If you aren’t using email marketing to promote your Shopify store, you should start as soon as you can. Why? Because email marketing is still one of the most effective forms of marketing that you can use. While some may claim that sending emails is an old-fashioned form of marketing, the facts beg to differ.
Every single day, 4 billion email users check their inboxes. That’s a vast potential audience that you can’t afford to pass up.
While you won’t reach all 4 billion, email is still the most effective mass communication tool available today. It’s also one of the most profitable, with an ROI of $36 for every $1 spent.
But what if you don’t know how to do email marketing on Shopify? If so, then you’re in the right place. Read on to learn how you can start using Shopify Email to promote your business.
Setting Up Shopify Email
Shopify has a built-in program that you can use to automate your emails. It’s called Shopify Email, and it’s straightforward to use. There are some requirements that you’ll have to meet before you can set up an account. They are:
- You must have a current online store with Shopify.
- You need to have the Online Store sales channel installed and enabled.
- Your store must have a paid subscription plan to Shopify as well as a payment provider.
As long as your store can meet these requirements, you’ll be able to install and use Shopify Mail. It’s important to note that if you’re using Shopify’s free trial, you’ll only be able to send a test email. These are sample messages that you send to yourself to try out Shopify Mail’s features. You’ll need a paid subscription plan to be able to send emails to your customers.
Installing Shopify Email
Here are the steps you need to take to install Shopify Email to your dashboard:
- Go to the Shopify Email app page in the Shopify App Store.
- Select Add App. If you aren’t logged in currently, then you’ll have to do so during this step.
- Click on Install App and wait until the installation procedure completes.
That’s all there is to installing the Shopify Email app. Once you have the app, you can find it under the Marketing Section of your Shopify admin page. To use it, click Create Campaign > Shopify Email.
As a merchant with a paid subscription to Shopify, you’re allotted 2,500 free emails a month. Emails get counted by the number of individual emails you send to customers. If you exceed 2,500, you can buy additional emails for $0.001 each. Unused emails will not roll over.
Creating an Email Marketing Campaign
You can now send personalized emails to your clients through Shopify. You can build custom emails from scratch, or you can work based on templates. You’ll have complete control over which group of customers will receive your emails.
You can schedule emails to send ahead of time as well. That way, you can knock out all your emails in one sitting and then not have to worry about them.
Here’s how to set up an email marketing campaign in Shopify Email:
- Go to the Marketing Section from your Shopify admin.
- Select Create Campaign.
- Click on Shopify Email.
- Select an email template if you’re going to use one.
- Under the To field, you can select as many groups of customers as you want.
- Enter a unique subject for your email.
- If you want, you can enter preview text that appears after the subject for the reader. That can help to personalize your message and increase the chances of users clicking on it.
Once you set up all the details, you can customize the body of your emails to your heart’s content. You can also decide if you want to send the emails out immediately or schedule them for a future date.
Essential Email Marketing Tips
Okay, so by now, you should know how to do email marketing on Shopify. The email app is easy to set up and effortless to use. Yet, learning how to create an email campaign is only one piece of the puzzle. If you want your emails to increase your sales, you’ll need to know some best practices. That’s why we’re here to provide our top suggestions for email marketing strategies.
Build a Robust Email List
The first step is to gather as many email addresses as you can. After all, you can’t market through email if you don’t have any customer addresses. As a business owner, you need to make it a habit to collect customer email addresses. Doing so is absolutely vital if you want to find success with email marketing. Lots of business owners will tell you how much they regret not taking this crucial step.
You can start looking for email subscribers even before launching your business. If you haven’t begun gathering emails yet, it’s time to start as soon as possible.
Bear in mind; you’ll need to get your user’s permission to email them constantly. If you spam their inbox without asking them first, you’ll likely get flagged as spam. That’s as good as not sending any emails at all, so you want to avoid that at all costs.
Instead, you want your customers to ‘opt-in’ to receiving emails from you regularly. The good news is that there are many ways that you can get your customers to opt-in to your email campaigns.
Use Customer Accounts on Shopify
A great way to gather emails is to offer customer accounts through Shopify. You can do so after a user makes their first purchase. A friendly landing page informing users of the benefits they receive from signing up is all you need. From there, they’ll enter their email to sign up for a customer account.
From there, you have the green light to send them exclusive emails, offers, and promotions. Since they willingly signed up for a customer account, they won’t mind seeing your emails.
Another option is to require all users to sign up for an account to make purchases. While some users may not like it, you’ll be able to collect the email address of every customer. It’s crucial to weigh the risks involved by implementing this technique. If you sell everyday, low-cost items, it’s not a good idea. If you sell more expensive products that are luxuries, you’re more likely to get away with it.
Use Opt-In Forms in Strategic Locations
You won’t get anyone to sign up for your email list if you don’t ask. That’s why you need to ask your customers directly to sign up. The best way to do so is to place opt-in forms where they’re most likely to see them.
