How to Successfully Grow Your Dropshipping Business With Email Marketing

Launch Your Online Business in Just 7 Days

Are you trying to grow a new dropshipping business? Looking for ways to increase your sales? Do you want a cost-effective way to drive traffic to your store?


If your answer to any of these questions is yes, then this post is for you.


We’ll teach you the importance of email marketing for dropshipping businesses, and how to launch the perfect email marketing campaign.


Let’s dive right in!

1. Why should you use email for a dropshipping business?

Email_Marketing

There are several reasons why using email marketing is essential for your dropshipping business to grow.


If you’re not doing it, you're leaving money on the table.


To help you understand this, we prepared a list of the 6 main reasons why you should integrate email marketing into your online store.

1.1. Everyone has an email address

Everyone has an email address because it’s a requirement for creating an account on almost any website, including social media.


This means that every email/lead you collect is a potential customer.


By collecting these leads, you can build an email list of people interested in your dropshipping store.


To which you can:

  • Promote your brand and build trust
  • Inform of any updates
  • Send newsletters
  • Advertise discounts, giveaways, and promotions

If done correctly, these strategies will increase traffic, as well as sales.

1.2. Makes you stand out

One of the most important reasons why building a solid email marketing strategy is essential is because there is no shortage of competitors.


This is all thanks to how easy it is, nowadays, to build an ecommerce business.


You don’t even need to know how to code to build your store; you could just pay someone to do it for you.


There are several ecommerce platforms for dropshipping that include drag-and-drop website builders that you can use for a small monthly fee.


Because you’ll find new dropshipping stores every day, you need a way to stand out from the crowd.


Email marketing has the power to do exactly that, by gaining your customers’ trust and building a positive relationship with them.


You want to be their first choice when they’re looking for products like yours.

1.3. Allows for high customer engagement

Email increases engagement between customers and your dropshipping store because it allows you to implement Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategies.


The key to its efficacy is personalization.


By personalizing your emails based on a customer's search and purchase history, you can send them content they’ll be more likely to open, consume, and appreciate.


They’ll also be less likely to flag your emails as spam, so personalization will also get you more loyal customers.

1.4. It’s cost-effective

Email marketing is probably the most cost-effective strategy for promotion.


When done right, you can get a return on investment (ROI) of up to $42 back in for every $1 spent on emails.


This is big, considering how expensive it’s to run ads on Google or Facebook.


Also, since people willingly give you their emails, they’re likely already interested in your store and products.


Your only investment would probably be the email marketing tool you’ll have to get.

1.5. You can collect measurable data

Another valuable feature of email marketing is that you can collect measurable customer data:

  • Open rate — Percentage of subscribers that opened the email
  • Bounce rate — Percentage of subscribers that click on your link, but immediately left
  • Opt-out rate — Percentage of people that unsubscribe from your email list after your campaign started
  • Click-through rate — Percentage of people that clicked a link or call to action (CTA)

This data will help you improve future campaigns and marketing strategies.

1.6. It’s algorithm independent

One of the most popular methods of digital marketing and advertising is publishing content on social media to generate organic traffic.


It’s still an effective method, but unlike email marketing, it depends completely on an algorithm that is constantly changing.


A lot of business owners dedicate time, resources, and effort to build a solid marketing strategy, only for it to become useless thanks to a change in the algorithm.


Your leads will always receive your email unless they unsubscribe or flag you as spam.


Nevertheless, how much revenue you make with email marketing depends on how good your campaign is.


Below, we’ll tell you what you need to do to launch a successful email marketing campaign without getting flagged as spam.

2. How to successfully run an email marketing campaign

Email_Marketing_Dropsshiping

If you have no prior knowledge of email marketing, it can feel a little overwhelming, but in reality, it’s not too complicated.


That being said, there are a few steps you must follow:

1. Build your email campaign around a specific goal — It could be to build brand awareness, get more leads, increase sales, traffic, etc.

