay. But the real value is what happens after that new customer makes their first purchase at your store.

It’s 6-7 times cheaper to persuade a customer to return than to acquire a new customer. You’ve done all the hard work — don’t let them go now! After their first visit, you should take the opportunity to start educating those customers about the brand, why you are different from other competitors and encourage them to come back for more. An email campaign is the best way to pique their interest.

Once these new customers start using your product and can see for themselves the value that you offer (say, a week after they’ve received your product), you can hit them with another email – now with an invitation to join your referral program. Once they’ve had enough time to use your product they’ll be able to pitch it to their friends and family more efficiently and generate more referral sales for your store.

Black Friday Social Media Campaigns

Of course, when it comes to online retailing we can’t forget about social media. Here are some of the expert Black Friday campaign ideas for social media.

12) Andrei Vasilescu 

Andrei Vasilescu from DontPayFull recommends starting your social media campaigns at least two weeks before Black Friday arrives.

Today everyone keeps an eye on social media to know what’s happening. 

Run a full scale social media campaign for your retail business highlighting your special discounts coupons or Black Friday special deals. Keep surfacing in popular social networks as many times as possible in a day and start campaigning from at least 15 days before Black Friday.

 This continuous and recurring appearance in the social networks will fetch people towards your retail store in the Black Friday to get your discount offers.

13) Syed Ali Hasan

For Syed from Film Jackets you just can’t forget about Facebook. 

Promote your products/services via Facebook Ads.

Everyone is using Facebook, and it is also a great platform to do online shopping. Users are more moving towards social networks so why not take advantage of such platforms? Facebook Advertising gives us the opportunity to target the right audiences that would take an interest in our products. 

During Black Friday, increase your ad spend because everyone will be competing for your target audience. In order to reach them, you can increase the budget but in the end, this will maximize your ROI. 

Offering a Free Gift to Black Friday Shoppers

Email marketing, social media and retargeting are all great ideas, but if you’ve been involved with online retail for a while now, you likely have these channels covered. 

A more unique Black Friday strategy, a couple of experts have advised offering free gifts to shoppers.

14) Shelley Grieshop

Shelley Grieshop from Totally Promotional recommends placing your logo on the free gifts for added brand exposure.

The best way to draw customers to brick and mortar or online stores for Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday is to offer free stuff. Advertise via social media, on your website and other more traditional ways that customers will receive a free gift with every purchase. 

Choose affordable and useful customized gifts such as drawstring bags, chip clips or can coolers with your logo. Now you’ve created happy, loyal customers who will be exposing your logo to other potential clients wherever they take your gifts.

15) Becky Beach

Becky Beach from MomBeach.com suggests making your free gifts a Black Friday exclusive offer. 

What I have done last year and plan to do this year is to give a free item with a $30 or more purchase. This free item is exclusive and has never been sold on the site before. The only way my customers can get the item is if they spend $30. After the sale, the item goes away to never be sold again. 

Dealing with Shipping

A turn off potential customers often encounter with online shopping is shipping costs. While free shipping will prevent this from becoming an issue, not all stores can offer it. For these stores, there are some other solutions.

16) Cara Hebert

Cara Hebert from Wistia recommending using upsell and cross-sell promotions to offset shipping costs.

Shoppers have come to expect free shipping these days, but not every business can swing that on every order. To get around this, we suggest offering free shipping over a certain order value coupled with intelligent upsell and cross-sell promotions so that your business can stay competitive and raise the average order value (AOV) to help offset shipping costs. 

By pairing a free-shipping threshold with an automated cross-sell promotion, you can show visitors items within a certain price range that would raise their cart total to meet the free shipping minimum. 

In doing so, you reduce the chance of cart abandonment due to shipping costs and also increase your average order value by encouraging visitors to purchase more. 

If a free shipping threshold is still too expensive to apply nationwide, try geo-targeting the free shipping offer to a radius that makes more fiscal sense for your business.

Make Purchasing As Easy As Possible

In addition to running Black Friday campaigns, one of the best things you can do in preparation of Black Friday is making sure your online store is properly optimized. 

17) Pete Boyle

Pete Boyle recommends ensuring that it’s as easy as possible for your customers to checkout. 

During the BFCM weekend your potential customers are bombarded with offers, ads, deals, and communication. However, a lot of brands will fall foul of a simple rule. They still insist on implementing an unnecessarily complex purchase journey. 

They’ll connect with customers through ads or email, then redirect them to a different site where the customer has to navigate a 5+ step purchase journey.  

The result is a huge drop-off at every stage. 

You can tackle this by making the purchase journey as streamlined as possible. In particular, assessing user intent and formatting your checkout process to best mimic that intent. 

A user on social media is not necessarily intent on buying. They’re looking for a social distraction. Aligning your purchase journey with that intent will increase conversions.

Not All Black Friday Campaigns Need to be Digital

There’s no denying that online retail has taken off over the past decade, however that doesn’t mean all your Black Friday campaigns need to be digital.

18) Nick Titus

Nick Titus from Minuteman Press International suggests sending postcards to your potential customers. 

For independent retailers, it is vital to get Black Friday messaging out via multiple touchpoints such as cross-media marketing and direct mail. 

The USPS has a popular program called Every Door Direct Mail that allows retailers to send unaddressed mailings at a fraction of the cost. We have a program called Dynamic Direct Mail that links physical mailings to online marketing efforts. Retailers can mail a postcard to consumers who will then see online ads relating to that postcard.

Making This Your Best Black Friday Yet

Hopefully these Black Friday campaign ideas have given you some inspiration for your own marketing strategies. By taking on board this expert advice, you’re setting yourself and your store up for success this Black Friday. 

To help you maximize your sales, we also have plenty of other Black Friday resources. These include blog posts on great Black Friday email examples as well as over 100 Black Friday subject lines that’ll entice subscribers to open your emails. 

So no matter how little time there is left until Black Friday, there’s plenty of things you can do to make the most of the shopping holiday! 

The post 18 Experts Share Their Top Black Friday Campaign Ideas appeared first on SmartrMail Email Marketing Blog.

With sales projected to reach $10 billion, 2024 is truly a year for e-commerce business owners wanting to cash in on the Black Friday event frenzy.

Even if you feel confident with your existing email marketing strategy, Black Friday and Cyber Monday emails represent a different beast entirely. At no other time during the year will as many merchants be sending as many emails vying for a share of your subscribers’ limited attention.

Optimizing your Black Friday sale emails will therefore require you take a slightly different approach to your email marketing than you usually would. Especially when it comes to when and how often you send your Black Friday email campaigns.

In this post, we’ll cover what you should do differently with your Black Friday sale emails and how to space them out in the lead up to and during the weekend. 

First, let’s understand black Friday email campaigns in detail before getting into the finer details.

Understanding Black Friday Email Campaigns

Black Friday email campaigns are specialized marketing efforts designed to engage your customers and drive sales. These campaigns typically consist of a series of emails, each strategically crafted to guide customers through the purchase funnel, from awareness to conversion. 

Here’s a closer look at the different types of Black Friday emails:

Teaser Emails

Teaser emails are sent in the weeks leading up to Black Friday to build anticipation and excitement among customers. They aim to create a buzz around your upcoming deals and encourage subscribers to keep an eye out for your Black Friday offers.

