Tag: Email Marketing

PrestaShop Back in Stock Module- Unique Approach to Capture Lost Sales

Notify customers when products are back in stock, and your PrestaShop revenue will increase quickly. Use the PrestaShop Back in Stock module to start recapturing missing revenue. Send notifications to consumers as soon as the products return to stock. It takes just 5 minutes to set up.

PrestaShop Back-in-Stock – Unique Approach to Capture Lost Sales

Back-in-stock alerts are a perfect way for PrestaShop stores to boost sales. Don’t miss out on sales because the products are out of stock. Increase your sales with web push notifications for back-in-stock products. You can send an initial email when a customer subscribes for a back-in-stock alert, low-stock alerts, and a final notification email with the Back-in-stock message.

We’ve all discovered things that were out of stock but we don’t go back to the store to see if it’s still there. Why do you expect your customers to do it? Influence them using emails and send push notifications to bring them back to your online store. You will get more sales and observe a boost in conversion rate.

Adding an email opt-in to your subscriber list will help you grow your list

The majority of low stock and back-in-stock warning forms only obtain the customer’s email address to inform them when a product returns to stock. Take advantage of the fact that they’re paying attention by asking them to join your email list at the same time. Sellers who use this strategy see a large improvement in their email subscriber list size, which leads to increased sales.

You can observe the subscriber listing on the admin panel at the left menu where all the installed modules are listed.

V3 Google reCaptcha is integrated with PrestaShop Back in Stock module to keep away the spammers and bots.

Add Custom Field in the Back in stock Subscription Box

Collecting information from customers to send personalized emails will be easier. PrestaShop Back in stock addon provides an option to add custom fields in the subscription box. You can now add text, radio option, and other custom fields to gather more details about the customers.

Send automated emails for Low-stock and Back-in-stock

The PrestaShop Back-in-stock Module is a tool for email marketing. Customers usually receive hundreds of promotional emails and most of them are ignored but an email with a catchy subject line has more chances of getting opened. The module allows sellers to send a customized email with tailored text and subject lines. Along with an initial welcome email, you can send low-stock alerts to the subscribers and notify them about the restocked products.

Add related products to email template and cross-sell

Heard the phrase ‘killing two birds from one stone, the module works the same way. It lets you send back in stock alerts as well as has an option to send related products. A seller can add details like bestsellers, products of the same category, specific products, etc. If a seller opts for the Specific products option, then he will have to specify the products in the respective tab as shown in the image below.

Send alerts via your email provider like Mailchimp

It is critical that you build your brand, and one way to do so is to ensure that the emails you send are sent from your domain. You’ll be able to use a variety of features to boost the success of your back in stock campaigns if you use an advanced eCommerce email provider like Mailchimp, Klavio, or Sendinblue. And, the PrestaShop back-in-stock module allows you to do so.

Real-time Analytics for PrestaShop

View a full report on customers who have subscribed to web push alerts for back-in-stock products. To increase sales, identify the most successful items, maximize inventory, and run promotional campaigns.

The new version has UTM Parameters

The UTM parameters are short text codes, you insert into URLs (or links) to monitor the success of a webpage or a campaign. Built-in analytics are available on social media sites. These allow you to track key metrics such as likes, shares, and website clicks. You can add UTM parameters to the PrestaShop Back in stock module and take advantage.

To wrap up: The Back-in-Stock emails are one-of-a-kind alerts as they create curiosity, influence the buying motives, and increase the chances of sales. If you are not sending alerts like low-stock or back-in-stock to your customers, you are making a huge mistake. Get your ‘Back-in-stock’ module today to grab your lost sales.

For eCommerce website development, module requirements, or mobile app development for your online store, KnowBand has experts and ready-made tools. Visit us at www.knowband.com or drop a message at support@knowband.com.

Recommended Reads:

How PrestaShop Loyalty Point Program can take your Marketing to Next Level

The PrestaShop Loyalty Point Program will engage store users to increase sales by assigning them a reward point. This plugin has complete admin management so that the reward points of buyers can be easily managed by the admin. This will allow for a point-based loyalty program that is a great way to earn points for frequent visitors.

The loyalty program can be used in digital marketing. You can share emails with your customers about the points they have earned in previous purchases and how they can redeem them. Also, you can incentivize your lost customers by adding some points in their wallets and the eligibility criteria.

All the marketing ideas and cart rules of the PrestaShop Loyalty Point Program are highlighted in this article.

Let’s dive into it.

Why you need a PrestaShop Loyalty Point Program?

Loyalty Point Program the term itself suggests that the points are offered to loyal ones. The customer who visits your store or makes a purchase from your store earns some points that can be converted into currency (as per the rules defined by the store manager) and used in the next purchase. The PrestaShop loyalty point system is a one-stop solution to increase sales by improved conversion and higher retention advantages. Some of the benefits are listed below:

  • Increased cart value
  • More conversions
  • Maximize repeat sales
  • Grow your list of email subscribers
  • Flexible cart rules to reward customers and visitors

Read: Benefits of Customer Loyalty Programs for your Online Business

PrestaShop Loyalty Point Program for Marketing

The loyalty points can be offered to all your visitors and existing customers as you wanted. You can plan your policies and offer such rewards as per your defined rules. It is good to make some cart rules that increase average cart value, product-wise rules to increase the sale of particular items, or according to weight and shipping choices they make.

Provide them with clear guidelines. Let them earn points and you earn their loyalty!