There’s no point in placing an opt-in form that’s buried under pages of sales copy and company info. Instead, it would be best if you targeted the areas of your Shopify store that customers view the most. These include:
- Your store’s header, navigation bar, or footer. It goes without saying that the top of the page is what customers will see first. As a result, it’s the perfect location for an email subscription sign-up form. The same goes for your navbar, which is an area every customer will see. Finally, place another opt-in form on your footer. Why? Because users frequently scroll to the bottom of the page to look for more information.
- Blogs and resource pages. If you’re posting blogs on your Shopify store, you need to compliment them with email opt-in forms. They will help lead users further down your sales funnel. While blogs should always be informative first, you’re wasting an opportunity if you don’t include opt-in forms.
- About Us pages. A solid About Us page will sum up what your brand is all about. It’s also the perfect place for an opt-in form. If your copy is strong, your customers will feel inspired to subscribe. Customers are far more likely to subscribe if they relate to your brand. Make sure the About Us page includes what makes your brand unique, appealing, and worth customers’ time.
- Exit pop-up forms. It would be best if you were wary when using pop-ups on your Shopify store. It’s crucial not to interrupt your customers’ experience. For this reason, we recommend only using exit pop-up forms only. These trigger whenever users click the back button or leave the page. These pop-up forms will give you one last chance to collect their email addresses. Make sure that your pop-up email has a friendly tone and contains an enticing offer. When done right, a pop-up form can add lots of emails to your list.
Make Use of Lead Magnets
Let’s face it; company newsletters are boring. To the average consumer, they offer nothing of real value. If you want to build a robust emailing list, you’ll have to do better than a dull newsletter. Instead, try using a lead magnet to entice customers. What’s that?
- In email marketing, a lead magnet is an incentive you use to gain a customer’s email address.
There are lots of ways to use lead magnets for email marketing, including:
- Discounts and exclusive offers. If you’re going to offer a discount, make sure that it won’t affect your profit margin. It will take diligent research to find the sweet spot for discounts. Yet, they can be well worth it for the extra subscribers you will pick up. An exclusive offer is another great incentive. These offers could be something simple such as a free instructional ebook.
- Contests and sweepstakes. Giveaways can bring in a lot of sign-ups. Granted, a lot of them may simply be people looking for freebies. Bearing that in mind, they’re still a tried and true way to add to your email list. An exciting contest can garner a lot of interest in your brand.
- Educational content. What do your customers love to learn about the most? For example, let’s say that your Shopify store sells camera equipment. A fantastic idea for accessible educational content would be an educational photography ebook. Your customers will appreciate the free education, and you’ll gain new subscribers. It’s a win-win situation for everybody.
The Different Types of Email Marketing Campaigns
Since email marketing has been around for a while, several techniques have evolved. In particular, there are three significant categories of email campaigns that work the best. They are:
- Transactional. A transaction email occurs after a customer makes a purchase. It’s functional and serves to inform the customer of critical details about their sale. These include order confirmations and receipts.
- Promotional. A promotional email aims to raise awareness for a specific promotion, deal, or product. For example, a Cyber Monday discount would be a promotional email.
- Lifecycle. These are emails that have specific triggers in place. An example is sending a customer a check-up email if they have been inactive for a certain period.
Privy on Shopify
If you’re a Shopify merchant that wants to take full advantage of email marketing, you need Privy. It’s an email marketing app that you can find in the Shopify App Store. So far, more than 18,000 merchants have praised its features with 5-star ratings. It’s an incredible tool that makes creating and maintaining email campaigns a breeze.
Its essential features for Shopify users include:
- Cart abandonment email campaigns
- Automated customer win-back emails
- Tons of email list building tools
- Website pop-ups that are easy to customize
- Text message marketing for growing e-commerce stores
- Cross-sell pop-ups
- Tons of professionally designed templates to use
- Integrates seamlessly with your Shopify store
- Free Shipping bar to encourage customers to spend more
These are only a few of the helpful features Privy will bring to your Shopify store. There’s also a free plan that anyone can use. For up to 100 contacts, you get unlimited pop-ups and flyouts. You also get add-to-cart and free shipping bar displays. So at no cost to you, Privy allows you to harness the full power of email marketing. To start creating your email campaign visit Privy at this link.
How to Do Email Marketing on Shopify (quick video )
Closing Thoughts
There you have our guide on how to do email marketing on Shopify. We hope that you can use this information to start incorporating email marketing into your repertoire. It’s a fantastic way to add to your sales without having to spend much money at all. With the help of Privy, you can launch extensive email marketing campaigns with little to no effort.
For more great content to help you develop your Shopify strategies, check out the rest of the merchant posts on the site. If you want to see a list of our top recommended Shopify apps visit this link here.
