Email Marketing for Retailers

White Paper

Retailers are doing amazing things in marketing, making the retail space one of the most competitive sectors to be part of. Therefore it’s important for retailers to stay on top of digital trends and stay ahead of the competition, or risk being left behind.

There are five pillars that must be included in every successful campaign; strategy, audience, message, channel and insight. By ticking off each pillar you can improve your email sophistication, no matter what stage of email maturity you are at.

Download this whitepaper to learn how to get the most out of your email marketing.

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The Maturity Model Overview

The Pure360 Email Maturity Model is an industry-leading framework of email sophistication that enables email marketers to pinpoint exactly how advanced they are compared to the industry and start making steps to improve their results, stage by stage.

Use our Maturity Model to determine which stage of maturity your email marketing is currently at. This will help you to determine your most suited strategy goals and tactics throughout this guide.

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The Strategy

First things first, you really need to get your strategy locked down before you can jump into the arguably more fun, tactical elements of email marketing.

A strategy will inform all other elements of your email marketing. Once you have identified the maturity stage you are at, the relevant strategy below will help you determine your focus areas, based on your current resource and capability.

Maturity Model: Broadcaster

Your main goals are likely to be increasing your database so that you can reach as wide an audience as possible, in turn increasing traffic and those all important sales! To do this you will need to have strong email deliverability to ensure that your emails reach the inbox.

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Maturity Model: Segmenter

As a Segmenter you will be looking to increase your engagement with customers by improving your email targeting. You will be aiming to send the right message at the right time using simple data segmentation; targeting individuals with products that you know they will love and can’t resist.

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Maturity Model: Recommender

Once you’ve hooked your customers, you will want to keep them happy. Therefore at this stage you will want to increase customer loyalty, with the aim to retain as many customers as possible.

You can do this via a mixture of VIP activity to make your customers feel really special, as well as using highly targeted automations so your customers feel that you really understand them.

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Maturity Model: Predictor

At this more advanced stage you will really be aiming for a full, single customer view so that you fully understand your audience and are able to emulate a one to one conversation with your customers.

To increase purchases you will want to predict what the customer wants, offering them product suggestions and tempting them to buy before they’ve even thought about the purchase.

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The Audience

I know you’re keen to get started, but hold on for just a moment longer. Moving on from strategy, you also need to lock down who you are actually talking to. No one person reacts to marketing the same, so decisions on your audience will heavily inform all of your tactics.

Maturity Model: Broadcaster

Goal

Increase audience size

Strategy

Increase your email list size and the amount of data you have on your subscribers

Tactics

Utilise data capture through website sign up forms, newsletters and promotional emails

Use re-send to non opens to increase open rates

Implement a Facebook newsletter sign up form to increase data capture

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Maturity Model: Segmenter

Goal

Increase audience engagement

Strategy

Utilise your data to increase targeting and send the right message to the most engaged audience

Tactics

Set up demographic segments based on gender, age and location, for instance

Set up a basic preference centre to increase data capture

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Maturity Model: Recommender

Goal

Increase customer loyalty

Strategy

Increase your use of customer data to send highly targeted emails that focus on what the recipient wants

Tactics

Create multiple targeted segments from your data

Use progressive profiling for data capture

Track customer’s post click activity and gather insights

Encourage word of mouth reviews on website, social media and review sites

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Maturity Model: Predictor

Goal

Increase positive brand awareness

Increase customer retention

Strategy

To have a full, single customer view so that you can fully understand your recipients and their preferences

Tactics

Collate data from multiple systems to create a single customer view

Gain a full sight of your customer journey

Create RFM (recency, frequency, monetary) segments with data

Practice new data capture techniques

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The Message

Now we’re getting to the fun part! Get your creative juices flowing by crafting email messages that are really going to engage with your audience and increase those all important sales.

Maturity Model: Broadcaster

Goal

Increase traffic to website

Increase interest in products

Strategy

Increase email performance and tie product promotion into all marketing activity

Tactics

Feature products in your regular newsletters or comms

Send out dedicated promotional emails

Increase the frequency of emails you are sending, this can be supported by functionality such as Drag & Drop Editor

Feature products in your regular newsletters or comms

Send out seasonal campaigns such as Black Friday, Christmas and New Year sales

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Maturity Model: Segmenter

Goal

Increase customer engagement with message

Strategy

Personalise email comms so that they are as relevant to the recipient as possible

Tactics

Optimise your subject lines

Use inbox preview functionality

Tailor email templates to specific campaigns

Implement simple email automations such as abandoned basket and unsubscribe confirmations

