Communication between brands and consumers is still primarily via email. This means you will be sending dozens and hundreds of emails every day, and anything that can make this task more efficient is more than welcome. This is especially the case in eCommerce, where most customer reach is through email. Using effective eCommerce email templates can streamline this process significantly.
Email communication is essential to establishing a great relationship with your target audience; however, communication happens in different stages of your interaction.
The welcome and event invitation emails are not the same in form, yet writing a new email from scratch can be incredibly time-consuming.
The best way to solve this problem is with eCommerce email templates, but for this to work, you need to have an appropriate template for each of these campaign stages and each of these campaign types.
With that in mind, here are the top eight templates that you must have.
Not Just the Content:
Before we carry on, it’s important to mention one thing. While eCommerce email templates are mostly focused on content and text structure, you should never underestimate the power of good visuals.
With a platform like Flodesk, you can make visually pleasing, mobile-responsive, and even brand-appropriate email designs. This way, you are sure to leave a better first impression, as well as handle branding every step of the way.
Great examples of brands that successfully conducted email marketing campaigns using these tools are HAUME, Marketing Mission, and many others.
Even from a technical standpoint, there are many perks to facing the design of the email template. For example, even the color and the shape of the CTA (call-to-action) can affect its effectiveness.
So, while we’ll primarily focus on the template form appropriate for each campaign type (and stage), just bear in mind that the design matters just as much.
Welcome Template:
This is your formal introduction and a way to tell your customers that you appreciate their trust and interest in your brand. The main goal of this is to make a good first impression, as well as show them that you’re willing to make an extra effort and that they really mean a lot to your organization as a whole.
Here, you need a longer introduction. Ideally, you would start by greeting the person that you’re messaging and telling them that you’re so grateful that you have them in your community.
Also, you want the message to feel like it’s coming from an actual marketer, not a chatbot. So, create a unique email signature and even consider including your own photo.
If you’re not comfortable with this, you can always use a custom AI avatar. All that matters is that they have a face to connect to the message.
Next, you need to make a value proposition. You can let them know about all the services, tips, and advantages of doing business with your brand.
You can list some of the most interesting things and categories you have on offer and even give them a short list of the resources that you’ll make available.
Then, invite them to explore your site on their own (give them the freedom to do so) and send them your best regards.
Promotional Template:
Next, you need to learn how to make a template to promote a new offer or a product.
First, you need to understand how to do this the right way. Like always, you need to start with the introduction and immediately lead with the terms of promotion. Hit them straight in the head with your strongest USP (unique selling proposition).
If there’s a discount, lead with the largest discount percentage. If there’s a limited-time offer, tell them when it expires.
It might also be a good idea to appeal to their sense of FOMO (after all, you do not want them to miss out on anything good). This can be something as subtle as the use of the right word at the right time.
Most importantly, you need to include a strong call to action, along with the link leading straight to where they can take advantage of this offer.
Ultimately, you end up with your best regards and your formal introduction.
Newsletter Email Template:
Sometimes, you want your customers to subscribe to your newsletter.
This is important because it keeps them in touch with your brand. After all, your customers need to get value from your brand even when not buying products from your e-store. Keeping them informed by keeping them subscribed is one of the ways to get this done.
So far, we’ve mentioned a formal greeting in both of these templates. Since this applies to every example on this list, from now on, we won’t mention this, but it will be implied.
The key thing you need to do is mention the value that they’ll get from your newsletter. You can say that they’ll get a daily or weekly dose of news/information on something that they’re interested in.
If you’ve done customer segmentation right and have several categories, you can target the exact thing they’re looking for.
Here, you want to add your call to action (usually with the word subscribe, but going with something more diplomatic like “consider” or “check out” will also work) and state your full name and title.
Event Invitation Template:
When you’re organizing an event and trying to increase the number of attendees, for this, you need a great event invitation template.
Even in eCommerce, organizing an occasional event will create numerous photo opportunities that you can later use to promote your business. It’s good to remind your audience that you exist offline, as well.
After greetings, you need to get straight to the point and tell them that they’re invited to the event. Next, you need to give them the details. People want to know about the date and time right away so that they can check if they can attend.
If they’re busy on that date (have something else planned or scheduled), they’ll pass on the opportunity, no matter how hard you try. By telling them the date right away, you’re saving everyone’s time.
Then, you need to make a promise of a great time and some value that the event will provide them with. Tell them about the program and the experience.
Those who are still there and still reading and have an interest in attending will want to learn as much as they can about the event.
Then, you can offer them a link that they can use to add this to their schedule. You can ask them to confirm their presence, after which their Google Calendar will be automatically updated.
Feedback Request Template:
The Feedback is invaluable; this is how you see what you’re doing right and wrong. Feedback is essential for insights and even social proof to use for a marketing boost. However, a lot of people won’t always give you feedback on their own.
If they’re happy with your product, most of the time, they’ll stay silent. In fact, they might stay silent even if they’re unhappy with your product/service. So, you need to ask them directly.
Just start by telling them that you value their opinion. Next, tell them that you understand that their time is invaluable and plead with them to spare a bit of it to help you provide a better service for them.
This is a neat trick since people are always more interested in what you can do for them than the other way around.
Abandoned Cart Email Template:
Shopping cart abandonment is the bane of the eCommerce industry, but it’s not the end of the world. If anything, shopping cart abandonment can help you learn so much about the product.
Maybe they didn’t buy because of unexpectedly high shipping costs and taxes. Maybe they just changed their mind in the end.
In some scenarios, they just left and forgot to buy. This is especially true when retargeting them might help. In the worst-case scenario, they’ll just ignore you. In the best case, they’ll return and complete the purchase.
You can even leverage some UX tools to help increase shopping cart conversions, but in order to do so, you first have to get them back to the page. This is done via email reminders.
Your template needs to be non-imposing. One neat trick is to start by asking them if they may have forgotten something in the shopping cart. Again, they can just ignore it, but if you leave a good CTA, it can lead them straight to the cart.
Re-engagement Template:
It takes five times less money to make an old buyer return than to convert a new customer. Other than that, it’s also worth mentioning that just 20% of customers make 80% of your entire profit. This mostly happens through a customer’s lifetime value and not from a single purchase.
Sure, some of the most loyal customers will return on their own, but what about those who need to be retargeted?
Now, while you sometimes just need to bring to their attention the fact that they haven’t visited you in a while, there’s sometimes a reason behind this absence. So, it’s even more effective to start by “sweetening the pot”.
Give them a reason to return. Tell them that you have a great discount or something new on offer.
Announcement Template:
If you really see your clients as members of your extended family, it’s your duty to inform them of any changes that might be taking place.
With these things, it’s never good to beat around the bush. Start with an exciting announcement from the subject line and get to the point right after greeting them.
Sure, you can use an introductory sentence like having something exciting to share with them, but this might not be that good of an idea for a template, to begin with.
What if it’s not good news?
It’s usually better to jump straight to the point or even make two or three sub-templates just for this occasion.
Having the Right Set of Templates will Make your Email Outreach and Marketing a Lot Easier:
The key thing to understand is that while you are sending different emails to a single customer during their lifecycle, you’re usually using all of these templates simultaneously.
There are always new customers to be welcomed, new promotions to be pushed, new shopping cart abandonments you should inquire about, and new instances of gathering feedback.
The sooner you get these templates and start using them, the better.