There are tons of different ways to skyrocket your Etsy sales, but one of the absolute best ways is through email marketing.
Email is a powerful way to build strong relationships with customers so you can encourage them to return for future purchases. But, it also does so much more.
Read the rest of this article to discover some of the top reasons why Etsy sellers should use email marketing as part of their digital marketing strategies.
- 1. Email Has An Impressively High ROI
- 2. Email Facilitates Personalized Messaging
- 3. Email Allows You to Reach a Broader Audience
- 4. Email Lets You Keep Followers Updated
- 5. Email Helps You Send Timely Email Campaigns
- 6. You Can Use Email to Highlight Relevant Blog Articles
- 7. Leverage Email to Encourage Word of Mouth Sharing
- 8. Get to Know Your Customers Through Email
- 9. Use Email to Boost Brand Recognition
- Conclusion
1. Email Has An Impressively High ROI
While Etsy is designed to help sellers get up and running quickly, with tools for setting up an online store and managing your sales, it’s not a good idea to rely only on Etsy search results, social media, and word-of-mouth for making sales in your business.
Those tactics are a good start, but you also need a powerful email marketing strategy that will give you opportunities to cultivate stronger relationships with your current customers and reach new buyers in an affordable way.
Email marketing has a higher ROI than other digital marketing channels, including social media.
According to a recent study from Litmus, for every $1 spent on your email marketing campaign, you get back $36, on average.
This figure varies by industry, with the Retail, eCommerce, and Consumer Goods industry leading the pack with an impressive 45:1 email ROI, as shown in the graph below:
On Etsy, you can create promotional emails or regular email newsletters, as well as transactional emails such as order confirmation messages that can be automated through the platform’s email marketing feature or through the use of third-party integrations.
Either way, email marketing on Etsy will allow you to continue to grow your business and improve your bottom line.
- You’ll be able to improve sales by creating and nurturing relationships with subscribers and using your email messages to help to influence their purchasing decisions while cutting variable expenses associated with other marketing channels.
- You can also create segmented campaigns in order to provide recipients with targeted content, promotions, etc.
- Furthermore, you can send cart abandonment emails to encourage customers to finish their transactions, or even create automated sequences where all this happens automatically.
In short, there are many different ways you can use email marketing tools to improve your sales on Etsy.
2. Email Facilitates Personalized Messaging
Your success in email marketing comes down to a few main factors, one of which is your ability to optimize your email marketing strategy to get improved results.
One way to do that is by providing relevant and personalized content in your emails. In other words, you need to send the right emails to the right people at the right time, and this is where email segmentation and personalization play a huge role.
Remember, email marketing is a one-to-one message that is in stark contrast to most other forms of marketing in today’s climate.
Whether you’re sending informational, promotional, or transactional emails on Etsy, you’ll have the ability to customize your messages to your subscribers and buyers.
You can even include links in your emails to get your subscribers to take some type of action, such as:
- Making a purchase
- Referring others to your list
- Connecting on social media
- Visiting your blog to read your latest article
- Discovering other channels and platforms your brand is using such as podcast directories or online course platforms
- Returning to an abandoned cart
- And many others
The ability to send personalized messages is one of the main reasons why email marketing is so effective. A well-crafted digital newsletter that is highly personalized to your audience’s needs can help you level the playing field even against larger and more established competitors.
The best part is personalization doesn’t have to be hard. It can be as simple as including the contact’s name in your email (which has actually been proven to increase click-through rates compared to emails that don’t contain the recipient’s first name).
Thalita Ferraz, the founder of HerBones.com explains, “One of the biggest game changers for my fashion site was when I started to capture emails to converse with my readers directly. Not only did it help grow a more loyal following, but the emails helped me understand what my readers were looking for by the questions that they asked.”
Alternatively, you might create individualized content for each of your subscribers based on different segmented groups so you can send super-relevant messages to each subscriber.
For example, you can send different emails to returning customers than those who are first-time customers, and so on.
3. Email Allows You to Reach a Broader Audience
Etsy is among the most popular eCommerce platforms out there for craft makers, artists, and anyone else who wants to sell their wares online. The platform is simple to use and takes much of the hard work out of promoting and selling your products.
Whether you have a relatively small following or a large one, Etsy will help you put your product in front of as many eyes as possible.
There are tools that allow you to easily showcase specific products to a large audience, which is why it’s the preferred platform for so many sellers, a lot of whom are individuals that offer very unique products to niche audiences.
However, not every visitor to your store will make a purchase. Email gives you an opportunity to keep the conversation going so you can nurture relationships with your visitors and hopefully transform them into paying customers over time.
By offering a free gift in exchange for their email address, you can start collecting contacts, after which you can then send them emails with your brand’s story, tips, and offers directly to their inbox.
This way, you’ll be able to leverage the platform’s email marketing feature to promote your products to broader audiences. For example, if you offer a weekly newsletter for your eCommerce store, you might include a free gift such as a discount in exchange for recipients forwarding your email to their own contacts.