Marketing ideas for new visitors

There are more possibilities than ever to boost website traffic and visits to your PrestaShop store with the evolution of digital marketing. A loyalty program holds the power to influence visitors to take the action. The action here means clicking on the link or sharing an email address to claim the reward. The emails collected can be used later for marketing purposes.

How to offer Loyalty Points to New Visitors?

On the landing page

The PrestaShop Loyalty Point program allows the store manager to offer loyalty points to every new visitor. This entices the visitor and increases customer engagement in your store. You can promote this offer on your social media handles and grab the attention of the users.

Such offers always work!

On first purchase

Also, the Loyalty Point Program can be used to reward customers on their first purchase. You can use a pop-up showing the program details and once they make the purchase, reward them with some points that they can redeem in the next purchase as per the rules defined.

Offering rewards on visits and first purchase are great tactics that you can apply to your store and increase the conversion rate remarkably.

How to benefit existing customers with Reward Points?

There are two types of customers that you need to take care of. First, the loyal -who always shops from your store and second- who used to shop from your store but didn’t show up in a long time. Since they have purchased from your store you already have their user data. Why put that data in junk when you can use it for marketing and boost sales?

Here is what you can do!

Reward on every purchase they make

Loyal ones are the best customers you have. Your competitors are always working hard to snatch them so, just make sure to keep them with you in the long run. You can incentivize your loyal customers and give them reward points on each purchase.

But, some customers shop once and never come back? Maybe they are not happy with your services or they might forget that you exist. Can you do something about it? Of course! You can.

Send an email and remind them that they are losing their loyalty points. You can add the timer with the email or you can share cart details, total earned points, and details to redeem it.

Add points to their wallet

Another way to get them back is by adding some loyalty points to their wallet. This maximizes repeat sales and brings back your potential customers.

Two ways you can tell them that they have earned loyalty points:

  • Notify with push notification
  • Via email

How and when you can offer loyalty points

The cart rules defined here underneath will possibly boost your eCommerce sales and increases the average cart value. Some of the best ways to define the rules are:

·         On the total cart amount

Give loyalty points to the client for spending an amount above the amount mentioned. For instance, if customer shops for more than $20, you can give 10 loyalty points. Now let’s say if a customer’s cart total is $18, he or she will possibly add $3 more to take the total cart over $20 to gain 10 loyalty points.

·         On the product quantity

Provide consumers with reward points after they shop for the quantity of product listed. Suppose you sell some points of loyalty for the purchase of 2 items. And if a customer comes to your shop to buy a single item, you can ask them to add one more item to collect loyalty points.

·         On the particular payment method

Provide loyalty points with a PrestaShop Loyalty Points program when a customer purchases the defined payment process. If you want users to choose particular payment methods then this is the way to make them do.

·         On the specific shipping service

Provide loyalty points when a customer selects the shipping service mentioned.

·         Based on the product weight

To gain loyalty points, define what the total weight (in grams) of the goods should be.

·         On selected products and categories

If you have products that are stocked in your inventory for several days or months then this is the chance. You should note the certain items for which the loyalty points are to be issued. Select a category and only goods falling under that category will be granted loyalty points.

Conclusion

The loyalty point programs are used by almost all organizations whether they are into eCommerce or banking. PrestaShop Loyalty Point Program developed by KnowBand provides you with several alluring functionalities that you can use in digital marketing campaigns.

KnowBand has a solution for all the eCommerce problems and has several modules that can bring back your lost sales. Do visit us or drop a comment below if you find this article helpful.

Acquire New Customers with Referral and Affiliate Marketing Tool for PrestaShop Store

Big brands like Amazon offers an affiliate marketing program and people are earning thousands of dollars with referral and affiliate marketing. It is proven to be a good source of passive income these days.

You might have heard terms like ‘refer and earn’ and came across the links on YouTube videos or blogs dominating a specific category promoting a product. People are making money by influencing others through good content and captivating tactics.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is an opportunity to make passive income. It can work well and do magic if you know how exactly it works. Affiliate marketing is a type of revenue sharing technique. There are many tools available for affiliate marketing. One of the affiliate marketing tools is the ‘Affiliate and Referral Program‘ for your PrestaShop Store.

A person registers himself with an existing product selling website and gets a link for promoting the product. If that link works well and the product gets sold with that particular link, the person who promoted it will get a cookie. Yes, he will get some amount of money on behalf of that purchase. Yay! This is how it works.

Knowband developed a perfect solution for PrestaShop eCommerce store owners, an affiliate marketing tool named PrestaShop Affiliate and Referral Program. What is PrestaShop Affiliate and Referral Program? How you can grow brand awareness and acquire new customers with this affiliate marketing tool? What are the main features of the PrestaShop Affiliate and Referral Program?

We’ll answer all those questions in this blog. If you are interested in affiliate marketing for your store then you must know what ‘Affiliate and Referral Program’ is offering.

Features of ‘Affiliate and Referral Program’- an affiliate marketing tool

1.     Several types of referral

The affiliate marketing tool ‘Affiliate and Referral Program’ module allows the affiliate partners to invite new users through various means into your store. The affiliate partners can bring in new customers by sharing a referral code or a referral link with them.

Affiliate marketing and referral programs also allow the affiliate to generate voucher code. Besides that, affiliate partners can share the reference link on various social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, right from their affiliate account.

2.     Defined referral rate for the affiliates

a global referral rate can be set by PrestaShop store admin for the affiliate partners for the user registration and the order placement.

3.     Custom commission for each affiliate

Although the Affiliate marketing tool for PrestaShop the ‘Affiliate and Referral Program’ allows the store administrator to set a fixed global reference rate for the affiliate partners, they can customize this for every different affiliate.