2. Define your target audience — Make sure you’re sending the right emails to the right audience, or you might lose your leads

3. Choose the correct email campaign type — There are several campaign types that you can use depending on the goal

4. Pick the right time to send your emails — By sure that you send your emails at the time it is most likely to be seen

From all of the mentioned steps, “Choose the correct email campaign type” is probably the most complicated, so we’ll help you with that in a moment.

2.1. Build an email marketing funnel to maximize results

An email marketing funnel is a representation of the “customer journey”, which shows how a lead goes from an interested lead to a customer, to a brand advocate.


A sales funnel has 4 steps:

1. Capturing leads — You generate leads through an opt-in form, landing page, or a sign-up form

2. Audience engagement — You engage with your leads, earn their trust and personalize your emails

3. Audience conversion — Emails have more aggressive conversion strategies to turn leads into customers

4. Repetition — You maintain your new converted customers and turn them into regular buyers

How you build your funnel will depend on your business and target audience.


If done correctly, you’ll maximize email marketing results by collecting leads and carefully studying their behavior to improve future campaigns.

2.2. The 5 email marketing campaigns you’ll need

These are all of the email campaigns you’ll see any online business use from the moment you opt-in to a lead capture form on their site.


Also, you should know that not all email campaigns are made to sell.


Because of their several uses mentioned earlier, email marketing remains so practical.


More about that is below.

2.2.1. Welcome email campaign

You’ve seen these every time you make a new account on a website or subscribe to a newsletter.


The business/company will greet you, welcome you, and present you with their brand and services.


What you might not know is that welcome emails are the most important marketing campaign for your business, because here is when you present your brand to new customers.


You can’t have selling intent in this campaign, because it will give a bad first impression and users might get the idea that you only see them as buyers instead of people.


On the other hand, if you’re running a promotion, then you could casually mention it because that might be what attracted that lead.

Source: ReallyGoodEmails.com

The Giving Keys’ welcome email does a great job at presenting their brand and products, but that’s not all.


They invite their leads to learn more about them, while casually mentioning a discount on their first order.


They don’t come out as salesy, instead, they are informative and welcoming:

Source: ReallyGoodEmails.com

Finally, at the bottom, they leave a CTA and their contact details.

Source: ReallyGoodEmails.com

As you see, the “Welcome Email Campaign” is the first step to forming a relationship with your customer.


Presenting your brand and welcoming new customers is its main focus and it’s an opportunity to give a good first impression to new customers.

2.2.2. Abandoned cart email campaign

A customer visits your dropshipping store, puts the products in their cart, but never completes the purchase.


It’s more common than you’d expect, in fact, the average cart abandonment rate is 69.82%, and the reasons may vary.


For example:

  • They got distracted
  • Something got them busy
  • Technical problems
  • They want to research the product first
  • They aren’t completely sure about buying

What this campaign does is remind customers about their incomplete orders and motivate them to finish the purchase process.


Also, despite how common it is, this email campaign delivers the most sales, because the customer already showed buying intent.


The only thing you need to do is to carefully encourage the customer to complete their order.


Like this:

Source: ReallyGoodEmails.com

Italic’s abandoned cart emails are very friendly and aren’t pressuring their customer, instead, they tell them what they’ll receive with the purchase.


They are not referring to the features, but the benefits — this email tells customers how their purchase will improve their lives.


All while keeping a friendly tone.


In this example, Italic used credits to motivate the customer, but there are other practices, like discount codes or creating a sense of urgency.

2.2.3. Post-purchase email campaign

As the name suggests, this campaign sends emails to customers after they make a purchase.


Its main purpose is to reduce buyer's remorse.


Buyer’s remorse is when customers regret or second guess buying something, especially if it’s expensive.


This is one of the causes of canceled orders and returned products.


With post-purchase emails, you can make your customer feel more confident about their purchase.


