Email marketing is a valuable tool for DTC brands to connect with their customers and drive sales..
However, to do it effectively requires careful planning and execution. You need to create a strategy, design your emails, and track the results. And, then manage and keep improving your strategy over time.
But doing all of this email marketing management can be daunting for DTC brands for reasons mentioned below.
Challenges of Email Marketing Management for DTC Brands
There are a lot of moving parts to consider when managing an email marketing campaign.
DTC brands face unique challenges when it comes to email marketing. For example, they often have to deal with low email open rates and high unsubscribe rates.
And, then there are the day-to-day tasks of managing an email program, such as writing emails, designing campaigns, and analyzing results. So, if you’re running a small team or don’t have a lot of experience with email marketing, keeping track of all the moving items could get quite overwhelming.
However, with simple-to-follow methods and tips, you can master email marketing management in a few weeks. And we have compiled this guide to help you with the same.
In the guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about email marketing management for DTC brands, including:
- How to create an email marketing strategy for your DTC brand
- How to design effective emails
- How to track and measure results
- Tips for managing and improving your email
- Using the right Email Service Provider (ESP)
- And, more.
Let’s begin…
Email Marketing Management for DTC Brands
These vital email marketing steps can get you started on the road to fine-tuning your email marketing approach as a revenue-generating marketing channel.
Step#1: Create an Email Marketing Strategy for Your DTC Brand
Creating a direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand can be a rewarding experience for ecommerce entrepreneurs. You have the opportunity to build something from the ground up, connect with ecommerce customers on a more personal level and offer them products or services they can’t find anywhere else.
But as any DTC founder knows, building a brand is only half the battle. The other half is marketing that brand—driving awareness, generating leads, and converting customers.
And while there are several marketing channels you can use to achieve these goals, email marketing is often one of the most effective. Email allows you to reach a large audience with targeted, personalized messages that can lead to significant results.
Before you start sending out emails to your list, you need to have a plan. That’s where an email marketing strategy comes in as the first step.
To create an email strategy that works for your DTC brand, you need to:
1. Define Your Goals
The first step to define your email marketing goals. You need to answer questions like—what do you want to achieve with your email marketing campaigns?
Do you want to increase brand awareness, generate leads, or drive sales? Or do you want to retain your old customers?
Once you know what you want to achieve, you can start planning your campaigns around those goals. For example, if your goal is to convert email subscribers to paying customers and existing customers into loyal brand advocates, then you may want to consider hiring Zoronto retention marketing experts.
By knowing your goals, defining them, you tend to take the right steps to achieve that. And that makes your email marketing management easy.
2. Build Your Email List
Once you know what you want to achieve with your email marketing, you need to start building your email list. There are several ways to do this, but one of the most effective ways to grow your email subscribers list is to offer something of value in exchange for an email address.
This could be a discount, an exclusive product, or access to valuable content.
3. Create Compelling Content
Once you have a list of email subscribers, it’s time to start creating compelling content. Your goal should be to create emails that are relevant and interesting to your audience so that they want to read them.
The content can be in the form of blog posts, product announcements or discount offers. Just make sure it’s relevant to your ecommerce brand and the interests of your buyers. More on this in a bit…
4. Segment Your List
While creating a good ecommerce copy is necessary, it is absolutely essential to segment the list. Because not all of your subscribers or potential buyers will be interested in the same thing nor will they have similar buying patterns.
So you need to segregate these email subscribers or buyers based on their purchase habits, demographics, behavior, etc.
5. Send Regular Emails
After list segmentation, you can send them dynamic ecommerce copy specific to their segmented list and get better results from your email marketing campaigns.
How often you send emails will depend on your goals and the list type you created in step four. But a general rule of thumb is to send at least one email per week.
6. Measure Your Results
As with any marketing campaign, it’s critical to measure your results so that you can see what’s working and what isn’t.
There are several metrics you can track, but open rate, click-through rate, and unsubscribe rate are among the most critical metrics to track. By tracking these KPIs, you can adjust your email marketing management strategy as needed to achieve better results.
Step#2: How to design effective emails
After you create your email marketing plan, you need to start crafting emails that will engage your audience and encourage them to make a purchase or take action that you want them to.
To craft emails effectively, you need to keep the following in mine:
Make sure your emails are mobile-friendly.
Around 46% of all emails are now opened on a mobile device, so your emails must look good and are easy to navigate on smaller screens.
Use clear and concise subject lines.
Your subject line is the first thing recipients will see, so make sure it’s attention-grabbing and accurately reflects the content of your email.
Keep your emails short and sweet.
No one wants to read a novel in their inbox, so get to the point and make your point quickly.
Use images and videos.
Images and videos can help get more responses to your emails.
Use CTA buttons.
Include clear and concise call-to-action buttons that encourage recipients to take the desired action, such as making a purchase.
Use the customer’s name.
Add the recipient’s name to your email so it feels more personal.
Monitor your results.
Keep an eye on your open and click-through rates to see how well your emails are performing. If you’re not happy with the results, make changes and test again.
The above email marketing tips can be applicable to almost any type of email marketing campaign including the below:
5 Must-Have Email Campaigns for Your Ecommerce Store
There are several must-have email marketing campaigns you need to run for your eCommerce store. Here’s a list of six of the most crucial ones.
1. Welcome Email
When a new customer opts into your email list, send them a welcome email. This sets the tone for your future interactions and helps make a good first impression. Include a special offer or discount to thank them for signing up.