4.     A voucher for affiliates on registration

PrestaShop Affiliate Marketing Module allows traders to assign a coupon on the successful user registration of the affiliates. The store administrator can set the value of the voucher and offer it in the form of a fixed discount or a percentage basis. There’s also the option to define the total quantity of vouchers and the limit of vouchers per user.

5.     Set validity for your referral program

The Affiliate marketing and Referral Marketing addon provide the option to run the specific referral program for a given time interval. If you define a time period, after the specified period, the reference code will get expire.

6.     Keep an eye on registered affiliates

With the Affiliate and Referral Marketing module, you can insight into registered affiliates and look into the details under the ‘Affiliate Customer’ section.

7. Obtain details of the clients referred

“Referral Listing” displays details of the customers who have done the registration via the affiliate link.

8. Check the incentives the affiliates earn

In the “Commission History” tab, the PrestaShop Referral tool allows the store admin to view the incentives earned by the affiliate partners.

9. Check for payout requests from affiliates

The affiliate marketing and referral marketing module allow the affiliate partner to obtain their payout/commission in the form of a voucher or cash.

The affiliate customer must raise a request to withdraw the commission earned from his/her account, which will then be reflected in “Payout Requests.”

Benefits of Referral and Affiliate Marketing Tool

  • Affiliate marketing increases brand awareness

Increase your brand’s popularity by arranging a multi-level affiliate program in the eCommerce website store.

  • The program gives refer and earn opportunity

Offer your customers a unique earning opportunity by displaying on the website an option to register an affiliate.

  • Gather email subscribers

With more registration, you can get more email subscribers. The data can be further used for email marketing strategies. The Affiliate and Referral Program is a boon to the cost of advertising.

  • Improved conversion

When the referent makes a purchase using the voucher code you can drive more conversions and hence more sales. Giving the affiliates exciting incentives can encourage them to bring more customers to you.

Final Words: People are looking for sources to build up the capital and earn more. This is a chance for eCommerce store owners to bring new customers to their store with the ‘Refer and Earn’ program. Affiliate marketing and a referral program can help you grow your PrestaShop business to the next level. Knowband presents the ‘PrestaShop Affiliate and Referral Program’ addon which helps PrestaShop store owners build brand awareness and effectively increase their user base.

Check out the admin demo and the front demo of the PrestaShop Affiliate and Referral Program module. If you have any concerns regarding this addon, you can mail us at support@knowband.com and our team will resolve your query by the earliest.

This can also interest you:

7 Ways to Increase Your Website Traffic

Website traffic is an integral part of any eCommerce business. Without it, the business holds little to no value. Is there any point of having a website if it is not receiving any traffic?

No web traffic means no customers, and hence no sales.

What is Web Traffic?

Web Traffic or Website Traffic is the number of web users who visit your website. Any time a visitor lands on your website, it counts as a visit or a session.

Website owners or marketers try various strategies to increase the traffic on their website, and today in this article, we will be talking about those tactics. I will be covering 7 simple yet effective ways to increase website traffic.

How to Boost Website Traffic?

Take a quick look at the 7 important tips that I will be sharing with you.

  1. On-Page SEO

  2. Social Media

  3. Paid Advertisement

  4. Start a Blog

  5. Write Quora Answers

  6. Guest Blogging

  7. Email Marketing

1. On-Page SEO

This might seem an obvious one but cannot be overlooked. If there’s one thing that matters the most when it comes to increasing the website traffic, it is the On-Page SEO. I mean SEO is all about driving traffic to your website.

If your website is SEO-optimized, you can expect quality organic traffic. So, make sure that all your web pages are optimized for search engines which will make it easier for the search engine bots to crawl your website, understand your niche and put your website in front of those web users whose queries match your business offerings.

2. Social Media

Promoting content is as important as creating it. How would people know that your brand even exists if you are not promoting it much or not leveraging the platforms which could help you in driving traffic to your website?

Social media is arguably the best platform to boost your website traffic. Facebook and Instagram can prove ideal if you are into B2C business whereas Twitter and LinkedIn are more beneficial for B2B businesses.

If you haven’t marked your presence yet on social media, now is the time. Your competitors there are already driving a handsome amount of traffic on their website through social media.

Related: Social Media Marketing for eCommerce: Strategies and Best Practices

3. Paid Advertisement

Paid advertisement is also one of the ways to promote your website in front of a large audience and driving them to your website. It becomes crucial if you have just started out your online business because you need to spend some bucks to get your brand noticed.

Google Adwords is one of the best tools that will help you with search engine marketing. You will have to bid for the keywords that you want your website to rank for, on the top in the search engine.

Besides you can also take help of social media ads such as Facebook Ads and Instagram Ads. Make sure to target the right audience, which means the right age group and the right regions where you want to display your ads.

4. Start a Blog

A majority of websites have a blog section, and you should have it too. Start a blog as soon as possible.

When you focus on topics around your niche and start writing about them, you have a very good chance of ranking your blog posts on the search engine and driving traffic through it, considering that the content is of high quality and contains the required keywords.

Later, you can promote your posts on various platforms and bring the audience to your blog.

5. Write Quora Answers

Quora is one of the popular Q&A platforms where people ask different types of questions and seek answers for them. It is very likely that your niche’s audience is already there and looking for some answers which you could provide.

Create a Quora profile, search questions related to your niche and start answering them. One thing to keep in mind that Quora is a platform to discuss, not to promote, So, keep your answer as genuine as you can. Write detailed answers, add a link to your website without sounding promotional.

