How to Write Ecommerce Emails That Converts

Admit it

E-commerce emails catapult your marketing efforts.

Giving you the best ROI that’s far better than SEO and social media marketing.

But how do you write e-commerce emails that convert?

Keep reading to learn how to fire up zesty emails that subscribers will tressure.

Let’s roll.

Ecommerce Emails Stats

Email marketing is cool. right?

You’ve heard the advice a million times well, a little recap won’t hurt.

Emails have the highest ROI over any other marketing channel a $42 return on every $1 spent (Litmus).

Email is 40X more effective than Twitter and Facebook combined. (McKinsey)
Order value from email is 20 % higher with 3X conversion compared to other channels
59 % of marketers recommend email marketing and 64 % of these marketers will increase their email marketing budget in the coming years.

It’s not difficult to convince store owners like you to think about email marketing they already know and some have already invested in email marketing tools.

The struggle shop owners like you face is knowing how to optimize their email marketing campaign for conversion.

Email marketing struggle is real

According to the DMA email marketing survey that asked marketers about the significant challenges they face. Their top answers were limited internal resources, lack of content, and lack of strategy.

Email marketing is not just sending emails there is more to it.

If you are looking to create emails that convert then you need an email marketing strategy.

You further need to educate yourself about newsletters, best send time, email service providers (ESPs), subject lines and CTAs, exit intent, pop-up, and floating bars and so much more.

After getting your strategy right and all your technical pieces together then here comes the hardest part.

Writing the actual emails

You need to figure out how to grab the attention of your recipients so that the money you are investing will pay off.

The moments of truth come down only to how well your email performs.

The truth is it’s getting harder and harder and harder to win the inbox.

Why?

On average a typical professional receives 121 emails per day.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph getting your e-commerce email to stand out is HARD.

The quick reason why most of your emails are unread, deleted, or the worst reported as spam.

Shop owners like you are sending Sale emails……..after-sales email………after-sales email…….after-sales email. And they are doing it every day like clockwork.

For instance here is an example

Every day the emails go unopened, unread, deleted, and worse you get unsubscribed.

People are tired of SALES, SALES, FLASH SALES, and other sales emails.

What people are looking for is value and creating relationships.

What do you do instead?

Nurture subscribers.

Most shop owners are selling hard without nurturing and that’s where they go wrong.

I am not saying you should not send sales emails but what subscribers need is a variety. Not all sales email, today, tomorrow, and the next day.

Picture this:

Anytime you receive an email with cool content, funny stories, new products, success stories, industry news, and sometimes a SALE deal.

I bet you look forward to such emails. Why is that? because they are valuable.

Everyone is looking for value and a little sale can be part of the value.

Types of Ecommerce Emails

There are many types of e-commerce emails welcome emails, abandoned cart, win-back emails, transactional emails, and promotional emails.

But all e-commerce emails can be summarized into three.

Sales emails: They do the actual sales give a discount, product promotion, or product announcement.

Nurture emails: They build relationships. They don’t sell but give value tips, news and showcase new products.

Engagement emails: They encourage subscribers to act click, fill a survey, share on social media, get people to click through their website.

Why E-commerce Emails are Unread or Deleted

As Seth Godin puts it

” Permission marketing is a privilege, not a right”
-Seth Godin

Once someone subscribes to your email list they give you permission to send what you agreed upon in the first place. It’s a privilege, not your right.

So once you abuse the privilege by spamming or sending sale after sale emails then the subscriber has the right to ignore your emails, delete them, unsubscribe you, or the worst report you as a spammer.

Here is what will make you blacklisted.

Too many emails
Irrelevant emails
Too many sales emails
Shouting using Caps and multiple exclamations on subject lines

How to Write Ecommerce Emails that Converts

You want e-commerce emails that convert no BS or wasting your subscriber’s time.

Here are ten big secrets.

Write killer subject lines

The subject line is the first impression it decides whether your subscriber will open or delete your email.

There are many ways to write a killer subject line. Here is a comprehensive guide with 164 email subject lines that you can steal and use to boost your sales.

The CoSchedule headline analyzer is also a nice tool that can check your subject line.

Put in mind is that nowadays more people are using mobile phones to access emails. So you need to optimize your email for mobile users.

Note also subscribers get bored easily if you keep repeating the same subject line over and over again.

Then you need to keep mixing things up for the long haul you can add emojis that can increase your open rate by 45 percent.

Understand your subscriber on the buyer’s journey

According to legendary Joe Suggerman buyers go through a slippery slope.

Customers start way up on the slippery slope as prospects who are unaware of what you sell.

Then it’s your work using email copy to take them down the slippery slope.

And nurture them way down.

unaware	Give helpful information
Pain aware	Help them see their pain points
Solution aware	Guide them to find solutions
Product aware	Recommend products or services
Most aware	Offer deals and discounts

You will have to build relationships for you to convince prospects to move to the next stage.

FYI people buy from friends and that is why they need to know and trust you.

Personalize your emails

Personalization brings you closer to prospects. When you address them by their name they see you as a friend or someone they know and can trust.

Personalization goes beyond writing their names.

You have to know your audience and create buyer personas to know their demographics; age, location, what they love and where they hung out, movies they watch, and their favorite pass time.

If you do your research well then prospects will love to hear from you because you will turn to be like a personal friend.

Write for the web

People scan web content make readability your priority.

Follow logical structure
Keep paragraph short one main idea per paragraph
Add bullets and subheadings
Avoid a wall of text
Add images and video

Write email copy for readers

Write in a conversational way as if you are talking to someone you know probably sitting together at the same table.

Imagine yourself having a conversation, responding, and asking questions.

Choose the right words

Emails are short and every word should count.

Choose the right words to stir your reader’s imagination and appeal to their emotions.

Use analogies, metaphors, and similes.
Add sensory words to help them see, feel, smell, hear your message
Use power words in your subject line and CTAs

Avoid making false promises and other sleazy marketing techniques they will make you lose subscribers.

Apply psychology in your marketing strategy

There is a way the human brain behaves especially when buying.

So use psychology to help trigger the human mind to buy. Some of the techniques you can employ include:

Fear of Missing Out (FOMO): Use time-limited discounts, show scarcity, and urgency in your sales emails.

Color scheme: Different colors have different reactions so test different colors on your CTA.

Picture and faces: They can elicit emotions that will make people want to click.

Social proof: People want to buy what others are buying the “flock mentality”.

Personalization again can bring you closer to your prospects.

Have one clear goal on each email

Have a single goal for each email you send. Stick to one goal that will also be reflected on your CTA.

Having multiple goals in one email ends up confusing readers who have no time to figure it out.

So when planning your email plan for one key action that you want your reader to take then build email copy around that.

Steal great ideas

Stealing ideas is legal-But plagiarism is not.

Get inspiration from your competitors by signing up for their email list.

A good place to start is Quora, Reddit, or Answer the Public.

Really Good Email is a gem where you can see actual emails.

Test and split test email marketing campaign.

No perfect emails exist.

Things keep on changing and what worked last year may not work now. So you need to constantly collect data.

The data will guide you on what’s working and what needs improvement.

One way to find data is using split tests where you test different subject lines, email copy, colors, CTAs until you find the right combination.

Over to You

There you have it.

Ecommerce email marketing is what your business needs. But it does not end with choosing the best email marketing tool.

Success starts with writing the actual email and delivering it to the right person.

See their response is tasty but it becomes yummy and juicy when they pull out their wallet and buy.

so take the next step and subscribe to my newsletter for the latest e-commerce tips.