It can be pretty complex when determining which marketing avenues are the very best for your eCommerce business. There are many distinct ways to take action and let us be fair, there are pros and cons to all.
In this guide, we will examine two advertising strategies that have a very positive effect on eCommerce retailers. Email marketing might already be familiar to you and you are using it, but we will also research the lesser-used tactic of SMS marketing.
We will first research what they are, provide you the benefits and drawbacks of the two, and investigate whether these two marketing pillars can work in tandem. For good measure, we'll also highlight some good examples so you can replicate them for your eCommerce business.
➦ What is Email Marketing?
Email marketing permits you to send digital communication to your current and prospective customers.
It's an essential tool for your business and it might help you produce email marketing campaigns to promote your brand, introduce a new product range, highlight a purchase, or just help build a relationship between your enterprise and the customer.
To Perform Email Marketing Well You Have To Consider These Components:
- Design
- Content
- Reporting
- A/B Testing
If you're just starting then the design of your email could be especially tricky to crack, especially if you don't have some design experience.
That's where the ideal email software can be convenient. At eCommerce Services Platforms.
➦ What is SMS Marketing?
SMS promotion is the process of sending text messages to your client base.
Firms need to take approval from their client to permit them to send text messages. This option is available when your current or prospective client signs up for an account.
There are many SMS services available, but we would advise finding a service that already incorporates your promotion system.
Unlike email marketing, there is not a lot of design work that needs to be considered, however, we would suggest having a great URL link shortener tool.
➦ Advantages of Email Marketing
1. Engagement
Average open prices and click-through rates tend to be very good with email advertising because it is permission-based.
2. Price
It is such a cheap communication channel, which can also scale determined by how successful your company becomes.
3. Directness
Unlike traditional offline marketing, emails permit you to direct customers straight into the action. Whether that's a flash sale or a blog post, you can drive users directly to your site.
4. Brand Awareness / Design
Email is very adaptable and permits you to send plain text, add images, or attach documents. A lot of email advertising software lets you easily mold your mails so it matches your website, which can be vital in increasing brand awareness.
5. Testing
If it comes to A/B testing many people believe that it's only your subject line that may be tested. Seeing what is successful in your emails can help influence your website copy afterward.
6. Reporting
All good email providers allow integration using Google Analytics. This allows you to observe how many users clicked your email and most importantly what pages they interacted with or didn't interact with. This can inform your prospective digital marketing and advertising campaigns.
➦ Disadvantages of Email Marketing
1. Spam
If there are too many commercial emails then this can dilute your message and a sale doesn't seem that significant then. This can result in you losing readers.
2. Deliverability
There are a variety of reasons why your email may not get sent. If mails are bad in style, contain words that seem spammy or there's an overuse of punctuation then that may not become beyond many email inbox spam blockers.
3. Click-through rate (CTR)
Whilst generally CTR is good on email, it will drop when you contemplate marketing emails. Again, if you are sending emails with offers also often then they run the chance of being ignored. A less is more approach is best here.
4. Devices
Not everyone will be watching your email on the same cell phone, device, or computer. Thus you have to test how your email looks and make sure you cover all bases. Images not downloading or text that is indecipherable are just a few common issues.
➦ Advantages of SMS Marketing
1. Access
Mobile or cell phones are incredibly private so the average person carries them about everywhere they go. Unlike email, the user is not needed to have an active internet connection.
2. Time-Sensitive
SMS advertising campaigns are extremely effective if you have time-sensitive offers.
3. Deliverability
As text messaging is primarily plain text, you don't have the problem of the text being blocked by the user's phone. People also tend to stick with their phone number that ensures that there is someone on the other end to receive it.
4. Engagement
Further to this is that thanks to its plain text character, it is much easier for individuals to engage and react to your CTA.
5. Targeting
If you have a fantastic client relationship management (CRM) tool then you can tailor your message based on your customer's actions or buying habits.
➦ Disadvantages of SMS Marketing
1. Content Limit
The obvious limitation with SMS marketing is the character count.
2. Price
Pricing plans will also be predicated on delivery quantity, the degree of service you need, and whether your business is international. It may also cost extra to have your business name such as in the text. If you want to observe gifs, or interactive websites using a multimedia messaging service (MMS) then that will cost extra again.
3. Spam
It's unlikely text messaging may be seen as spam as email, but it's always been growing over time.
That is why it's vital your business name is used from the text and that you have the requisite permissions to get hold of the receiver.
4. Contact List
Individuals are far more unlikely to provide you their phone number, compared to their email addresses. That means it's very significant that when somebody registers an account with you that you do not create the cellular data area required.
➦ Great Examples of Email Marketing
We've told you the apparent benefits of using email but that marketers are crushing it as it comes to this advertising strategy?
▹ Quiksilver
It is a great use of a gif inside an email that portrays the selection options involved with the shorts. The vague announcement of "iconic for a reason" is almost clickbait but in an elegant manner. It entices the consumer to find more.
As good as this email is, the landing page must match. Quicksilver's boardshorts page mirrors the material employed in the email, but also offers some other media that may have slowed down to the email, such as video.
▹ Tesco
Tesco uses email so well. Particularly in their usage of subject lines.
People like to believe they are part of a private neighborhood and they are getting something back for becoming a client. Tesco does so by using the word "particular". Using synonyms of this for example exclusive,' private', 'personal' or person is good in increasing CTR.
▹ MyProtein
Being external and relevant is vital in your email communications. MyProtein can be used in a great manner, coinciding with all the gyms opening back up with a bargain.
Additionally, it utilized an emoji to signify the "flash sale". There is debate about whether emojis are good for your brand, but a study by Search Engine Journal showed that they did enhance click-through rate and therefore are best positioned at the end of the subject line.
➦ Good Examples of SMS Marketing
What exactly about SMS and how do you use this high-speed marketing strategy? The secret with SMS is to get right to the stage and to utilize your character count wisely.
Here Are 3 Great Examples and for Good Measure, one bad one.
▹ Size
Ecommerce giant Size? Is very big into their SMS and it's a marketing channel they value.
They have also inserted a couple of key brands to entice the consumer, you might also use your CRM platform to personalize this based on the consumer.
Another important part is that there's a simple way to determine, or if we say OPT-OUT. The capitalization makes it visible to the customer and it reveals Size? Care about their customer's preferences.
▹ Hello Fresh
Not all text messaging has to be utilized to market a sale. Hello, Fresh does a great job here of delivering a notification on the shipping of an item, by nearly encouraging their prize draw.
That manner Hello New benefit from obtaining a customs inspection and their customer feels they're being rewarded for doing so.
▹ Muscle Food
As marketers, you'll be aware of your competition. Sometimes it's not advisable to mention these.
Are you more economical? Can you offer a quicker delivery? Can you provide free returns? Put your unique selling point in the SMS.
What Muscle Food has also done here, unlike the others, is used as a shortened URL. This is great for increasing CTR as it's branded and it also reduces the character count of the SMS.
It's more obvious to get someone's email address instead of their cellular number. Thus you can use the power of email marketing to get your client's mobile amounts.
➦ Conclusion
In regards to your marketing campaigns, it isn't a case of email advertising vs SMS advertising.
Both of these approaches can help your business and they both have quite distinctive advantages and pitfalls. The single comparison between these is that CTR is good.
Email marketing is significantly more cost-effective and customizable, whereas SMS benefits from better open rates and improved deliverability.