What do they contain?

• Sneak peeks of upcoming discounts and promotions.
• Visual elements like countdown timers to highlight the time left until the sale.
• Calls to action encouraging customers to sign up for early access or VIP lists.

Countdown Emails

Countdown emails are designed to remind customers of the approaching Black Friday event and create a sense of urgency. These emails aim to keep your brand top-of-mind as customers plan their shopping.

What do they contain:

• Prominent countdown timers showing the days, hours, or minutes left until the sale begins.
• Highlights of key deals or offers that will be available.
• Reminders to take advantage of early shopping opportunities or set reminders for the sale.

Early Access Emails

Early access emails provide select customers, such as loyal subscribers or VIP members, with the opportunity to shop the Black Friday deals before the general public. This rewards loyalty and helps drive early sales.

What do they contain:

• Exclusive links or codes that unlock the sale early.
• Messaging that emphasizes the exclusivity of the offer and the benefits of early shopping.
• A focus on limited-time offers or deals that may not last until the public sale.

Black Friday Day Emails

These emails are sent on the actual day of Black Friday and are designed to drive immediate action. They capitalize on the heightened shopping activity and encourage customers to take advantage of the best deals.

What do they contain?

• Strong, clear calls to action, such as “Shop Now” or “Don’t Miss Out.”
• Feature the biggest and most attractive deals available on that day.
• Use urgency-driven elements like limited-time offers or stock alerts to prompt quick decisions.

Last-Chance Emails

Last-chance emails, as the name indicates, target customers towards the end of Black Friday or leading into Cyber Monday. They aim to prompt any undecided or procrastinating shoppers to make a purchase before the deals expire.

What do they contain:

• Urgent language with phrases like “Last Chance” or “Final Hours.”
• Countdown timers showing the limited time remaining to shop.
• Summaries of the most popular deals, with a reminder of benefits like free shipping or exclusive discounts.

Cyber Monday Transition Emails

These emails serve as a bridge between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, maintaining momentum and encouraging continued shopping. They help to smoothly transition customers into the next wave of deals.

What do they contain: 

• Teasers for Cyber Monday offers that may differ from Black Friday deals.
• Messaging that keeps the excitement alive and encourages customers to continue shopping.
• Highlight additional discounts or special offers exclusive to Cyber Monday.

Best time to send Black Friday Emails — Why Timing Matters

Sending emails at the right time can significantly impact your campaign’s performance, influencing key metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversions. Here’s how timing plays a role:

Open Rates

Sending an email when your audience is most likely to be checking their inbox can increase the likelihood that your message will be seen and opened.

Considerations:

• Time of Day: Early morning or late evening might be optimal, depending on your audience’s habits.
• Day of the Week: Research shows that certain days, like Tuesday or Thursday, may have higher open rates.
• Personalization: Consider the time zones of your audience and personalize send times to match when they are most active.

Click-Through Rates (CTR)

Even if your email is opened, it needs to be engaging enough for the recipient to click through to your website or landing page. The timing of your email can affect the recipient’s readiness to engage with the content.

Considerations:

• Shopping Mindset: Send emails during times when customers are likely to be in a shopping mindset, such as during lunch breaks or after work.
• Follow-up Timing: Consider sending follow-up emails shortly after the initial send to capture additional clicks.
• Frequency: Avoid sending too many emails at once to prevent overwhelming your audience and decreasing CTR.

Conversions

The ultimate goal of your Black Friday email campaigns is to convert opens and clicks into sales. Proper timing can ensure that your emails reach customers when they are most likely to make a purchase.

Considerations:

• Urgency: Send last-chance emails at the end of the day to create a sense of urgency and drive final conversions.
• Promotion Timing: Align your email sends with peak shopping times to maximize conversions.
• Segmenting: Consider segmenting your audience based on behavior and past purchasing patterns to time emails for when each segment is most likely to convert.

Avoiding Email Fatigue

Sending too many emails at the wrong times can lead to email fatigue, where customers become overwhelmed and start ignoring your emails or unsubscribing altogether. Effective timing helps maintain engagement without overwhelming your audience.

Considerations:

• Strategic Spacing: Space out your emails to avoid overwhelming your subscribers.
• Relevance: Ensure each email has a clear, relevant purpose to keep the audience engaged.

Monitoring Metrics: Keep an eye on open and unsubscribe rates to adjust timing as needed to prevent fatigue.

Here’s a quick reference table outlining the types of Black Friday emails and the best times to send them:

Starting Early: Send Multiple Emails during the Pre-Black Friday week

This might seem obvious, but when it comes to Black Friday, you shouldn’t stop at just one email. 

Ideally you’ll be sending multiple emails spaced out over a few weeks in the lead up to and during the Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend. 

If you only send one email, especially on the day of Black Friday, most of your subscribers will miss it and never know about your sale.

By spreading out multiple emails, you’re also able to tailor your messaging in each email based on when you send it. For example your first sale announcement email can be an early-bird offer whereas on Black Friday you can play with creating a sense of urgency. 

You can also tailor your emails to different segments of your email list. 

This lets you, for instance, reward your loyal customers with a free gift or target shoppers from last Black Friday with special offers. 

So exactly what emails should you be sending and when? Well it depends on what kind of offer you have, but the emails below are a good starting point.

Black Friday Sale Teaser Email

Whatever your Black Friday offer, you should get your first email out at the very least a week in advance, preferably at least two.  

If you still haven’t finalized your Black Friday offer, no worries. A teaser without all the details makes for a great first Black Friday email. Just like this example from Apple.

Apple’s marketing is world renown, yet all they’ve done is simply teased that their Black Friday sale is coming. This builds anticipation and excitement as people wait to find out what their offers are. 

This is an incredibly easy and quick email to get out, so there’s no excuse not to send it a couple of weeks before Black Friday.

Black Friday Sale Announcement Email

Just because you got ahead of your competition and sent your teaser email out early doesn’t mean you can wait until Black Friday to announce more details of your sale. 

The second email you send should include your actual offers and be sent ideally at least a week before Black Friday. This builds on your sale teaser email by generating further anticipation

Which is exactly what Apple did. 

As announcing offers early is a tactic many retailers are now employing, shoppers now plan their purchases well in advance. So by advertising your Black Friday sale in advance you have a better chance at capturing a greater share of customers’ wallets. 

Getting your first couple of emails out early also has another advantage: you have plenty of time to resend it to people who didn’t open it. 

By using a tool like SmartrMail’s Send Boost, you can easily resend the email campaign only to those who haven’t opened it. When doing this, it’s best to change the subject line (in case that’s why it wasn’t opened the first time round) and the email content slightly to help with engagement. 

Black Friday Sneak Peek Email

When it comes to announcing your sale a couple of weeks in advance, one twist you can put on it is to offer “an exclusive sneak peek” to your customers. Such as like the email from Peel below. 

This is a great way to make your loyal customers feel valued and grab the reader’s attention. 

Of course, you don’t have to only send this email to your loyal customers. There’s no reason you can’t also offer a “sneak peek” to one time purchasers or even people on your email list who have never purchased. 

That said, you’ll want to tweak the email copy slightly for the different audiences. 

