Everything You Need to Create your Ecommerce Email Marketing Campaign

So far in the series, we’ve tapped into the essence of how to write powerful emails and headers that catch the eye of your potential customers.

Now, it’s time to get our hands dirty and start filling our toolbox with the best gear so that we can hit the ground running with our e-commerce email marketing campaign.

Could you imagine a carpenter going to work without a hammer? How about a baseball player without a bat or glove? Or a gardener without a shovel or spade?

You get the point.

When you want to excel in your chosen career, you don’t want subpar equipment backing your brand up – you want the best.

And that’s what we’re here to give you.

To us, it's exciting because email is one of the most effective forms of marketing online.

So no more waiting - here are the tools you need to fill your toolbox with.

Tool #1: Test email accounts

Even though we've already discussed how to compose a thoughtful and engaging email, here are a few more tipsthat will help you have an even richer and more productive toolbox.

The goal is to prevent the email from going into the spam or promotions folders.

To start, open up a couple of test email accounts from a few separate providers. Free email accounts from places like Gmail will work perfectly because that’s probably what your customers will be using.

And make sure you change the settings on the different accounts. Some should have images disabled on the settings while others should allow them.

Then, as you create emails and place images, HTML, text, and all that other jazz inside them, send that email to your test email accounts.

You want to make sure that you add enough text that you don't go straight to a promotions folder like many emails that only have images.

If it’s all text, there’s a good chance you’re headed straight to junk or spam.

Find the balance between the text and images until your email ends up in the main feed of the test accounts. Also, pay close attention to the layout on different sized screens to ensure the email is responsive.

Tool #2: Email marketing software

When it comes to email marketing software, utilize one that is specifically designed for e-commerce. Traditional software that many businesses use for email purposes isn't built to handle the complex nature of an online store, so it probably won't be the best ecommerce cms.

Sure it can handle a newsletter from a blogger or brand giving service updates, but when you want to sell – and we mean really sell – then you need one that can perform the following:

• Send cart reminders

• Send order confirmations

• Promote list growth

• Send abandoned cart recapture emails

• Provide customer segmentations and web tracking

• Add attractive elements to your email

• Provides analytics and ROI reporting systems

And there are a few more features that you’ll want over time, but these are essential. Many of the top brands like Shopify unite with companies like Klaviyo because of their advanced abilities and multitude of features.

You can start with a free trial, but ultimately you'll want to pay. While you can find a bunch of email marketing tools that are free, you will be limited. It's a great way to test out the different software, but if you have (or plan) on having a large customer base, you need to add this expense into your budget.

Emails like this one from Crate&Barrel grow your ROI, and email marketing software will make that happen.

Tool #3: Pop-up software

For a while, pop-ups were the thing, and then everyone got them, and they were (extremely) annoying. So a lot of brands decided to drop them.

And then something happened. The software improved so they could still be used in an efficient manner that didn't completely turn customers away. So if you don't have pop-ups, now is a very good time to invest in them because they help capture emails from customers who have never bought from you before.

There are a variety of pop-up choices out there from the sidebar to a slider to traditional, and you can run some tests to find the one that's most effective for you.

Many of the big brands utilize an exit-intent pop-up because they don’t distract the customer until they are leaving the site, and then they bring them back in with a deal.

Here’s what Pottery Barn’s pop up is like. While it comes a bit early in the shopping experience, it grabs your attention and the incentive is immediate and intriguing.

There is plenty of pop-up software out there such as Picreel (who also offers surveys and AB testing for customers), and they are designed to work with e-commerce. Plus, they are priced pretty fairly.

As you begin the process of filling your toolbox, be sure you’ve done your competitive research and make a list of the features that are most important to you.

You don't want to stunt your growth because you have software that limits you, and you have to change it in the middle of a high volume season.

And have fun with these tools! The better you get at using them, the more they’ll work in your favor (and the less effort you’ll have to put in).