In short, create a dedicated email campaign to provide your customers with a good onboarding experience.
2. Cart Abandonment
If someone adds items to their shopping cart but doesn’t complete the purchase, send them a cart abandonment email or emails reminding them of what they left behind. Include a link back to their shopping cart so they can easily pick up where they left off.
3. Product Announcement
Create an email series where you send an email announcement to your list as soon as you launch a new product. You can also include beautiful photos, enticing copy, and a call-to-action to buy the product.
4. Customer Feedback
Sending a customer feedback email shows that you value your customers’ opinions and want to use their feedback to improve your business.
You can set up a dedicated email campaign and ask for honest feedback about your products or services. You can also let them know how you plan to use their input.
5. A Sales & Promotions
You can also create a campaign for sales and promotions and to boost traffic and conversions during slow periods or special occasions. Offer discounts, coupons, or free shipping to encourage customers to take advantage of the sale.
6. Checkout Abandonment
Similar to cart abandonment, send an email series to customers who have started the checkout process but didn’t complete it. This could be due to a lack of payment information or any other number of reasons. Try to determine the reason why they didn’t finish and see if you can address the issue through an email series.
7. Post-Purchase Customer Thank You
After a customer makes a purchase, send them post-purchase customer thank you emails. You can thank them for their business and let them know about any forthcoming purchases that make them feel appreciated for their trust in your brand.
8. Win Back Series
If you notice a customer hasn’t made a purchase in a while, send them a win-back series email campaign. It typically consists of three to four emails that are sent over the course of two or three weeks.
9. Sunset Flow
Sunset flow is basically designed to remove inactive users from your list so you can focus on your active users. Inactive users are people who haven’t interacted with your brand in a certain amount of time, usually 180 days or more. You can set up an automated email flow that will be sent to inactive users, notifying them that they will be removed from your list if they don’t take any action. In short, this series allows you to clean the list phase-wise.
Step#3: How to track and measure results
After you’ve sent your email, it’s essential to track and measure the results so you can see what’s working and what isn’t. There are several metrics you can track as an ecommerce marketer, but open rate, click-through rate, and unsubscribe rate are among the most crucial.
By tracking these metrics, you can adjust your email marketing strategy as needed to achieve better results.
Click-through rate: CTR is the percentage of people who click on a link in your email. 2-5% of CTR is usually considered to be good.
Unsubscribe rate: Unsubscribe Rate is the percentage of people who unsubscribe from your email list. Generally, anything below 0.2% is considered to be a great unsubscription list.
Bounce Rate: Bounce rate is the percentage of emails that are sent to a recipient’s mailbox but are not successfully delivered. The bounce rate benchmarks that you need to be aware are:
- 1.5% or more → Critical
- 0.8-1.5% → Room for improvement
- 0.4%-0.8% → Proficient
- Less than 0.4% → Great
Spam Rate: Spam rate is the percentage of emails that are reported as spam by recipients. The goal is to have as low a spam rate as possible.
By tracking these three performance indicators, you can gauge how well your email marketing strategy is working and make necessary adjustments.
Step#4: Use the Right Email Service Provider
If you want to do successful email marketing management for your DTC brand, you need to use the right email service provider (ESP).
An ESP will provide you with the tools and resources you need to manage your list, segment it, create and send emails, track your results, and get the most out of your campaigns.
There are many different ESPs to choose from, so you need to do your research. Then choose the one that’s right for you and your business. Some things to consider when choosing an ESP to include:
- Pricing: Make sure you can afford the ESP’s pricing plans.
- Features: Make sure the ESP has the features you need, such as automation, A/B testing, and list management.
- Deliverability: Make sure the ESP has a good deliverability rate so your emails end up in recipients’ inboxes.
- Customer support: Make sure the ESP has good customer support in case you need help using the platform or run into any problems.
At Zoronto, we suggest using Klaviyo as your ESP for end-to-end email marketing management. We have found that their platform is easy to use,and they also offer all the features you need to run a successful email marketing campaign.
Plus, they have great customer support in case you need any help.
6 Tips to Manage Your Email Marketing Campaigns with Klaviyo
You can perform effective email marketing management with Klaviyo with these six tips:
1. Create email marketing flows
Once you have your list of subscribers, you can start creating email flows on Klaviyo. A flow is essentially a series of emails that are automatically sent to subscribers based on their interactions with your website or product. You can create different types of flows for your target audience.
2. Set up triggered emails
Triggered emails are emails that are automatically sent to subscribers. For example, you can set up an email that is automatically sent to someone who abandons their shopping cart.
3. Segment your lists and flows
It’s important to segment your lists and flows so you can send more targeted emails. For instance, you can segment your list by gender, location, or purchase history.
4. Create custom email templates
The Klaviyo Editor allows you to create custom email templates that can be used in your flows. You can also use the Editor to create dynamic content that will automatically update based on subscriber interactions.
5. Create landing pages for your flows
Landing pages are pages that are specifically designed to drive conversions. You can create landing pages for your flows and include them in your email marketing campaigns.
6. Leverage data science and analytics
Klaviyo’s data science and analytics tools allow you to track the results of your email marketing campaigns and make data-driven decisions about your flows, templates, and content.
By following these tips, you can get the most out of your email marketing management with Klaviyo. You can even go through the Klaviyo Academy to learn how to use its services more effectively.
In conclusion, email marketing management for DTC brands is all about using the right tools and resources to automate your email marketing and grow your business. And with the above strategies, you’ll be well on your way to email marketing success.