Saying that you’re offering a subscriber “an exclusive sneak peek at our Black Friday offers as our way of saying thanks for being a regular customer” will seem weird if they’ve never made a purchase. 

For actual loyal customers you’ll want to use this kind of wording. Otherwise your email will just seem like an ordinary Black Friday sneak peek offer without the feeling of exclusivity. 

To further create a sense of exclusivity you can experiment with creating a password protected landing page and give your loyal customers the password in the email. Seemingly random coupon codes with strings of letters and digits like “12FI993” also works.

Of course, what defines a loyal customer will vary depending on factors like your average order value (AOV) and average purchase frequency for your online store. 

If your AOV is $100 you may want to consider anyone with an AOV of above $150 as a loyal customer. Likewise, if customers average a purchase every 4 months, anyone purchasing more than twice in the last 3 months could be considered loyal.

Black Friday Sale Reminder Emails

Don’t go overboard and send emails rehashing the same message about your Black Friday sale every day of November, but a couple of reminders are okay. 

There’s no ultimate best time or day to send your Black Friday email, but if your sale starts on Friday, then you’ll probably want to send a reminder on the Thursday. Just like in the example below. 

Whether you want to send any additional reminder emails earlier depends on how early you got your sale announcement email out. 

If you only announced your sale through email on the Wednesday before Black Friday (certainly not recommended), then there’s not really time to send an additional reminder. 

If however you’re better prepared and sent your Black Friday sale announcement email a week in advance, then reminders on the following Tuesday and Thursday should be fine. 

Black Friday Email

Once the big day arrives, you’ll definitely want to send another email reiterating your Black Friday offer in the morning.

The goal of this email is to get people to take action and purchase from your store without delay. Just like the email below.

Creating a sense of urgency here can be hugely effective. Especially later in the day as your sale is nearing its end.

Whether it’s by activating people’s FOMO (fear of missing out) or by including a countdown timer to when your sale ends like in the email below from Christopher and Banks.

If your sale is ending on Friday night, then by all means send a few reminder emails on Black Friday. This is probably the only day of the year that you’ll be able to get away with sending multiple emails on the same day.

If your sale lasts until the end of Cyber Monday, you’ll want to space your emails out over the weekend instead of cramming them all into Friday. Leaving the urgent final reminder emails until the Monday. 

Last-minute shoppers: Cyber Monday Email

It’s up to you whether you decide to have your sale exclusively on Black Friday or have it last the whole 4 day weekend. 

Another option however is to have two separate sales: a Black Friday sale and a Cyber Monday sale. Doing so gives people who didn’t make a purchase on Black Friday one final chance to grab a bargain. 

If you didn’t create a sense of urgency with your Black Friday sale emails, you definitely should with your Cyber Monday emails. 

Simply including a countdown timer in your email design along with some copy such as “Today Only” or “Last Chance” can easily achieve this. Like how Dr. Martens did with their Cyber Monday email.

Another thing you can do to increase the sense of urgency is to make your Cyber Monday sale less generous than your Black Friday sale. That way people realize that the offer is vanishing and unless they want to pay full price, they need to act straight away. 

For those who still something: Cyber Tuesday Email

If you’re desperate to clear remaining stock or squeeze as many dollars out of people as you can, you could even try sending a ‘Cyber Tuesday’ email. 

While not many retailers will do this, it might be something you want to experiment with. Just don’t create a ‘Cyber Wednesday’ email or you’ll really start to annoy your customers!

Some practical Tips for Scheduling Black Friday Emails

We now know the best time and to send Black friday emails. Even if you get the timing right, if you miss out on other vital checks, your mail Black Friday campaigns could still decline in performance. 

Below are some practical tips to ensure that your emails are not only sent at the right time but also reach your audience effectively.

When scheduling Black Friday emails, it’s important to consider the diverse time zones of your global audience. Sending an email at the optimal time in one region might mean that another region receives it at a less favorable time. Here’s how to adjust your email send times for different time zones:

• Segment Your Audience by Time Zone: If your email list includes subscribers from multiple time zones, consider segmenting your audience based on their geographical location. This allows you to send emails at a time that aligns with their local time zone, increasing the likelihood of engagement.
• Use Time Zone Data in Automation: Many email marketing platforms allow you to use time zone data to schedule emails automatically. This feature ensures that each segment of your audience receives emails at the optimal time for their region without the need for manual adjustments.
• Test and Analyze: Conduct A/B testing to determine the best send times for different regions. Analyze the open and click-through rates to fine-tune your email scheduling strategy. Over time, you’ll gather valuable insights into when your global audience is most likely to engage.

Setting Up Automated Workflows for BFCM Campaigns:

Create a Series of Emails: Plan and automate a series of emails that cover all stages of your Black Friday campaign, from teasers and countdowns to early access and last-chance emails. Each email should be triggered at a specific time based on customer behavior or pre-set dates.

Use Behavioral Triggers: Set up automation that triggers emails based on customer actions, such as opening a teaser email or clicking on a countdown timer. This ensures that each subscriber receives emails that are relevant to their engagement level.

Monitor and Adjust in Real-Time: Most automation tools allow you to monitor the performance of your email workflows in real-time. Use this data to make on-the-fly adjustments, such as resending emails to non-openers or adjusting the send times for different segments.

Handling High Traffic and Volume

The increased volume of emails during Black Friday can put a strain on your email infrastructure. To ensure that your emails are delivered on time and without issues, consider the following tips:

Ensure Your Email Infrastructure is Scalable:

• Use a Reliable Email Service Provider (ESP): Choose an ESP that can handle high volumes of email sends without delays or downtime. Providers like SendGrid, Amazon SES, and Mailgun are known for their scalability and reliability.
• Test Your Infrastructure Before the Event: Conduct load testing in the weeks leading up to Black Friday to ensure your email infrastructure can handle the increased volume. This includes testing for email deliverability, server capacity, and send speeds.
• Monitor for Deliverability Issues: Keep an eye on deliverability rates during your Black Friday campaign. High traffic can sometimes lead to issues like emails being marked as spam or delayed deliveries. Be prepared to make adjustments if needed, such as throttling email sends or adjusting your sending domain.

Automation Tools to Optimize Send Times

Automation tools are essential for optimizing your Black Friday email campaigns, especially when managing multiple emails across different time zones.

SmartrMail offers automation workflows specifically designed for e-commerce businesses, making it an excellent choice for Black Friday campaigns. Its smart segmentation and personalized product recommendations can boost conversions.

Final Thoughts

Your Black Friday email campaign should be unique not only in what you’re offering, but also how you space out your emails in the lead up to the shopping holiday. 

The suggested frequency and times above are a good template to follow, but remember that there’s no single best time to send your Black Friday sales email.

This is not something you can easily hack at the last minute and do well. 

Start sending your emails early, build anticipation and as you start increasing the frequency as Black Friday draws closer, turn that anticipation into urgency. 

For more resources to nail this year’s Black Friday email campaign, check out our collection of great Black Friday email examples and our list of Black Friday email subject lines. 

If you want to expand your Black Friday strategy with an affiliate program, make sure to check UpPromote which is offering 20% OFF for all new users who install UpPromote here.

Good luck!

The post When To Send Your Black Friday Sale Emails – the best times and other best practices appeared first on SmartrMail Email Marketing Blog.