If Quora identifies that you are there just to promote your business, they will block you from their platform.

6. Guest Blogging

There are many websites over the Internet that allows Guest Blogging. It provides a great opportunity for you to attract the audience of those platforms to your website. Besides, it enhances your brand image as well.

Reach out to a guest blogging website. Tell them that you want to create content on their platform. Just follow their guidelines and you won’t find any problems.

7. Email Marketing

Every small business follows email marketing. If you have a good number of email subscribers, you can drive a decent amount of traffic on your website.

Focus on building your email list. Acquire email address of your visitors and then send them newsletters, marketing emails, offers and promotions or other important information and bring them on your website.

Final Thoughts

There is no fixed limit to the number of ways to increase your website traffic. As I earlier said, businesses try and implement multiple strategies to boost the traffic on their website.

Keep looking for different ideas and do whatever you feel can be helpful in bringing users to your website.

5 Email Marketing Tips during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 Pandemic has forced online businesses to modify their email marketing strategies. The ongoing crisis has put them in a dilemma whether or not they should send promotional emails to their clients or customers.

When you have a pre-planned strategy, it’s difficult to make sudden changes and adjust the email program accordingly. The schedule gets disturbed, besides you also have to figure out what needs to be done.

If you are being too promotional instead of being supportive in this time, it can spoil your brand image and you may lose out on some loyal customers.

In this write-up, I have shared a few helpful email marketing tips that you can apply in your business and retain your customers during this COVID-19 pandemic.

Email Marketing amid Coronavirus outbreak

One of the major problems marketers are facing currently is communicating with the subscribers. Email marketers are finding it tough to analyze how to keep the communication going. While some do have a plan, they are struggling as to how they should approach their email subscribers.

Let’s try to understand what changes you should make in your email marketing strategy.

1. Regular Communication

When an outbreak or pandemic happens, a lot of chaos is created not only among the businesses but customers as well.

At this time, you need to be calm and make your customers calm as well. And for that, you need to communicate frequently with your customers via email.

The last thing you would want is to bring in the communication gap, which can break down the credibility that you have built over time.

Your customers need to be informed at regular intervals about how you are responding to the current situation and what sorts of changes have your brought or planning to bring into your business.

When you communicate often, you can land some promotional emails as well in their box, but the percentage of it should be less. Do keep an eye on the open and click rates and other important metrics.

2. Change the tone of your Emails

The lockdown has taken a toll on people. People are getting frustrated and even depressed sitting at home and thinking about the current situation of the world.

During this pandemic, the way you communicate has a lot of significance, and this is why you need to adjust the tone of your emails.

Identify the pain points of your customers. Add an emotional touch to your emails. Be motivating and empathetic. Create a friendly conversation and ask them how they are doing.

Never forget to lend a helping hand. Tell them you are with them in this difficult phase. Do whatever you can from your end to make your customers happy.

3. Express Gratitude

Customers love to be appreciated. A thanks message is always a great way to express gratitude to your customers for their continued love and support.

Reach out to them in their inbox and thank them for being a valued and loyal customer. Tell them that it’s all because of their continuous support which has kept them going.

We all are going through a rough patch, be it businesses or consumers. So it is important to create a cheerful environment and put a smile on your customers’ faces.

If you ran a donation campaign, you can let your customers know about it, like how much amount you collected and how you are trying to help the needful.

Again, do not forget to thank them for their contribution. They will also feel happy knowing that they could contribute to helping poor people.

4. Educate Customers

Apart from informing your email subscribers about the impact of COVID-19 on your eCommerce business, it is also important to educate them and tell how critical the situation is, how they can get themselves going and what precautions they should take.

Though consumers would be very well aware of it, it is your responsibility as well to show concern towards your customers so that they do not get carried away.

Besides, if you could relate your offerings with a message, that would make a great email. For example, we at knowband, have a Free Covid-19 Information Popup for PrestaShop and Magento 2, through which brands or marketers can educate customers as well as specify their offerings on the popup.

For more details, you can click here.

5. Inspire People

People are frightened, demotivated, and whatnot. They are fearing about their survival, their jobs, and their family. Be a pillar of strength for them.

Inspire them with motivational thoughts and boost up their energy. Give them peace of mind.

The confidence that seems shattered needs to be rebuilt. Console them that we would be over the COVID-19 pandemic soon and everything would resume to normal.

This can build a strong bond between your brand and your customers, and they will remember you for the lifetime.

Final Thoughts

If you haven’t given serious thought to email marketing during the COVID-19 pandemic, you could miss out on some loyal customers. It is still not too late.

Your current email marketing strategy will decide how customers interact with your brand in the future.

But, as of now, let’s just hope we get rid of this Coronavirus soon. Plan your email marketing tactics and do keep in mind the above-mentioned points.

I hope you enjoyed reading these 5 tips for email marketing during COVID-19 pandemic.

A Definitive Guide to Effective Email Marketing in 2020

The most common form of online marketing over the years has been Email Marketing. Even though it has become conventional, it is still one of the most preferred communication channels for marketers.

There has been a huge shift in the way marketing is done, especially with the introduction of social media. But does that mean email marketing is no longer effective?

No! Even today, email marketing is quite effective but just like every other thing that requires improvisation or a change over time, email marketing, too, requires a change in its approach.

In this write-up, I am going to share how to do email marketing the right way in 2020. Let’s begin.

What is Email Marketing?