4. Email Lets You Keep Followers Updated
Once you’ve built a following, it’s time to keep everyone on your list updated. You can do this by sending different types of emails, including:
- Weekly/Monthly Newsletters: Newsletters are among the most effective tools for building strong relationships with your buyers and prospective customers over time. You can send these types of email campaigns at regular intervals (whether daily, weekly, or monthly) with important updates about your products and business.
- Promotional Emails: When you shop online, you receive promotional emails from the retailer. These classic marketing messages can be used to promote special limited-time offers, seasonal sales, exclusive discounts, etc. The content in this type of email doesn’t have to be salesy, but it’s been proven to be effective for driving conversions and boosting customer loyalty.
- Encourage Repeat Customers: As previously mentioned, sending coupon codes or discounts to subscribers is a great way to entice them to return to your store. However, in addition to sending coupon codes by email, Etsy also offers sellers a unique (and easier) system of “Thank you” coupons where you can send customers discounts for all types of sales, big and small.
- New Products or Inventory: You can use emails to announce new product lines. This is an excellent way to maintain engagement and satisfaction with your customers. And, since the recipients of these types of emails aren’t new visitors, they have higher purchase intent which makes it easier for you to generate sales.
5. Email Helps You Send Timely Email Campaigns
Yet another reason for Etsy eCommerce sellers to use email marketing for their brand is that it allows you to send timely campaigns.
Traditional marketing campaigns often take a long time to plan and organize, but with today’s email platforms, you can set up and run an email marketing campaign in just minutes.
There are prebuilt templates to cover virtually any type of email you might want to create, and the best part is that through the use of audience segmentation, you can make it so that each member of your audience sees your email at the right time.
6. You Can Use Email to Highlight Relevant Blog Articles
Email is the perfect tool for telling your brand story and building connections with your audience. It’s a great tool to help you show your subscribers the value of your offering to make it more likely that they’ll engage with your content in the future.
For example, your email message might highlight relevant blog articles or other publications (from your brand’s website or other sites in your industry), social media, or other digital channels.
Keep in mind that people tend to buy from other people are brands that they recognize, feel a connection with, and trust. Email can help you improve all of these factors so you can get higher conversions and generate more sales for your eCommerce business.
7. Leverage Email to Encourage Word of Mouth Sharing
Once you have subscribers on your list, you can send them different types of emails with a link at the bottom of the page directing users to your email subscription page.
Make sure to add a compelling call to action encouraging those subscribers to share your emails with any of their colleagues, friends, or family who might be interested in your products. When those people receive the forwarded messages, it will be easy for them to sign up using the link in the email.
This word-of-mouth marketing tactic can be extremely effective for those in eCommerce – Etsy sellers in particular – because Etsy products are typically more unique and personalized.
This means that when a customer refers someone else to your online shop, it’s likely because that person sees unique value in your product and so they are referring it to someone else who probably would not have had any other way of knowing that the product being offered even existed.
Another reason word-of-mouth is so effective is that it provides a level of social proof.
People tend to trust recommendations from those they know as opposed to information from brand ads or people they don’t know.
8. Get to Know Your Customers Through Email
With every email you send to your subscribers, you get valuable metrics that help you learn more about the things that appeal to your readers.
You’ll be able to gain valuable insight into what you can do to improve your emails and drive more engagement.
Furthermore, email marketing platforms like ActiveCampaign allow you to A/B test your content, calls to action, subject lines, and even send times to ensure that you optimize your email marketing results.
For example, you might find that when it comes to prompting recipients to take a specific action, such as visiting your blog, connecting on social media, pre-ordering one of your products, and so on., one call to action works more effectively than another differently-worded one.
By tracking your recipients’ successful completion of any desired behavior, you’ll be able to quickly gauge how impactful your email marketing campaign is.
You can also use email to send customer satisfaction surveys to collect feedback from your subscribers.
This is a great way to keep a pulse on your customer experience and will make it easy for you to discover ways to encourage users to continue interacting, engaging, and purchasing from your brand.
9. Use Email to Boost Brand Recognition
As any marketer will tell you, brand recognition is a crucial factor for building a successful business that generates tons of sales. Email marketing allows you to strengthen brand recognition with both new and potential customers.
As long as your emails are professionally designed to align with your brand in style, tone, etc., the messages will help reinforce your brand, particularly when you can encourage more of your subscribers to forward or share your messages with their friends, family, and colleagues.
Just remember, brand recognition goes far beyond simple design. It also means you have to consistently provide valuable and relevant content to your subscribers so they will not only recognize but begin to anticipate your emails.
Conclusion
This article has given you 9 reasons why you should use email marketing for your brand as an Etsy seller.
When creating your first marketing campaign, just remember to focus on providing immense value to your readers. The last thing you want is one of your subscribers asking themselves “Why did I receive this email?”
Furthermore, keep in mind that email marketing for Etsy sellers is an ongoing process, so be sure to monitor all your important email metrics and KPIs so you can understand what works and what doesn’t. This way, you’ll be able to optimize your strategy to get maximum results.