Email marketing achieves this high ROI through a variety of methods. For example, welcome emails increase engagement by giving customers an insight into your top-performing products and abandoned cart emails increase sales by reminding customers to complete purchases. Best of all, these emails are entirely automated, meaning that they require little maintenance once they’re set up.

However, automated emails work best in combination with manually created emails like newsletters. Email newsletters should definitely form part of your email marketing strategy, and here are a few reasons why:

• They increase engagement by reminding your subscriber list about your business.
• They help you share important information and updates with your customers.
• They promote new products, sales and upcoming events.

Email newsletters are a great tool to have in your marketing arsenal, but how can you use them effectively? How can you extract the most value from this technique? Keep reading this practical guide to find out more about how to offer value in your email newsletters.

Subscriber Fatigue and the Importance of Value

Subscriber fatigue refers to a feeling of disengagement experienced by consumers when they feel overwhelmed with the number of services they’re subscribed to.

The subscription model has dominated our lives in recent years. From bills to entertainment and everything in between, there’s a subscription service you can pay for. Nowadays, people even use subscription services for things like food and razors.

These subscriptions have cluttered up our lives and our email inboxes. Every day, the average consumer could receive dozens of emails from various subscription services, which leads to them feeling overwhelmed by emails and potentially clicking ‘unsubscribe’.

As a business owner, how can you compete in this oversaturated market and keep customers engaged? The simple answer is to offer value to your customers. Rather than sending out boring or even spammy email newsletters, you should focus on delivering high-value content that both informs and entertains. 

How to Offer Your Customers Value and Avoid Subscriber Fatigue

So, how do you ensure that all of your newsletters offer value and are able to compete in a cluttered inbox? Here are the best tips to follow:

1. Research your audience

You won’t know how to offer value to your audience if you don’t know what they’re looking for. This is why it’s essential for you to conduct in-depth research on your target audience before you start writing your newsletters. 

Consumer insights, engagement metrics and sales data can help you understand more about your customers, which will make it easier for you to plan interesting topics for your email newsletters. And if you’re still unsure about what to write, then why not send out a survey to your customers to ask them what they’d like to see? 

2. Write relevant and exclusive content

In addition to tailoring your content to your customers, you should also make sure your email newsletters are relevant to your business without making them too ‘salesy’. Your automated emails will probably focus more on product promotion, but your newsletters could include informative content about your business or current trends in the industry.

For example, if your business offers tax software, then your email newsletters could focus on current economic and technological trends. If you sell clothes, then discussing fashion trends would be both relevant to your business and interesting to your fashion-conscious audience.

You can increase the value of your content even further by making it original, exclusive and packed full of high-quality information. Offering up-to-date, exclusive content will keep your subscribers engaged, and to provide even more value, you should include plenty of actionable advice that readers can implement right away to improve their lives. This will definitely keep them coming back for more!

3. Keep your content simple and concise

Although it’s important that your newsletter content is high-value and informative, this doesn’t mean you should overwhelm your readers with massive amounts of text and obscure language. Powerful, engaging content is clear and concise, so make sure you limit the length of your content and keep it easy to understand.

Tone is another factor you should pay attention to. To be more relatable to your audience and create a strong connection, you must write in a relaxed, conversational tone that sounds natural to the reader. They won’t engage with content that sounds overly formal and stuffy. 

4. Use an eye-catching design and interesting visuals

Presenting high-value content to your audience isn’t just about the text itself. You must also consider the elements accompanying the text: the design, layout, pictures, and even videos.

Clunky design is an immediate turn-off for consumers. They want to see email newsletters that are well-presented, sleek and consistently branded. This will be aesthetically pleasing to your readers whilst also increasing brand awareness and authority.

Including pictures is also a great idea as they’ll break up the wall of text, making your content easier to digest. In addition, images can add extra information to your email newsletter. If you want to go one step further, you could even include a fun and informative video alongside your content to boost engagement.

5. Optimise your emails for mobile users

What makes email marketing so lucrative is that people are always checking their emails throughout the day, whether that’s on their desktops or their phones. And since many of your customers probably open your emails on their phones, you need to make sure your content is optimised for this device.

Nowadays, all online content must bear mobile users in mind. This means that your email design needs to be responsive to all devices and all email platforms. Using designs that don’t work on mobile phones will just make your business look unprofessional and sloppy.

6. Write attention-grabbing subject lines

The email’s subject line is the first thing that the consumer sees, which is why this is one of the most important elements to get right when creating email newsletters. 

The key is to make these subject lines as attention-grabbing as possible without using blatant clickbait; this will only irritate customers and make them view your content as low-value spam. For example, you could advertise a promotion or touch upon a trending topic to generate interest, or you could try using emojis if this is appropriate for the content.

7. Personalise your emails

Another strategy for improving your subject lines and your content, in general, is to add personal touches. Including the reader’s name in the subject line is a great way to create a stronger connection with them and encourage them to click, and addressing them by name within the content will make them feel more valued as a customer. 

Collecting more data on your audience will help you add these personal touches to email newsletters. Therefore, asking for the customer’s name when they sign up for your newsletter is something you should definitely consider doing.

8. Follow a consistent schedule

Finally, if you want to offer a high-value service to your customers and avoid subscriber fatigue, you should consistently upload new content to keep consumers engaged. Sending out your email newsletters regularly (perhaps monthly or bi-monthly) will also make consumers anticipate and look forward to your content.

By following a consistent schedule, you can also take advantage of current trends. Linking your content to current trends and events will make it more relatable to readers.

Final Thoughts

Email marketing, and email newsletters, in particular, can be an incredibly powerful tool for your business. So, don’t waste this opportunity by providing low-value content that doesn’t interest your target audience. 

To avoid subscriber fatigue and increase engagement, you need to offer high-value newsletters that follow current trends, offer interesting information about your industry or business, work well on all devices, and grab your audience’s attention. Once you focus on these key factors, you can watch your conversion rates and engagement soar. 

The post A Practical Guide to Offering Your Customers Value to Avoid Subscriber Fatigue appeared first on SmartrMail Email Marketing Blog.

What happens when you combine product photos with marketing campaigns? Your product photos increase your brand awareness, visibility, conversions, reach, and more.

The quality of your products and the credibility of your brand are often judged by the quality of your custom product labels and visual representation. That means having high-quality, beautiful product images that can go a long way.

However, not all online startups can afford to invest in professional photography after hiring the right web designer for a professional website when they are just starting. So today, we will discuss some important points on how to take product photos for your marketing campaigns.

#1. Master Your Lighting

Whether you want to shoot your products indoors or outdoors, get familiar with the lighting first. That is, photography is about finding and applying the right knowledge for every moment.

Let’s look at the two main types of product lighting fixtures you can use: soft lighting and hard lighting. The dim lights create a modeling window to illuminate the subject from all angles. This method will clear up all the details of the product and eliminate any shadows that might obscure the points and edges of the product. This is especially important when photographing 3D objects.

Hard lights add even more contrast between light and image. In complex light, images are more complicated to the edge and more detailed. This method is great for adding metaphors to your vision and, in some cases, can be useful for capturing product photos.

Soft lighting is the most commonly used type of lighting for product photography and can be achieved in various ways.