In the simplest words, making use of emails to promote your products or services is what we call as Email marketing. But it doesn’t just involve promotion.

Email marketing is the beginning of your relationship with your potential customers, and to make that relationship successful, it needs to be given time and effort plus you need to provide some value to your prospects.

It requires regular communication to understand your clients so that you could pitch them your products as per their response.

Email Marketing Best Practices 2020

Follow the below mentioned best practices for email marketing.

1. Let your subject line arouse Curiosity

If you want your email subscribers to pay attention to your emails, the subject line has a major role to play. The email content inside would not even matter if your subject line does not stand out. And that way your email would either remain unopened or land in the spam folder after some time.

To have a high email open rate, make sure the subject line is catchy and arousing curiosity to open it, but at the same time, it should not be vague or misleading like a click-bait.

2. Show a bit of Creativity in the Email Content

The job does not end if you have successfully made your prospects open your emails with a tempting subject line. The email content is equally important. Both of them complement each other. If the content is not interesting, the email subjects can lose their importance over time.

Imagine for a second. Impressed by the subject line, your subscribers opened your email expecting the content to be as amazing as the subject but after a while, they find it too boring.

What would happen? First, you will have low click rates. Second, they might even unsubscribe. Third, they would not fall for the subject line in the future.

But if your content is amazing that keeps them engaged, they will be waiting to receive your email updates. This way, you will have a higher open rate as well as higher click rate.

To write awesome content, keep it as crisp as you can. Write in plain and easy to understand English. Keep a flow and add a bit of humour element in it as well. Yes, you should be professional but too much of it can kill the interest. There should be friendliness.

3. Segment your Audience

It is important that your emails are delivered to the right audience instead of any random subscriber. While it can be useful to some, it can be totally irrelevant to others. This does not leave a good impression and can often lead to your subscribers unsubscribing from your emails.

So what should you do? Segmentation is the answer. Segment your email database into relevant categories and target them accordingly. There is no point sending emails to those prospects for whom the email is not relevant.

4. Do not Spam

A normal user receives a heck of emails every day. And no one has this much time to open every single email. Thus, you should restrict yourself from sending emails too often. Continuous messaging can land your messages in the spam folder.

Understand that people have subscribed to you because they feel it is something valuable. If you bombard them with emails, the value declines. And remember quality always matters over quantity.

Limit your email frequency and maintain the quality.

5. Remove Inactive Subscribers

There will be many in your email subscribers’ list who never respond to your emails. They do not even open your emails, let alone paying attention to the inside content.

So, it would be better if you clean them off your list. I am sure you would have tried many attempts to engage them but got no sign. In such cases where your subscribers have not shown any kind of indication in the past six months or a year maximum, removing them would make more sense.

Email Marketing Trends and Strategy 2020

Let’s check out the email marketing strategies and trends that would help you in your email marketing campaigns in 2020.

1. Go Mobile

The count of mobile phone internet users is exceeding rapidly. Majority of the people today are using hand-held devices to browse the Internet, be it for surfing social media or checking their emails.

So if you have not made your emails mobile-friendly, you can face a downfall in mobile traffic. When you are sending emails, make sure that the text, as well as the visuals, fit well both in desktop and mobile. Sometimes, visuals do not look as appealing on mobile as they look on desktop. They take time to load and do not fit properly with the screen. It often leads to users bouncing off within a fraction of seconds.

Optimize your emails for mobile. It has a higher potential to increase your email open rate.

2. Add testimonials in your Email content

It’s a good move to showcase what your customers think about your products or services in your emails. Whatever you are trying to pitch to your potential customers, try adding some testimonials related to it inside the email. Testimonials are influential and can bring positive results.

You have very limited time to impress your prospects. And within that time, you need to hit your point right. By displaying testimonials, you can develop interest inside them and make them keen to check it out.

3. Personalize your Emails

Adding a personal touch to your emails can deliver much better results than without it. You need to make your subscribers feel that it is them whom you are talking to in personal else it sounds like an automated message that has been set same for all.

For example, if I am receiving an email that says Hey or Dear Customer and there is another email that starts with Hey Manish or Dear Manish, the latter would catch my attention immediately. This is what you need to do as well.

And it does not mean that you need to reach out to every prospect individually. You can make use of your customer data and put a first name tag on your emails. Almost every email marketing tool provides email personalization.

Personalized email marketing has been in the trend for quite some time now and it is here to remain in 2020 as well.

4. A/B Testing

A/B testing always helps when you are running an email marketing campaign. It helps you find out which kind of emails users are finding more helpful. You can know which email at what time is having more open and click rates as compared to the other. It provides you with an opportunity to improvise your approach and make changes accordingly.

5. Set your timing right

Ok, let’s say you have subscribers from all around the world. Will sending emails to all at one time make sense? Definitely No! There would be no point of sending an email to a subscriber who is receiving it at 4 am or 11 pm.

This is why I previously mentioned that it is important to segment your subscribers so that emails are delivered to the right audience at the right time.

The Bottom Line

Email Marketing is not going anywhere. It is here to stay not just even in 2020 but for many upcoming years. Just go with the trend, notice the changes in the approach and try to come up with some creative thoughts every now and then instead of following a mainstream approach every time.

What’s your take on email marketing for the year 2020? Do let me know in the comments below.

You might also like:

8 Email Popup Best Practices to Grow Email List and Boost Conversions

6 Effective Ways to Build and Grow your Email List

5 Conventional Mistakes that are Killing your Email Subscriptions

How to drive eCommerce Conversions through email marketing?

