Doubling the revenue from your email list may sound like a fairly big job. Doubling down, however, does not require that the work should be done twice as well or twice as much with larger resources. The important thing is that you develop everything steadily.
Let’s start with an example:
There are 1.000 people on your email list. Everyone makes one purchase a year. The average purchase is €10. So, you can get 1.000 x 1 x 10 € = €10.000 from your email list.
Next, you develop each component evenly by 30%. In this case, you will have 1.300 people on your email list, they buy an average of 1.3 times a year and the average purchase is €13. Does not sound like a lot of improvements? Still, the result more than doubles:
1.300 x 1.3 x €13 =€21.970
On paper, it sounds pretty easy, but in reality the job is much more challenging. So let’s take a closer look at what steps you need to take to double your revenue with regard to email marketing!
1) Increase the size of your email list
You can roughly divide the e-mail list of online stores into 3 different areas.
A) Organic growth
Your online store’s email list is constantly growing as customers click the “subscribe to newsletter” button at checkout or when they subscribe to the newsletter via a form on the site. However, organic growth is quite slow if the newsletter is not conceptualized in an interesting way or if no reward is promised for joining the list. Also, the reward does not always have to be a discount, as you will soon notice.
Size “Subscribe to newsletter” form does not attract many people, which is why the newsletter needs to be conceptualized according to the brand of the online store. By conceptualisation, I mean that you need to name the newsletter in an interesting way and create an image of the benefits of being a subscriber. No one wants the newsletter itself, but your customers want the benefits of your newsletter.
For example, the number of people joining our mailing list increased by 96% when we changed “Subscribe to newsletter twice a month in your email” —> Subscribe to silent digital marketing information twice a month in your email”. The newsletter is still exactly the same, but the issue is told in a more interesting way in the current version. Who would want to miss out on the silent information our 30 experts collect about hundreds of different customer cases 8 hours a day?
How could you conceptualize your newsletter yourself? Water is either a prerequisite for all life or an iron corrosive liquid. How you tell things determines the attractiveness of things in the eyes of the reader.
B) Offers
Offers are the most commonly used means of increasing the size of the list. One of the reasons for that is that they work. For example, “Subscribe to a newsletter and get -10% on your first purchase,” is a very commonly used way to increase the size of your list. Even if you have to give -10% of your first purchase, the e-mail address value is much higher than the discount you give.
In many cases, a customer who purchases once for online stores can make a return of + -0 or even a loss. Therefore, obtaining the customer’s email address and marketing permission is very important so that you can steer the customer towards another purchase practically without the cost of purchasing a customer. The second purchase is usually always much more profitable than the first.
To return to that -10% offer. Such an offer does not always have to be a direct discount. People do not want to miss out on future deals either! For example, we increased the size of our e-commerce customer’s email list by 1.000 contacts a week with just one pop-up.
Unfortunately, I can’t reveal the exact content of a pop-up, but I can tell you the idea behind it. In short, the idea was that if a contact wants to know the offers for future “promotional days” before anyone else AND get a link to a secret Facebook group, then join now. The idea does not sound world-changing, but it worked when the words were chosen in an attractive way!
For example, you can make a pop-up for free with Justuno.
C) Lead magnets
It is also possible to create lead magnets in your online store, although they are often perceived as marketing materials for non-online stores. Lead magnets include various guides, email courses, video coaching, webinars and checklists.
For example, an online store that sells makeup can do 5-part video coaching on makeup with a well-known makeup artist. Or an online store selling batch products can write a comprehensive guide on what to consider when planning a hike and what kind of products they need for hiking.
The idea is to help your customers – not to push your products.
2) Increase your customers’ purchase frequency
The customer purchase frequency varies greatly depending on the type of products you sell. In consumer products, the best customer purchase cycle can be a month, while in long-life products it can be years.
A) Offer your best products to your customers at regular intervals
What are your top 5 bestselling products? What is the typical buying cycle for these products for customers who have purchased them more than once? If the purchase cycle of one product is 30 days, then offer the product 25 days after purchase again. If the customer does not buy, offer the product in 40 days, for example, and with free shipping costs!
B) Automated abandoned shopping cart
This automation is perhaps the most commonly used automation in online stores. In short, the idea is to send a message to the customer who abandoned the shopping cart that there is still stuff in their shopping cart.
I personally prefer two versions of an abandoned shopping cart. One for those who have never bought in your store and another for those who already have. Previous buyers trust you and know how long it takes to deliver. In this case, the reason for abandoning the shopping cart is usually something else. The customer may not be sure that the product is suitable for him or her, or the process was just unfinished.
If the customer has not bought from your store before, it is a good idea to highlight the issues related to ordering and shipping in the rejected cart messages sent to them. Offering free shipping is also a good option to encourage the customer to make their first purchase, which is always the most challenging.
C) VIP communication
It is said that 20% of your customers bring in 80% of your revenue. The figures are not absolute; the numbers are not absolute, but more important is the ideology behind that idea. So take care of that top 20% and do not become a competitor to them..
If a customer has purchased from your store for several hundred dollars, then you cannot communicate with this person in the same way as a contact who has joined your list only after a discount coupon without a single actual purchase. That is why it is worth doing VIP automations for the best customers, where you thank and reward them, for example, with a substantial discount for being good customers to you. This ensures that they will continue to be your customers.
Of course, a discount isn’t the only option. You can shoot a one-minute video thanking you for your long-standing customer experience and introducing, for example, people who take orders and package products. Tell them that the customer has a big role to play in having jobs!
D) Saving disappearing customers
Acquisition of customers is always more expensive than maintaining a customer relationship and the repurchases acquired through it. Therefore, you should not allow your money-and-hassle-acquired customers to disappear. For example, if your online store’s typical purchase cycle is 60 days, customers who have not bought for 90 days are already at a high risk of “disappearing”.
Email such customers, catch up and offer the most popular products or showcase your promotional products. Building a product feed helps a lot.
Also read: Ecommerce email marketing – how to act at any stage of the buying path?
3) Increase the average purchase size of your customers
The size of the average purchase is of great importance for the profitability of the business. Therefore, the aim is to increase it regardless of the industry: “Do you take a bigger drink with the fries for a euro?”, “How do you take three pairs of well-fit socks with you?”
You should do the same in your online store. If a customer buys a €500 phone, offer cases suitable for the phone immediately after the purchase! ven if the additional product you offer is just a few euros, it is still a very well-made trade for you, because you didn’t have to spend any money to get a purchase.
You can also use the tools to increase the size of your central purchase. A tool often used is: “Those who bought this product also bought these products” style solution.
What kind of product pairs are in your online store?
Summary
As you can see, all activity requires customers to segment according to their behavior and buyer personality. The more accurately all your customers are divided into different segments, the more accurate and efficient email marketing you can do.
In order to save the revenue from your email list, you do not have to double the size, frequency or average purchase size of the list. All you have to do is develop everything evenly! Reward your best customers, take care of customer retention, and actively offer customers the right products for them based on previous purchases. It is not pushing, it is customer service at its best. Do it a lot and be brave, but remember the planning.