Email marketing continues to be one of the top-performing digital marketing tactics today – particularly for eCommerce businesses. With email marketing, you have a guaranteed connection to your audience in their inbox. Not to mention, email has consistently produced the best ROI.
As a WooCommerce store owner, email marketing is more than just a communications tool โ it is a growth engine. Email marketing can help support cart recovery, customer retention, upselling and content promotion with the utmost control, personalization and scalability.
In this guide, we’re going to show you how to use email marketing with WooCommerce, the best tools to use in the entire process, and the tactics to use that will provide a results-driven return.
Why You Should Care About Email Marketing for WooCommerce
Email marketing is a little different than social media algorithms and expensive PPC ads. Email marketing allows for absolute ownership of your list, and it’s a direct line to your audience. This makes it a prime channel for generating long-term relationships with customers, and broad scaling.
Benefits of Email Marketing for WooCommerce:
- Return on Investment: Email marketing typically provides an ROI of $36 to $40 for every $1 spent, which outperforms most other channels.
- Cart Recovery: Abandoned cart emails have low barriers to recovery โ they enable you to easily recover lost sales.
- Customer Loyalty: Re-engaging customers and encouraging repeat purchases depends on email.
- Personalization: Personalizing email content based on customer actions and past purchase history.
- Scalability: You can automate your campaigns and segment larger campaigns as your store grows (and the list grows).
- Ownership: Unlike previous examples of social platforms, you own your email lists โ you are not reliant upon third party decisions or algorithm changes.
Best Email Marketing Tools for WooCommerce
Choosing the right tool makes all the difference how successful your email marketing will be. Thankfully, WooCommerce connects and synced to a number of robust platforms that help you grow.
1. Mailchimp
Known to work with businesses of all sizes, MailChimp integrates seamlessly with WooCommerce and includes most powerful tools out of the box to help you grow your store – pre-built automation, A/B testing, segmentation, and real-time analytics. It’sโ easy to use, and it has a free plan and premium plans.
2. Klaviyo
Klaviyo is specifically built for eCommerce. It is the best at behavior-based automation, predictive analytics, and giving companies deep insight into their customers. Their highly personalized marketing approach allows for hyper-targeted content to be delivered to shoppers and integrates with WooCommerce using a specific to WooCommerce plugin.
3. Sendinblue
Sendinblue is an affordable solution that combines email marketing, SMS, and automation all-in-one. It is a great value for small to mid-sized WooCommerce stores that want flexibility without the big price tag.
4. MailPoet
If you prefer to send all of your email marketing from your WordPress dashboard, look no further than MailPoet. MailPoet provides a way to create your emails, manage your lists, and send campaigns without ever leaving WooCommerce.
5. AutomateWoo
AutomateWoo is a WooCommerce-specific plugin that allows you to create multiple complex marketing workflows to suite your stores sales cycles including abandoned carts, win-back campaigns, product reviews requests, etc. All without needing to have any other application.
Must-Use Email Marketing Strategies for WooCommerce
Starting with the right platform is only part of the equation. Success is determined by how you strategically and consistently use email marketing.
1. Abandoned Cart Recovery
More than 70% of shopping carts online are abandoned. If you can get even a small percentage of those carts to convert, it can have a sizeable impact to your revenues. Utilize automated workflows to send follow-up emails to remind customers to purchase items they left in their abandoned cart. Do this preferably within the first hour and again after 24 hours with complementary products or social proof.
2. Welcome Email Series
First impressions are everything and we want potential customers to have a good one. The first email or welcome sequence should include a message from the brand, a first purchase discount, and trust building content with emphasis on value. This is often the email sequence that can yield your highest open rates, donโt waste an opportunity.
3. Following up after a purchase
Donโt lose the opportunity to continue keep the momentum going after the sale. Thank the customer for their purchase and follow up with their order confirmation. Immediately suggest complementary products or provide them with discount code for their next purchase. This strategy will further increase their lifetime value and you can develop an ongoing relationship with customers that become brand advocates.
4. Customized Product Suggestions
Benefits from browsing and buying history will help you recommend products that are likely to be bought. Personalized emails outperform standard campaigns on average in terms of opens and conversions.
5. Re-Engagement Campaigns
Not everyone will remain active during your campaigns. Re-engagement emails provide the opportunity to re-engage inactive subscribers and offer to bring them back with special offers, a survey, or new updates! If they choose to remain inactive, consider passing on the engagement opportunity to maintain a healthy list and improve future deliverability.
6. Promotional & Seasonal Campaigns
Take advantage of holidays, new product launches, and clearance events, running campaigns around those events! Segment audience lists based on interests or previous purchases to ensure maximum conversion opportunities.
WooCommerce Email Marketing Best Practices
Your email strategy is more than just sending emails – there are best practices to ensure your email campaigns are producing results:
- Segment Your List: Don’t send the same email to all your customers. Segment your audience by purchase history, location, product interest, and level of engagement.
- Make It Mobile-Friendly: Most emails are opened on mobile devices. Make sure your design looks good on mobile and loads quickly.
- Utilize A/B Testing: Experiment with subject lines, format of content, send time and calls-to-action so that you can improve engagement.
- Track Key Performance Indicators: Keep your eye on open rates, click-through rates, unsubscribe rates and revenue per email.
- Be Compliant: Always include unsubscribe links and be aware of privacy regulations like GDPR and CAN-SPAM.
Conclusion
Email marketing isn’t just an add-on โ it’s an essential component of the success of your WooCommerce store. When done right, it can help you retain customers, increase sales, and establish a community of loyal followers around your brand.
Whether you’re just getting started or looking to scale in the future, the right tools and tactics can help you take advantage of every email you send.
Need help setting up email marketing for your WooCommerce store?
At Empirical Edge, we specialize in building high-performance WooCommerce stores โ which includes building custom, data-driven email marketing systems that align with your goals. Whether you want to create automation campaigns, enhance existing flows, or integrate tools like Klaviyo or Mailchimp, we can help.
We offer:
- Complete email marketing setup
- WooCommerce tool integrations
- Custom automations and segmentation
- Ongoing optimization and analytics
Let’s chat. You have a great opportunity to leverage email for your WooCommerce store.