7 email marketing software for small businesses

2018 Alert – The Future of Email Marketing

Not only email is one of the most cost-effective ways to reach out to the target audience, it is a promotional means that even the customers prefer. Emails are 40 times more effective when it comes to acquiring new customers as compared to the various social media platform. In the year 2018, it is expected to grow by 3%. In 2018, big data is expected to become even bigger. The e-marketers will collect more data before creating the email campaigns.

As we are at the end of the 3rd quarter of the year, here are some of the takeaways for email marketing:

With a close eye in the statistics mentioned above, here are some of the trends that are expected to be the game-changer in the coming year.

Optimized email for mobile

The mobile-first users have been on a rise for quite some time. This year observed a marginal increase in the mobile users. It is needless to say the mobile devices will soon the over the desktop computers. The responsive design will no longer an additional benefit. Here are few of the tips that you can consider in this regard.

  • It is, in fact, a must have. The consumers will attracted to the contents with compelling images even in the future. Moreover, 1 second delay in the load time leads to 7% drop in conversion.
  • So, the best way to deal with this situation is to reduce the file size without compromising the quality.
  • Increase the size of the links and the call-to-action buttons.
  • Go for the responsive email templates.

Dynamic content

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies are the future of e-marketing. It is surely a factor to find an edge for your email marketing campaign. Adobe is one of the companies that has already geared up for the futuristic technology. It is high-time to get ready for the e-marketers to delve into AI. Along with this, content remains the king year-on-year. Without a dynamic content, you can’t convince your customers to take up your solutions. The use of videos in the email marketing campaign occupies a top spot when it comes to ensuring conversions. Embedding videos and other animations can speak volumes about your brand. The playable links are a neat way to connect the content of the email with the website or your YouTube channel. Thus, subtle promotion can increase your site traffic.

Leveraging the power of social media

While social media has made its impact in every aspect of eCommerce, email marketing is no different.This is one of the latest progression in this aspect. The good marketer should not leave any chances of increasing the social media followers. Integrate the social sharing options in the emails. This gives you another platform to engage your target audience and boost the popularity of your site on the social platform. Listed are some of the things that you can do in this regard:

  • Add social sharing icons in the email, so that, the customers can directly like your pages instead of searching for them Twitter, Facebook and others.
  • Invite them to connect with you by hitting the subscription button.
  • Provide them incentives in return of the Like, Share, Retweet and others.
  • With the introduction of artificial intelligence in e-marketing, a smarter inbox could be closer. In fact, the softwares are already out that analyzes.

Leveling up the interaction with gamification

Gamification of the websites has leveled up the engagement of the eCommerce store owners in terms of customer retention and better engagement. Even the interactive email subscription pop-ups has proved a boon in increasing the subscription of the sites. The interactive design and function will help the e-marketers boost engagement among the customers and increase leads. Here are some of the innovations that you can include in the email marketing campaign.

  • The countdown timers can create an impression of urgency and motivate impulse buying.
  • Invite the customers to participate in poll, quizzes and surveys. Offers them discounts in return. This would give them an impression of hitting a bargain. This can boost the conversions even more.

Watch out for the spam

2018 will see an increase in the spam protection. The e-marketers will have to ensure that the recipients have opted-in to receiving the emails. Otherwise, there will be larger chances of SPAM compliant. The best way to make sure that the emails are going to the inbox of the receiver is to send them to people who have asked to hear from you. Do not tarnish your reputation by sending the mails to people who haven’t asked to hear from you. Sending the emails to the audience who are looking forward to receiving, increase the chances of getting your domain white-listed. Since, Google is constantly changing the algorithm, the e-marketers need to stay abreast to them and manage their campaign accordingly.

Concluding words

Even in the year 2018, email marketing will continue to be at the center of business to consumer communications. Even though it is considered conventional, the promotional emails will continue to contribute to the conversion of the eCommerce sites. Along with the growing popularity, the technologies in this field is increasing as well. The MailChimp automation module and tools like this can help you accomplish your goals with minimal effort. However, just sticking to the marketing tools is not enough. Make the email triggers interactive and add a bit of innovation. Keep testing if the emails are any good for your conversion. Revamp your email strategy as per the changing trends and the results shall continue to pour.

Related Stories:

7 email marketing software for small businesses

Are you a start-up looking for affordable marketing tools?

Do you consider email marketing an effective marketing tool for your business?

You are on a right path. How? Though hundreds of new marketing tools and techniques have been invented till now, email – the oldest online marketing tool is still the king. How again? Read my post on What do you know about the email marketing? and you will know.

We know that email is comparatively cheaper than other marketing options available today. In the same sequence, email marketing software should also be affordable, right? In this article, I have compiled a list of 7 affordable email marketing software that you can use for your marketing campaigns.

1. Constant Contact

Constant Constant is one of the most popular email marketing software providing its services across the globe. The easy to use interface and a 60-day free trial makes it a beginner friendly email marketing service and software.

With Constant Contact, you have the separate control to manage the Email lists and contact list. You can create multiple email lists for different campaigns. Moreover, it’s hard to ignore the simple yet conversion friendly pre-loaded email templates.

As a customer support service, you can avail the live chat support, email support, community forums and a large library of resources.

The constant contact API provides the developers with an option to develop various integration solutions for the different Content Management Systems and eCommerce platforms. We have used the same API in our OpenCart Auto Subscribe extension to capture and sync the email addresses from an OpenCart store to the Constant Contact email list. This plugin helps the OpenCart store owners to build a strong email data right from their own online store.