#2. Set Up Your Background

Finding the right background focuses on the product you’re photographing and helps simplify the model when it comes time to put it into production. Try using a white or clear window, making it easier to remove unwanted material and resize images.

Luckily, you don’t have to spend an arm and a foot on a beautiful background to get the perfect picture. Instead, there are two possible opportunities to do the work.

If you’re going to be photographing, you can order the white sweep off from Amazon. But if you want to make it at home, you can make your broom using a white paper towel.

All you have to do is press the back of the chair against the wall and stick some kraft paper to the wall above the chair, letting it fall to the ground. This will create a clear transition between vertical and horizontal planes whenever you place your product on the chair.

For example, another inexpensive option is to build your lighthouse, also known as a lightbox. It’s a wire box with rotating walls to help create a flashlight around the focus area.

However, if you can’t find a suitable background in time, you can subtract visual settings from photos using a background remover tool. For example, Picsart’s tool can remove distracting backgrounds in a single click.

#3. Set Your Sweep

There are many ways to do this, but the bottom line is to move your rug from the spreader to the table in the right direction. Next, you may need to fold the board to get the desired shape.

In my set, we place the table on the wall and attach the reamer to the wall and table. If you do not have a wall, you will need to connect the back of the box. A few bricks or a block of wood will do.

Center your product on the flat surface of the broom and allow time for your white mirror card to roll out later.

#4. Set Up Your Shot

Investing it on a tripod is generally recommended whether you capture it with a camera or phone. Not only does it reduce judging and blur, but it ensures consistency between images. For example, you can set the camera and turn it off as you go around the product being captured.

Props are also a great way to organize your products and add them to photos. Here’s the golden rule: less is more. The last thing you want is your accessories to be so cluttered that it’s not clear where the product is!

#5. Know Your Angles

When it comes to capturing your products, making the right choice can have a big impact on how a customer perceives them.

Face to face: If the product is worth it, it will usually be the main corner of the image of the product you are looking for.

Bird’s eye: Also known as the 90-degree angle, it’s great for photographing objects lying horizontally, such as clothes, shoes, or pizza, or showing multiple things lying on top of each other.

45-degree angle: Right between the two top corners; this corner is often used to emphasize size.

Create a library on a product page with any number of images. Include photos from different angles, pictures of the product in action, and even a short video to show the product in action.

#6. Set Up Your Product

Now it’s time to put your product into the spotlight. It may seem simple, but setting up your product can take a few attempts to get the angle, lighting, and position right.

Place your product in front of the back wall, ensuring it is centered and on a flat, stable surface such as a table or chair.

You can use a bust that better represents the product for things like jewelry and other accessories. However, for items with labels or special designs, you may need to take some time to adjust the product until it is exactly centered.

Glow dots and accessories to secure small items, such as earrings or necklaces. Mannequins for clothing and accessories. Designs or spectacles for product displays in various directions. A friend or team member tried on costumes or made fun pictures of life.

#7. Go For Quantity

When you’re ready to go, don’t delay! Take lots of product photos. Then, you can turn it off later. Plus, when it comes to organizing advertising campaigns, you thank yourself later!

Remember to rotate the sides of the product images. Include visual images that show the details and functionality of your product. You can also take photos with multiple backgrounds and divide the image into sections in the simulation.

Another way to diversify a photoshoot is to include multiple products in one photo to show variety and how the products complement each other.

#8. Retouch your pictures.

It’s time for post-production now. While hopefully, you’ve already taken a few photos of your favorites, re-editing your photos is a necessary step in the process. This will turn your images from average to professional and ensure that all product images on your website are consistent, vibrant, and organized.

Remodeling allows you to correct color, remove unwanted elements, and adjust the lighting. Sure, it may seem daunting at first, but after you’ve worked on the photo editing program a few times, you’ll be able to get past the process quickly.

Takeaway

Lastly, be sure to write good product descriptions. Product understanding images and information work together to help customers with your products. They also help encourage buying choices to increase sales.

Your goal is to give as much information as possible to force people to buy. Unfortunately, aspiring entrepreneurs often overlook product descriptions. But they are the backbone of the high converting product page – along with beautiful photos, of course.

The post How to take Product Photos for your Marketing Campaigns appeared first on SmartrMail Email Marketing Blog.

It’s great at converting visitors into first-time buyers, it’s really good at building a long-term relationship between your brand and your audience, and it’s simply amazing at getting past customers to purchase again in your store. 

But if you’ve looked at your eCommerce store’s bill even once, you also know that its cost can be a close cousin of the cost of your store itself. No matter if you are a big brand or a small business, if you do not know how to tame it, the cost of email marketing services can leave a hole in your wallet.

So why is email marketing so expensive? And why is the price different for every single email marketing app out there?

Why is Email Marketing so Expensive?

Sending emails represents a hard cost for the email app that you will use as they are messages with data sent server to server. Eventually, this hard cost will trickle down to your cost for using their email marketing platforms. 

And on that aspect, the correlation is clear: The more emails you’ll send, the higher the cost will be for your email app.

As a result, it’s no wonder that all email marketing services base their pricing on the number of subscribers in your email list and the number of emails sent. A merchant who’ll send an email campaign once per week to 2,000 subscribers will not cost a lot, while a merchant who’ll send one email per day to 100,000 subscribers will be really expensive. 

Other elements can also impact the cost that you represent for these apps, such as the number of series of automated emails that you have set up, the number of segments updating every hour, which all represent a cost for their servers. 

Email marketing apps can decide to take these elements into account when setting up their pricing plans, such as Omnisend, which prevents stores from creating more than 5 segments on their lowest plan, or MailChimp, which allows only one automated email per automation in their essentials plan.

At the end of the day, all email service providers created their pricing plans by considering the costs listed above. The key to optimizing your own email marketing cost comes down to understanding what each of these apps offers, and what they mean when they use different terminology in their plans descriptions.

So what should I be looking for?

Here are some key points that merchants should be aware of when analyzing the cost of different email marketing apps:

Contacts VS Subscribers

As you know, email marketing can only reach your opted-in subscribers, meaning, contacts who agreed to receive email marketing by subscribing to your list via your pop-up, landing page, footer form, or checkout form. 

As a result, one could think that all email marketing apps will charge you based on the number of opted-in subscribers that you have in your list, and not the number of “contacts”.

Well, think again! 

A surprisingly high number of email apps take advantage of merchants by counting their number of “contacts” instead of counting their number of opted-in/reachable subscribers. To name only a few, you’ll find that it’s the case for MailChimp, Klaviyo, and Omnisend. Even if your contact is not subscribed to email marketing and can’t receive email marketing campaigns, they will be counted towards the number of email addresses in your account, and will eventually increase your monthly bill.

Thankfully, not every email app is deceiving: SmartrMail, Moosend and AWeber count only your active subscribers, meaning, only people who specifically subscribed to your email marketing campaigns.

Unique subscribers VS subscribers

Another important element to consider is if the email app that you use counts each subscriber only once, or multiple times, depending on the presence of this subscriber in more than one of your lists. 

Quite famously, MailChimp will count the same unique email address multiple times if this email address exists in more than one of your audiences. 

This means that if you have an audience linked to your Shopify store, and another audience linked to your pop-up form, and that the same subscriber signed up via both methods, MailChimp will count this subscriber twice, eventually skyrocketing the number of “billable contacts” existing in your account.

