Email marketing is a useful strategy that can effectively help jewelry stores attract more customers and increase their brand awareness. Unfortunately, most jewelers do not go about email marketing the proper way. Which leads to low email open rates and conversions. Your emails could even end up in the user’s trash or spam folders.
If your email statistics look like this…
Then the problem is likely a lack of relevance and value for the user. Confused? Let’s take a closer look at what works (and what doesn’t) when it comes to email marketing.
What You Might be Doing Wrong
Most think of email marketing as an outdated strategy that rarely works today. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, according to WordStream, 80% of retail professionals attribute most of their customer retention to email marketing.
The beauty of marketing through email is the amount of KPI’s (or key performance indicators). These can be set up to not only track how many users are opening and reading your emails, but how many phone calls or even sales you’re receiving directly from said email. So, if you’re failing with email marketing, what could be the problem?
For one, most jewelers take the same monolithic approach when it comes to email blasts. They’ll typically have a sign up form on their website, which will automatically subscribe users to an email list, and will then periodically blast their subscribers with randomized messages and promotions that may (or may not) be relevant to each individual. With this type of throw-anything-at-a-wall-and-hope-it-sticks strategy, you end up becoming too generalized in your messaging. This leads to users unsubscribing or simply ignoring your emails all together.
Want to learn more about email marketing? Download our Digital Marketing Guide for Jewelers!
What You Should be Doing To Improve Email Open Rates
Now that you know what NOT to do when it comes to email marketing, you’re probably wondering what steps you SHOULD take to increase your open and conversion rates before sending that next email.
To start, you need to focus heavily on providing value to your subscribers on an individual level. For instance, by offering an eBook or case study that is relevant to a user’s specific problem and discusses ways to solve it. Your potential customer will not only be more obliged to initially join your email list, but he or she will likely be invested in your periodic updates as well. As long as the content you use within each email is relevant to whatever the user initially signed up for, your open rates (and subsequently conversions) should be high.
For instance, if you were to offer an engagement ring buying guide on your website in exchange for a user’s contact information, the user will expect to see additional tips to help them on their ring buying journey within each email. Whether that be through blog posts, videos, or some other medium.
This will keep the user engaged with your emails and keep them opening them consistently whenever they see your jewelry store’s name in their inbox.
Want more tips to help boost your email marketing efforts? Check out our recent blog post.
Does Your Email Marketing Platform Matter?
Generally, the email marketing platform you choose is not a significant factor in terms of the effectiveness of your emails. With that being said, platforms such as MailChimp, ActiveCampaign and Constant Contact seem to be the most popularly used. Why?
These platforms not only make it simple to craft emails with a library of templates and email building tools. But they also include critical KPI’s and reporting tools to help you understand how your emails are performing and where you need to improve.
These platforms also allow you to easily A/B test your emails. Which these tests will provide you with insight into what content your subscribers respond to the most. For instance, you can A/B test different subject lines, email body content, and even calls-to-action. Comparing the results to figure out what format to use going forward.
For these reasons, if you aren’t using one of these platforms already, you may want to consider doing so in order to ensure your email marketing efforts are optimized. If you need further assistance, you can partner with a digital marketing team like GemFind. GemFind has the expertise necessary to attract more customers through email and improve your email open rates.