Constant contact Pricing details: You can avail the free trial period of 60-days without any credit required. Later you can choose to upgrade to the paid plans which start from $20/month.

2. AWeber

AWeber is quite popular in the affordable section of email marketing software. With its 30-day trial offer and flexible pricing, it is one of the most used email marketing services among the small and medium-sized businesses.

With the AWeber subscription, you get the access to an efficient email marketing tool that can manage your email list, provide pre-loaded email templates, track the emails, and set autoresponders.

The customer support is quite responsive and you have various other options to sort out your grievances. Options like live chat support, email support, regular webinars, and tutorials effectively enhance support quality.

AWeber Pricing details: It is available for free 30-days trial after which you can opt from various plans as per your requirement. The starting plan would cost just $19/month.

3. MailChimp

MailChimp in the most popular among the small to medium sized business because of its free lifetime offer and very low-cost starting plan. Another factor responsible for MailChimp’s grown up popularity would be the high affinity for integration to various platforms like PrestaShop, OpenCart, Magento, and Shopify.

The PrestaShop MailChimp integrator module is one such example of a perfect integration to the PrestaShop platform. With this module, a PrestaShop store owner can configure the website forms to automatically capture and send the users’ email addresses to the MailChimp email list. It’s a useful email list builder.

The best features of MailChimp include:

  • Inbuilt email template creator
  • Merge tags
  • Automatic email responder
  • Email list segmenting into different groups
  • Segmenting based on time zones and geolocation
  • Custom delivery time – email scheduling

Moreover, the customer support is also one of the best with live chat, a huge library of resources, email support, and video tutorials etc.

MailChimp Pricing details: There is a free lifetime plan which allows you to send 12,000 emails for up to 2,000 subscribers. The paid subscription starts from only $10/month.

The free lifetime usage makes MailChimp as the best-rated email marketing software in my list here.

4. Mailigen

Mailigen is a Professional email marketing software-as-a-service which also offers mobile and social media marketing in more than 100 countries worldwide.  With internal knowledge base, Mailigen claims itself a perfect tutor of email marketing for local markets and help them grow globally. Furthermore, it offers the Application Programming Interface (API) integration to help developers develop Mailigen integration solutions with different platforms.

We have used the same API in our PrestaShop Mailigen integrator module for email data collection. This is the same module that I have mentioned in the MailChimp section. The same module works for both MailChimp and Mailigen.

Mailigen does not only provide the best email marketing controls but also helps you to test your emails using A/B testing. Here you can select two different email subject lines or whole email designs and test them to see which one gets a better response.

The most interesting feature is the behavior based marketing automation. Here you can set email campaigns that are automatically triggered by particular action or event. For example, Mailigen can be triggered to send a welcome email message to new subscribers when they complete the sign-up process for newsletter subscription powered by Mailigen. You can also set emails to greet customers on special occasions like birthdays, or festivals.

Mailigen Pricing details: The email marketing service offers a free 30-days trial period, after that, you can opt for upgrading to the paid plans starting from $25/month.

5. Go Daddy Express Email Marketing

Go Daddy is a well-known name as a domain name registrar and web-hosting service. Go Daddy went a step ahead and started providing the email marketing services to assist the businesses in reaching out to their customers. The email marketing service is officially termed as Go Daddy Express email marketing.

Go Daddy has an efficient dashboard where you can create coupons, event information, and newsletters to share with your subscribers. The email list segmentation is used to group the subscribers so that more precise targeting can be achieved for a particular email campaign.

The option to add social button in your email campaign encourage the recipients to easily share your messages, coupons and event notifications with others in their social circle. In this way, Go Daddy is also an effective social media marketing tool.

Another unique aspect of Go Daddy Express Email marketing is the inbuilt library of Stock Images. You can use these images in your email campaign without any tension of license and usage rights.

Go Daddy Express Pricing details: The beginner plan starts from $6.99/month and increases to $9.99/month when you are renewing the service.

6. iContact

The international email marketing service provider is very popular among the small, medium and well as the premier businesses. It’s a perfect blend of email marketing software and a social media marketing tool.

With the option for users to create, track and send HTML-based emails and social media messages, iContact is the leading service in the US. The company has almost 70, customers and over 1,000,000 users across the world.

You would find iContact among the few email marketing software who offer Salesforce integration as well as Google Analytics integration. Moreover, it provides the API for developing the iContact integration solutions with different platforms like PrestaShop, OpenCart, and Magento.

Our OpenCart newsletter integrator plugin uses this API to synchronize the collected email list with the iContact account. So that the website owner need not manually add every email address to his iContact email list. It’s all done automatically and quickly, thanks to iContact API for that.

With free 600+ responsive, customizable, and inbox-friendly email templates, you will never feel the scarcity of best email designs. The built-in email editor with drag and drop feature makes the customization and email creation quick and effective. You can also create your own email templates from scratch.

iContact Pricing details: Apart from free 30-days trial, you have the option to select from various premium packs. The lowest plan starts from $10/month.

7. ConvertKit

If you are a professional blogger, author, or a marketer, ConvertKit is a special email marketing software for you. I was impressed by its simplicity of use yet it is a very powerful tool.

With easy content upgrade options and incentives with email signup forms, it also encourages the users to sing up for the subscriptions. You will find all the email list and email marketing controls like contact segmentation, auto-responders, and email scheduling.

It can be a great tutor for email marketing with a huge library of resources and knowledge base. Keep using, keep learning.

ConvertKit Pricing details: The premium plan starts from $29/month with a 30-days refund policy.