At SmartrMail we’re seeing everyday merchants who used to pay for 30,000 contacts with MailChimp, when in fact the same 8,000 unique active subscribers existed in 3 different lists. Eventually, it means that the same subscribers would cost $300 on MailChimp, and $71.50 on SmartrMail.

Pricing tiers VS Per subscriber pricing

The following story will most probably ring a bell: A visitor comes on your website, sees your pop-up, and signs up. He is the 10000th subscriber in your list. 

Congratulations! What a milestone! 

Except that now, your pricing just went from $49 per month to $79, all because one single subscriber signed up.

If you read between the lines, you’ll actually find out that the pricing of your provider is based on tiers, meaning that the price will not change from 8,000 subscribers to 9,999 subscribers, and it will increase all at once as soon as you’ll reach the following tiers (10,000 – 11,999 subscribers; 12,000 – 13,999 subscribers; etc.).

This means that, right now, you are paying for the equivalent of 11,999 subscribers, even if you have only 10,000 active subscribers. Again, you’ll find this type of system with renowned email apps such as MailChimp, Omnisend, Klaviyo, and AWeber.

Thankfully, not every email app uses this type of stratagem. Solutions such as SmartrMail count each subscriber one by one, which means that when you go from 9,999 to 10,000 subscribers, you’re only changing your price from $86.49 to $86.50.

Plan limitations

Finally, email marketing softwares can include limitations on several different elements, such as the sending limit. 

Even on their highest plans, MailChimp will limit you to 12 emails per subscriber per month, whereas Klaviyo will draw the line at 10 emails per subscriber per month. Other solutions like Omnisend and SmartrMail do allow unlimited sending on their higher plans, regardless of the number of active subscribers in your list.

A few providers also limit the number of automated emails and segments that can be set up, even if they are known to be the best way to reach subscribers effectively. For example, Omnisend will only allow 20 segments on their Standard plan, while MailChimp will only allow single steps automations on their Essentials plans. Other solutions like SmartrMail and Moosend allow an unlimited number of segments and automations, even on their free plan.

Some evergreen tactics

Thankfully, there are best practices that can help you manage your email marketing campaign cost: 

Clean up your subscribers’ list

No matter your list size, sending emails over and over to subscribers who do not open these emails means that you are overpaying for contacts who aren’t focused on you right now. If some subscribers haven’t opened any of your emails in the last 365 days, haven’t purchased in the last 365 and subscribed more than 365 days ago, it is time to let go and focus on the ones who are reading your emails.

This will optimize your email marketing costs, but even better, you’ll improve your email campaign’s deliverability, meaning that your email campaigns will be more likely to hit the right inbox instead of reaching spam folders.

In SmartrMail, you can easily clean up your subscribers’ list by using our Smart Segment feature with settings such as the ones in the picture below:

Get experts to optimize your account

It’s ok to rely on a little help once in a while. As you might have guessed, investing $1000 on a great setup can save you $5000 in the long run. Every single email app works with amazing email marketing agencies that know how to optimize email marketing costs.

If you do not want to spend thousands on experts paid on an hourly rate, consider specialized email marketing agencies such as Just Email and their flat + transparent services.

Switch to the right email app

If you read the “So what should I be looking for?” of this article, chances are you have also looked at your current email marketing app and discovered that you are paying for not-subscribed contacts, some of whom are being counted more than once, with a tier-based app charging you for 4999 subscribers even though you only have 3002.

If that’s the case, it might be time to switch to an email marketing app that doesn’t trick you this way. Switching is actually quite easy as most email apps offer to take care of the leg work for you (moving over your existing subscribers, your existing email design, and even your existing email automations). 

As you might have guessed, this is precisely what SmartrMail offers, so if the workload involved with the migration is holding you back, just hit our customer support team on the bottom right corner of this page to book your free migration!

Conclusion

So in the end, how much does email marketing cost?

The answer is, not that much if you understand how your email marketing app pricing works, and if you correctly manage your subscribers’ list.

Ultimately, the cost of your email campaigns will have a great impact on your return on investment, which is why it is important to pick the email marketing app that won’t use any scheme to greatly increase the number of subscribers considered for billing purposes.

The post How much does Email Marketing cost? appeared first on SmartrMail Email Marketing Blog.

Doing so helps ensure good email deliverability and reduces the chances of your emails ending up in the spam folder. 

And one of the best of doing this is to use email segmentation to create segments based on engagement so that you can identify and remove disengaged customers. 

Traditionally, this has been achieved by looking at open rates. 

If a particular customer has not opened any of your emails over a long period of time (usually six months) then they are considered to be disengaged and it’s recommended that be removed from your email list. 

However, since iOS 15’s changes to email marketing, open rates have become significantly less reliable and no longer a good indicator of email engagement. 

Because of this, click-through rates are now the best and more reliable metric we have to gauge email engagement.

The problem, however, is that click-through rates are still not as good as open rates used to be. 

Just because someone is not clicking on any of the links within your email campaigns it doesn’t mean they’re not actively opening and reading them. 

That’s why sunset emails are important. 

What are sunset emails?

A sunset email is simply an email automation you send to customers who you’ve identified as being disengaged with your email marketing. 

This email will then do either of two things:

• Ask your customer whether they’d still like to receive emails from you. And if they do, get them to confirm this by clicking on a link.
• Inform your customer that you’ve unsubscribed them from your email list as they have not been engaging with your campaigns. As well as include an option for them to signup again should they still want to receive your emails.

Below is an example of this type of email automation from Framebridge.

As you can see, the goal of sunset emails is to assist you with removing disengaged customers from your list (to improve email deliverability and effectiveness) while ensuring that you don’t accidentally remove anyone who still wants to receive your emails. 

This is why sunset emails are fantastic at maintaining a healthy and engaged list without losing any potential sales by prematurely unsubscribing customers. 

How to set up an email sunsetting strategy

So now that you know what sunset emails are and why they’re important, let’s take a look at how you can set up an email sunsetting strategy within SmartrMail. 

Step 1: Navigate to Automations and Create a New Automations

To get started creating an automation navigate to the Automations page. If you’ve been using SmartrMail before we launched our new automations you’ll also need to navigate to the Automations tab. Click the New Automations button.

Next give your Automation a name.

Step 2: Configure your Trigger Settings

For a sunset email you’ll want to create a segment-triggered automation.

Once you select the segment trigger, you’ll need to create a new segment at the bottom of the dropdown

In the segment you want to add the rules

• Subscriber added over 160 days ago
• Has not ordered in more than 160 days
• Has not clicked emails in more than 160 days

*The amount of days is dependent on when you think its been too long since a subscriber interacted with your email. In this example we’re aiming to remove subscribers who haven’t ordered and clicked an email in the last 6 months which would be appropriate if you’re sending weekly emails. If you’re sending multiple times per week you’d want to consider removing subscribers who haven’t engaged after 3-4 months. If you’re only sending monthly, we suggest removing subscribers who haven’t engaged after 12 months.

After you select a segment, choose the rules for when subscribers join the segment. For a sunset email you want to choose Whenever rules match as you’d like this email to send every time your subscribers become unengaged.

Once you select a smart segment and save, you can no longer change the list that triggers the automation.

