Dropshipping is just like any other business and like all businesses, it’s got its specific needs when it comes to marketing and growth. It needs to take advantage of all marketing channels, in order to nurture leads and create something worthwhile.
Email marketing is one of these marketing channels, and a highly effective at that. This is why there are plenty of SaaS platforms dealing with email marketing and marketing automation like Moosend, eCommerce and the dropshipping business as well.
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No business would like to miss out on that ROI.
But crafting an email campaign that will set you apart in a full inbox can be tricky. How are you going to make email marketing work for your dropshipping business?
Well, keep reading!
You are the middle man, the person that brings retailers and customers together. You have no inventory, you just purchase and resell.
This means that you need to be on top of your online game constantly, seeing as you’ve got no brick-and-mortar store or an online store dedicated to your brand and that alone, that people can benefit from.
You need email marketing because it’s a great medium that can help you communicate with customers on a one-on-one basis and boost your lead generation efforts, even more so than Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms can do.
It goes without saying of course, that you’ll need to have a super-strong presence on these platforms as well.
In order to use email marketing properly for your dropshipping business, you need to understand your sales funnel first and craft your email marketing campaign based on that.
For example, when a prospect signs up, they’re almost expecting a welcome email. You’ll need to craft that one first. But this is not the only way one may end up in your email list.
They could’ve abandoned their cart, signed up for a newsletter or a discount code, they could’ve been nominated by a friend or family member, in order for them to get something in exchange, delving into affiliate marketing, you name it.
The point here is that each method of opting in is one email in your sequence.
So, after the welcome email, comes the abandoned cart email. And the post-purchase email. And perhaps the re-activation and engagement email. You’ll see below.
The most important thing in this step is understanding your sales funnel and using proper tools, like Finteza -a great alternative of Google analytics- that allows building sales funnels.
Just promote a discount coupon or code on your Facebook and Instagram posts. This is the hook, through which, many will be convinced.
However, they’ll need to sign up to receive the discounts. And this is where the fun part begins!
First impressions count both in real life and in email marketing and this is why you need a welcome email, to begin with.
Those are the emails that will go out the moment someone agrees to become a part of your mailing list, no matter where they came from and how they ended up signing up.
This message needs to be crafted in a way that will make your brand’s tone more prominent and will help it be heard and be memorable as well.
So, simply begin with a great subject line and a thank you, written in a branded, memorable way. That will catch your audience’s attention.
Providing information is the second thing your welcome email can contain to make sure that your prospect doesn’t lose interest. Make it personalized enough to keep their interest intact and, if you’ve promised it, offer a freebie or a discount code.
If you want to take this to the next level, you can offer a freebie or discount code and some extra incentive to the ones that will refer a friend. This marketing tactic is bound to help your dropshipping business’ growth efforts.
Cart abandonment is a very real and ever-present threat for pretty much any and all online businesses, but only if you don’t take advantage of it.
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Create cart abandonment emails and shoot them out every time a user leaves an item into their cart. This won’t just help your revenue, it will also help you understand the thought process behind their actions.
But yes, it will help your revenue as well, seeing as cart abandonment emails can save the lost revenue and help you make quite some money in return:
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You can either create a series of emails for your abandoners, or you can just send one email that will nudge them in the right direction.
In this (or these) email(s), you can include a discount code or some free shipping for X hours after the prospect opens the email. If this works, you’ll know what they found of benefit and, by extension, what could’ve been the reason behind the abandonment.
By scoring the sale, your quest does not end, seeing as you need to nurture your leads further and further and not keep tracking down new customers all the time. Mainly because new customers are riskier and more expensive for your dropshipping business.
A post-purchase email that will be saying “thank you for your purchase” can prove to be very beneficial to your dropshipping company.
It will make you more memorable amongst your prospects. Not to mention that it will make them think that they’re valued and much needed.
This practice will reduce friction amongst your customers, it will increase their trust and it will help with customer retention and lifetime value increase.
You can begin with a subject line as small and discreet as that one:
You can also include similar products for your prospects to purchase or some kind of upgrade or extension, making your post-purchase email into the perfect upsell and/or cross-sell opportunity.
Leaving your prospects to their own devices isn’t something you want to do, as much as you don’t want to stuff them with emails and wear them out.
There are a number of emails that you can send, without being pushy and ending up making your prospects loving you.
You can, for example, send a happy birthday email on your prospects’ birthdays or you could send them a “Thank you for your trust” email on their first, second, XYZ anniversary as a customer.
You can also include a special discount coupon, while we’re at it.
This discount coupon can prove to be golden for you if your goal is to win back your prospects. You can offer a “Hey, welcome back!” discount. It will definitely boost engagement.
And the discount can be used on your replenishment emails as well, which would make a good addition to your overall dropshipping email scheme.
All in all, email marketing is a perfect way to promote any business and make all businesses grow and thrive.
The only condition for that is for email marketing to be used correctly and for your dropshipping business to make sure not to swarm the customers’ inbox with emails-otherwise, they’ll hit the “unsubscribe” button, and this won’t benefit you at all in the long run.
Oh, and one last hint before I go: Engage with your customers by using gamification to amp the whole experience.
The simplest way to do it is to make things seem like a “treasure hunt”, using a QR code generator and clever copy.
Author Bio:
Téa Liarokapi is a content writer working for email marketing software company Moosend and an obsessive writer in general. In her free time, she tries to find new ways to stuff more books in her bookcase and content ideas-and cats-to play with.