Liked This? You’ll Like These Too

What we know about email marketing and what we don’t know

Email has been in the game for a very long time. It is a valuable resource for marketing of the product and services. Though it seems to be a very simple task to use emails as a marketing tool, there is actually lot more than what it looks on the surface. Despite all these, it is the most simple and most accessible marketing tool one can always have by his side.

Here, I am going to break into points discuss why email marketing is still the kind of digital marketing and what we need to know about emails.

1. Email is comparatively cheaper than other marketing tools-

Companies spend billions on print ads and internet advertising. However, when it comes to email marketing only a small proportion of their budget is specified for emails. It doesn’t mean that companies do not take emails seriously, it’s just email marketing is cheap and you do not have to reserve a huge budget for it.

“compared to other media, email messages are dirt cheap to send. With TV you are spending on ad agencies, creative studios, and cable channels. With print ads, you are helping to keep newspapers and magazines alive. Direct mail costs more than $600 per thousand pieces. With email, there are almost no costs at all. But its low cost only makes the argument stronger that email marketing is the most cost-effective advertising method available today”– hbr.org

E-Commerce stores use emails to notify customers on various event, send offers and discounts, send account related data, send newsletters and abandoned cart serial reminders. For sending large volume of emails at a time, merchants implement features to integrate email marketing vendors such as MailChimp and Constant Contact on their stores, while some choose to just use these tool independently.

Leveraging emails for sending abandoned cart reminders to the customers

You don’t have to believe my words for it. Just look at this joint study from shop.org and Forrester Research that says ” 85 percent of US retailers consider email as one of the most effective tools for customer acquisition”.

Email might have become the oldest online marketing tactic, but it still remains a vital one. It’s relatively easy to perform an email marketing campaign rather than spending fortunes on print and internet advertisements. Undoubtedly, email marketing cannot replace the print and internet advertising, but it is always something that is more easy and cheaper.

2. Email is a better tutor of Marketing skills-

If you do not have enough experience, you often rely on trial and errors to learn more. Marketing, for example, is a similar field which teaches you various lessons in every success and failure. With some of the means of marketing, you can never be sure whether the money you invested is paying off.

With modern email marketing, there is no need for trial and errors in most of the cases. You have tools backing your marketing campaign which can be used to forecast the trends and requirements. They can suggest the right time to send emails when there would be better chances for better open rates. You can also measure the click-through rates and see if the emails are doing their jobs.

For example, with tools for Abandoned cart reminders, you can send automatic emails with offers, coupons, and simple reminders to those customers who have abandoned your carts for any random reason. It is a handy way to recover lost sales due to shopping cart abandonment.

Email analytics to discover the performance of the campaign

In email marketing, you can discover exactly which emails have been clicked, by whom, what links were clicked on, and what part of your message was working. Thus, providing a greater insight into your marketing campaign and teaching you lessons in very campaign.

3. Emails are the mainstream and used by everyone-

If you ask anyone in your market if they use email, they will say yes for sure. Social Media marketing is a widely popular environment, but it cannot be said that every potential customer in your domain in on a social media channel.

With everyone not on a social media channel, email becomes the mainstream. Nearly everyone in your domain is believed to have an email account.

Moreover, 91 % of the email users check their emails at least once daily. It makes clear that ROI from emails could be comparatively as greater than social media marketing which is more costly than email marketing.

4. Emails are more direct way for broadcasting to relevant population-

Social media allows multi-way conversations between many to many users. Most of the time a broadcast through social media ends up with a huge population of audiences who are not even directly relevant.

Email, whereas is a more direct conversation that usually connects relevant people and does not involve additional participants. It might be considered as a drawback of email that limits the audiences for your broadcast. However, considering your efficacy to collect relevant email list and data, it cannot be a limitation. If you have effective tools to collect email data for your marketing, you might see that it is better to connect with few those who will be interested in your business, instead of a huge number of audiences who doesn’t even know about your business.

5. Emails are the driver of online and in-store sales-

Email marketing is so popular not just because it is easy and cheap, but because it is effective and drives sales. A study by Nielsen says that:

“28 percent of online shoppers subscribe to store or product emails simply to stay informed. 27 percent of online shoppers subscribe to store or product emails to save money.” 

A similar stat can be seen in a data from Deloitte that say 65 percent of customers find email coupons important in online grocery shopping.

Online stores get a fair chance to attract customers through offers in emails

Email marketing is an effective way of reaching out to the customers and having a chance for bargaining with them. Even the biggest brands believe in email newsletters and reminders to attract customers towards their stores. So, email is everywhere and it cannot be ignored for sure.

Liked This? You’ll Like These Too

How to drive eCommerce Conversions through email marketing?

Emails are omnipresent and their impact has been mammoth in the business world due to their high utility. It is still one of the most reliable medium of formal or business communication at the most competitive price. In the course of extending its scope, email marketing is now actively used in the fields like business promotion, product sales, customer targeting and retargeting, customer retention, finding out new prospects and other such critical tasks.

The field of email marketing needs to be utilized in the best manner for grabbing higher conversion rates and sales among your competitors. Let us explore this email marketing in detail with this interactive infographic shown below:

By understanding the role of email marketing in a business environment, it will not be difficult for any business to grab its share of conversion rates and sales. These promotional and marketing emails have the potential to improve your business fortunes without burning a major hole in the pocket of various businesses. Do follow the tips mentioned in the infographic above and reinvent your email marketing strategy for a quick turnaround.

Liked This? You’ll Like These Too