Step 3: Add an Email

For this sunset series I’m going to trigger my first email immediately after subscribers enter the segment, so I’ll place an email directly under the trigger.

Once you drag your email into the automation. You can give it a name for your own records and a subject line. Then click Edit to design your email.

You’ll be directed to our email composer where you can add content and create your campaign. Once you’re done, click Enable and you’ll be directed back to your automation in progress.

The design of this email is up to you, but typically in this email you want to include a prominent button that once clicked directs to page on your site thanking subscribers for responding and letting them know they’ll remain on your email list.

Step 4: Enable Automation

Now that your email is in place. Click Enable at the top right of the screen. You’ll be promoted to confirm that you’d like to enable your welcome series.

Step 5: Clean Your Subscribers List

Create another segment of subscribers that still haven’t ordered or clicked emails from you. We’ll call this segment Lapsed Subscribers.

In the segment, you want to add the rules

• Subscriber added over 180 days ago
• Has not ordered in more than 180 days
• Has not clicked emails in more than 180 days

At least 20 days after enabling your sunset email automation, click Delete Subscribers to remove subscribers who still haven’t clicked your emails after the sunset automation.

Conclusion

Sunset emails are an incredibly effective way to keep your email list healthy and engaged. And this is more important than ever following the iOS 15 update to email open rates.

By automating sunset emails to send to customers you’ve identified as disengaged, you’ll stop annoying customers who don’t want to receive your emails anymore without accidentally removing customers from your list who still want to be on it. 

This will ensure your email marketing remains as effective as it can be and that your emails avoid customers’ spam folders. 

The post Sunset Emails: Keeping Your List Clean of Inactive Subscribers appeared first on SmartrMail Email Marketing Blog.

While this number looks pretty promising, it implies a looming danger for email marketers.

As your subscribers are inundated with a huge number of emails, they are compelled to scan and skim through the emails rather than read them entirely. Following email design best practices comes into play here and helps create attractive messages that capture the reader’s attention. 

Interestingly, the average time spent by a subscriber on an email has decreased to 11.82 seconds in 2020.   

Therefore, you must pay special attention to the email design and make sure that it instantly conveys the purpose of your email campaign. 

After all, you would not want your email to look like this in your subscriber’s inbox:

Source: https://litmus.com/community/discussions/1489-looking-for-examples-of-broken-emails-on-desktop-outlook

Advantages of a well-designed email

An email adhering to all the design best practices will go a long way in enhancing the subscriber’s experience and encourage them to take action. 

A great way to ensure you’re truly adhering to all the best practices as well as learning a few tricks of the trade is by getting yourself a marketing mentor. Especially in the initial phase while starting out. This can help you fine-tune your email design and accessibility.

Technically speaking, the email click-through rate and conversion rate heavily rely on the email design and its accessibility. 

That being said, let’s explore the world of email design best practices to ensure a pleasant subscriber experience. 

First of all, we will discuss the email inbox best practices. 

How to Present Your Email Effectively in The Subscriber’s Inbox?

Three things govern how your email will look in the mailbox. 

1. From name

Your sender name and email address must be instantly recognizable. 

See this email example by Litmus that informs the reader about the sender and makes them open it. 

Avoid using a free webmail address or ‘noreply’ email. Rather, you must use an email address from your own domain. For example: aaron@smartrmail.com works better than noreply@smartrmail.com. 

2. Subject line

Craft a subject line that piques the reader’s curiosity and communicates the purpose of your email. It must not be misleading for the readers, otherwise you might end up losing them and hampering your brand reputation. 

Use first name personalization to get more people to open your email. 

Try adding relevant emojis to add a personal touch to the email. 

As far as the length of your subject line is concerned, 65 characters works the best. 

3. Preheader text

If 65 characters of the subject line do not suffice, you can use the preheader text to elaborate it further. 30-55 characters are ideal for this section. It is not recommended to leave this part blank. 

Test your subject line and preheader text in every email client to make sure that they do not get truncated in the subscriber’s inbox. 

The eCommerce giant, Walmart creates the perfect subject line and preheader text in line with the best practices. 

Now, we will move on to the email template layout. 

How Should Your Email Design Be?

To make sure that your email renders well across all devices and email clients, you must conform to all the points mentioned below:

1. Clutter-free Email Layout

Organize your email in such a way that it is easy to navigate through. Your subscriber should be able to consume the information easily without having to search for it. 

The ideal template dimensions are:

Template height: Up to 3500 px

Template width: 600-800 px

Headline height: Up to 300 px

Just make sure that you include all the important information in the top 350 px. 

Place the images and text, keeping plenty of white space so that the user gets enough breathing space while reading the email. Maintain a logical reading order and arrange the content from left to right and top to bottom. 

Always have a left-aligned copy so that people with dyslexia do not have to struggle to read your email. 

Your CTA button size must be 44×44 px with the size of the text at 16 px or more. 

Font size is also an important aspect to consider while designing your email. 

The title font size should be 22 px to 28 px. 

The ideal copy line width is of 6 words with 12 to 14 px font size. 

Keep the line spacing around 1.4 to 1.5 times the size of the fonts. 

These are the recommended sizes for both desktops and mobile devices. 

2. Visual Hierarchy

Even if you are sending an email from Shopify or other DIY template builders, you must make sure that it adheres to the principles of visual hierarchy. 

Your email should follow the inverted pyramid design pattern with the logo design and header image at the top followed by the body content, relevant visuals, and CTA. 

Here’s an email example to demonstrate visual hierarchy. 

3. Dark Mode Compatibility

As most of your subscribers are accessing your emails in Dark Mode, you must design emails that are compatible in both Dark Mode and light themes. 

Choose colors and visuals that will not create any rendering issues, no matter which mode the email is accessed in. 

Duolingo creates a minimalistic email that is completely compatible with Dark Mode. 

4. Visual Email Marketing Best Practices

If you are in the eCommerce industry, travel sector, telecommunications, or B2B sector, you ought to add different types of visual elements in your email. This will not only enhance the subscriber engagement but also contribute to your conversion rate. 

However, you must follow certain guidelines while including these visuals. 

• The text to image ratio must be 80: 20. 
• Always make sure that the image is accompanied with a suitable Alt-text. 
• If you are adding GIFs, the flashing rate must not be between 2 to 55 Hz otherwise it will have a negative impact on people with photosensitive epilepsy. 
• The file size of the visuals should be around 100kb so that it does not slow down the email loading speed. 
• Use contrasting colors for your email text and CTA button so that the user knows where to click-through. It will, in turn, increase the conversion rate and bring more business for you. 

5. Accessibility in Emails

Last but not the least, let me brief you about accessibility in emails. In case you are using template builders, they will take care of it.

Take a look at this example that is perfectly accessible for all the subscribers. 

The accessibility report of this email, according to Litmus, is as follows:

6. Email Footer Design

Your email footer is as important as any other part of the email. 

Take a look at this screenshot to understand how your footer should be designed. 

Include social media links and all the vital contact information like Persona has done. They have followed the anti-spam guidelines and included the unsubscribe link too. Also, it is arranged in the perfect hierarchy with sufficient white space. 

Wrapping Up

Designing an email is not just about being creative. It is about understanding the customer psychology and serving what strikes the right chord with them. 