Send different content to each of your segments

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Maturity Model: Recommender

Goal

Maintain and continue to increase customer engagement

Strategy

Use email comms as a retention tool to ensure customers feel special, if customers are looking to leave, use email to win them back

Tactics

Optimise campaigns based on insights

Use multiple content to be optimised during send

Implement trend-based product recommendations

Implement re-engagement campaigns targeted to those who have not engaged in certain time period

Implement unsubscribe campaigns to win back disengaged customers back

Put pre and post event triggers in place

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Maturity Model: Predictor

Goal

Emulate a one-to-one relationship with customers

Strategy

Use customer data to highly personalise comms and emulate a one to one conversation with the recipient

Tactics

Use real time, dynamic content in your campaigns

Gain a full sight of your customer journey

Implement replenishment campaigns

Use data to predict products that customers will want to purchase

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The Channel

Now that you’ve carefully crafted your email message and you’re ready to hit send, you need to consider the channels that you want to promote your message on.

Maturity Model: Broadcaster

Goal

Get the most out of main channel - email

Strategy

Focus on utilising your email platform to the best of your ability. Begin experimenting with social networks to expand your reach

Tactics

Add a newsletter sign up form to Facebook to combine social media audience and email

Consider using SMS marketing for a wider reach

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Maturity Model: Segmenter

Goal

Begin engaging with customers on other channels

Strategy

Integrate your email marketing with other popular channels for increased exposure and engagement

Tactics

Establish a simple integration with CRM or eCommerce

Utilise post to social functionality to share your emails on your social networks

Begin practicing mobile first design

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Maturity Model: Recommender

Goal

Target customers on their preferred channels

Strategy

Have a full mobile strategy to ensure that your comms are effective for users on multiple devices and who are often on the move

Tactics

Create separate content for different devices

Establish more sophisticated integrations

Tailor your buying process to users who are on the move and using mobile devices

Promote social media campaigns to engage with users on social platforms

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Maturity Model: Predictor

Goal

Merge all channels for seamless experience

Strategy

Ensure that all marketing channels and data capture points are synced up and speaking to one another, with all data collected at these points sitting in a centralised hub, such as Customer Intelligence.

Tactics

Position email as part of an omni-channel strategy

Blend online and offline channels with email comms, such as offering in-store-purchase receipts

Utilise other channels as part of your re-engagement strategy

Set up triggers from external systems, such as in-store purchase

Stay on top of evolving customer behaviour so that you are utilising all appropriate channels

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The Insight

Congratulations! You’ve completed your email campaign! But the work doesn’t stop there I’m afraid. After every good campaign comes reporting and insight, and you will want to ensure you are focusing on the correct metrics.

Maturity Model: Broadcaster

Goal

Track website traffic

Track sales

Strategy

Use analytics to track peaks and dips in website traffic and purchases

Tactics

Put KPIs in place

Track opens, clicks and website traffic

Use an analytics platform to note peaks and dips in purchases

Maturity Model: Segmenter

Goal

Campaign attribution

Strategy

Begin practicing campaign attribution and have a fuller understanding of the success of email activity

Tactics

Track email metrics such as inbox placement, device reporting, heatmap and post click tracking

Begin attributing revenue to specific campaigns

Begin measuring ROI from email

Use engagement data to alter send times

Monitor device usage and conversions

Maturity Model: Recommender

Goal

Device and campaign attribution

Strategy

Begin practicing campaign attribution with a focus on device attribution

Tactics

Monitor device usage and conversions

Use reporting to spot trends in data

Attribute specific revenue to campaigns

Accurately measure email ROI

Maturity Model: Predictor

Goal

Complete attribution of all channels, both online and offline

Strategy

Combine all activity into a single data hub for a full view of all marketing activity

Tactics

Combine online and offline data using platform such as Customer Intelligence

Use all event data for modelling

Put advanced metrics into place so that you can measure single customer value

Utilise integrations such as faststats to determine if you are losing revenue at any points in buying cycle

Our Conclusion

Excellent retail email is possible no matter what stage of the Maturity Model you are at. However, if you want to continue to move up in maturity and advance your email sophistication, you can follow these simple steps:

Step 1

Ensure you have explored and mastered all of the opportunities at your stage. Look into all of the suggested tactics to make the most of your current resource and strategy.

Step 2

Check out the next stage within this guide, as well as the associated strategy, goals and tactics. If this stage seems attainable then start putting processes in place to move up the Email Maturity Model.

Step 3

Speak to us! Our Email Maturity Model underpins all of the advice and guidance we offer. Therefore we are experts in helping you to move up the stages and get the very most out of your email marketing.

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