These tips will surely help you create well-designed emails in the template builder as well as customized emails from scratch. 

So, what are you waiting for?

Just bookmark this article and get ready for your next email campaign.

Happy emailing!

Author Bio: Kevin George is Head of Marketing at Email Uplers, one of the fastest growing custom email design and coding companies, and specializes in crafting professional email templates, PSD to HTML email conversion and free responsive HTML email templates in addition to providing email automation, campaign management, and data integration & migration services. He loves gadgets, bikes, jazz and eats and breathes email marketing. He enjoys sharing his insights and thoughts on email marketing best practices on his blog.

The post Email Design Best Practices: The Savvy Marketer’s Manual appeared first on SmartrMail Email Marketing Blog.

And as you may have already heard, some of these changes are going to have massive implications for email marketing. 

But despite how significant these changes are, it can be hard to wrap your head around exactly what’s going to happen. Especially if you don’t have a technical background.

So in this post we’ll take you through exactly what these changes are, how they will affect your email marketing, and provide you with some practical advice you can implement now to prepare.

What exactly will the iOS 15 Changes involve?

The new feature Apple announced that is causing a stir in the email marketing community is what they’re calling “Mail Privacy Protection.” 

Essentially, the main implications of this feature are that it will prevent the following:

• Being able to track if and when a customer opens an email
• Being able to determine a customer’s location through their IP address

Let’s go through these two major changes one by one to get a better understanding of what’s actually happening and how it affects your email marketing. 

Open rates will be a thing of the past

The change that’s going to have the biggest impact on not just yours and everybody else’s email marketing is how Mail Privacy Protection will prevent us from knowing if and when someone opens an email. 

We can currently tell this information as SmartrMail, like other email service providers, includes a small, invisible 1×1 pixel image in every email our users send. When a customer opens your email, this pixel (along with any other images in the email) has to be downloaded from our servers to be displayed in the email. 

As we can tell if and when a particular customer’s inbox requests these images, we also know if and when they’ve opened your email.

Mail Privacy Protection, however, will circumvent this by automatically requesting and downloading images from every email when they are delivered, instead of when they are opened. 

This means it will appear that customers who use Apple Mail (which has a market share of over 50%, so likely the majority of your customers) are opening every email you send. Even though they might not be opening your email at all.

While obviously not everyone uses Apple Mail, the fact the majority of people do use it and we cannot tell whether a particular customer does or does not use it means email services providers will no longer be able to report accurate open rates, rendering them useless

No longer being able to tell where a customer is located

When an email inbox requests these tracking pixels email service providers including SmartrMail are also able to determine a customer’s location through their Internet Protocol (IP) address. 

However, in addition to Apple Mail now loading these images as soon as an email is delivered, they are also going to load them through multiple proxy servers. This means that Apple will randomly assign an IP address that only indicates the broad region the customer is in. 

The implication of this is that precise location segmenting (such as by city, zip code, and potentially even state) will no longer be reliable as customers using Apple Mail may or may not be included in the right segment.

One more change

The other new feature Apple is also implementing in iOS 15 is the ability for users to hide their email address when signing up to a new email list.

Instead, users will be able to use Apple’s “Hide My Email” feature to automatically create a random iCloud email address so that others cannot see their actual email address.

As Apple will potentially keep track of what email lists these addresses are signed up for, it’ll be more important than ever not to email customers across multiple stores you may own.

When will these changes arrive?

In addition to knowing what the changes are, you also probably want to know when they’ll arrive. 

While Apple has not given an exact date yet for when iOS 15 will be made available to the public, they have said it’ll arrive in fall 2021. Based on past updates to iOS, we can narrow this down to most likely being in September. 

How you can start preparing for iOS 15 Changes now

Now that you have a good understanding of what the changes are and how they’ll impact your email marketing, let’s look at some practical things you can do now to prepare for when iOS 15 is released to the public. 

While we’ll share more updates on changes we’re making to SmartrMail later on, below are 5 suggestions of what you can do now.

1) A/B test to see what improves open rates now

If you aren’t already, it’s a good idea to start A/B testing your subject lines to see what works and what doesn’t work when it comes to improving your open rate while you still can. 

We have a whole list of A/B test ideas that you can try out between now and when iOS 15 drops in September. Some quick ideas however include testing emojis in your subject line, phrasing your subject lines as questions, and personalizing them with your customers’ names.

Whatever you decide to test however, the goal is to have a good understanding of what kind of subject lines get your customers to open your emails. 

For more tips, check out our guide on A/B testing subject lines here.

2) Start focusing more on click-through rates

The thing we’re most certain about for when iOS 15 is released to the public is that open rates will not be what they used to be. 

While whether they go away completely or are just under a significant change is yet to be seen, you will want to start focusing more on other key email engagement metrics like click-through rate. 

The changes Apple is implementing do not affect our ability to tell which links people are clicking in an email, so click-through rates will still work just as they used to.

And the good news is that click-through rates give an excellent indication of how well your email content resonates with your audience. 

So now’s the time to look at your click-through rates to establish a baseline so you can tell whether you’re improving your email marketing game over time.

3) Expand your engagement-based segments so they’re not based on open rates

As open rates will become a significantly less reliable indicator of someone’s engagement with your email campaigns. 

That’s why it’s going to be important to expand how you determine who’s engaged or not beyond just opens. 

Click-through rates are going to be an important metric here as are other segmentation metrics like purchase activity and whether a customer has visited your online store. 

Check whether you’ve got automations set up based on opens

If you’ve already got automations set up to send to particular segments based on whether or not they’ve opened a particular email, now’s also the time to revisit them. 

You’ll want to update the targeting for these campaigns to move beyond opens and to the metrics we’ve already talked about such as sales and clicks.

4) Clean your email list of disengaged subscribers now

One of the most popular ways merchants make use of open data is to determine which customers are engaged with their email marketing and which are disengaged. 

Obviously, this won’t be possible to do anymore once iOS 15 is released to the public. 

So before September, it’ll be a good idea to ensure you have a clean and healthy email list of engaged customers by using open data to clean it while you still can. 

You can find instructions on how to clean your email list in SmartrMail here.

5) Focus on delivering value 

Lastly, it’s important to remember that these changes do not fundamentally change email marketing. 

Email will still remain the best marketing channel for reaching your customers directly and delivering relevant and timely content that improves the customer experience. 

While we may soon no longer be able to see exactly how many people are opening our email campaigns, we still know that sending engaging content that resonates with your audience is the fundamental key to successful email marketing. 

If you focus on building a healthy email list, nurture that list with relevant automations and newsletters, email will continue to drive plenty of sales to your store. 

And remember, every email marketer is in the same boat here. 

Conclusion

Apple’s upcoming iOS 15 update represents a massive change in the email marketing landscape.

The biggest change being that open rates, at least as you know them, will become a thing of the past. 

But while this will undoubtedly frustrate many email marketers and make it harder to tell just how well customers are engaging with your email campaigns, it’s not the end of the world. 

By preparing for the change now by following the tips we’ve mentioned, you’ll be in a good position once the changes are released in September. 

Until then, make the most of your open rate data while you still can! 

The post iOS 15 Changes: to Email Marketing You Need to Know appeared first on SmartrMail Email Marketing Blog.