Some methods include:

  • Providing more value — Send recommendations on how to better use the product that was bought
  • Setting and delivering on expectations — Tell the customer how said product is going to improve their lives, but don’t lie or give false hope
  • Sending a Thank You email — Express gratitude for their trust and show customers that you care about them
  • Having a lenient return policy — Customers will feel at ease knowing they can return the product if it wasn’t what they thought it would be

The longer people spend time with a product, the less likely they are to return it.


Another purpose of post-purchase email campaigns is to do upselling and cross-selling.

Source: ReallyGoodEmails.com

In Crate & Barrel’s case, you can see that they are showing their gratitude, as well as giving the customer a way to contact them in case they have any doubts.


They’re also doing cross-selling by recommending other products based on what other customers bought alongside the same item.


Another way is to recommend products that would complement their purchase, or upselling.


Here’s an example of an upselling email by the Dollar Shave Club.

Source: ReallyGoodEmails.com

Upselling and cross-selling emails are often sent together with the receipt.


Recommending other products based on a customer’s buying history is a clear example of personalization done right that drives sales.

2.2.4. Engagement email campaign

This is a campaign that starts when another ends, to keep an active engagement with your audience.


This way, you maintain your brand in the mind of your customers, and you remind them that your online store still exists.


It’s better if you don’t take too much time to start this campaign.


If you do, your customers can forget about you or find a similar dropshipping store, given the number of competitors.


By that time, you’ll struggle to re-engage with them.


Some email content you can send includes:

  • New partnerships
  • New products
  • Policy updates
  • Reports
  • Newsletters
Source: ReallyGoodEmails.com

Popupsmart’s engagement emails have a newsletter with tips and tutorials.


Some of the posts are about how to better use their features and others teach how to improve on something.

Source: ReallyGoodEmails.com

Keep in mind that updates are some of the most important emails you can send.


They demonstrate to your customers that you’re a serious business that seeks improvement, which helps build credibility.

2.2.5. Promotional email campaign

This is the type of email campaign most people think of when talking about email marketing.


It’s also the most common email campaign for ecommerce businesses that, as you would expect, is focused on delivering promotional content.


Compared to abandoned cart emails, these campaigns are second best at generating sales and are meant to reach everyone on your email list.

Source: ReallyGoodEmails.com

Evernote's promotional emails have a simple yet effective design.


They stick to their brand colors and give the exact information they want their customers to know.


In this case, there’s a 40% discount on their Premium plan, its features, benefits, and the time limit for the offer.


With this type of marketing email, you can send holiday and seasonal promotions because they’re event focused.


You can also send emails to promote events that are exclusive to your stores, such as giveaways or anniversaries.


Now that you know about all the email campaigns that you can launch — for any of them to succeed you’ll need to have the correct copy in your emails.

2.3. The correct way to write an email

It doesn’t matter how elaborate your email marketing strategies are if your emails aren’t getting opened.


To prevent this, you should know the 2 main components of an email — the subject line and the body.


The subject line is the first thing that your subscribers will see, so it has to be interesting enough to get their attention and motivate them to open your email.


To improve your subject line, you should:

  • Use actionable language — This way the reader knows exactly what to expect from the information they’re going to get
  • Personalize your text — Match it to products the recipient has searched within your dropshipping store
  • Prioritize clarity — Never sacrifice clarity because the recipient needs to understand what the email is about, anything else goes second
  • Match the body content — If not, your email can end in the spam folder, and you’ll lose credibility

Writing creative subject lines is important, but these must go according to the above-mentioned points to maximize email marketing opening rates.


On the other hand, the body is where you place all the content that your subject line promised.


The email body needs to:

  • Be relevant — Add information that contributes to your message
  • Mention benefits — Tell customers how your product will improve their lives
  • Use second person — Make the content about them
  • Keep it short — Be brief and tell clients what you want them to know
  • Have a CTA — Add a clear call-to-action button for them to click

Before you plan to launch your email marketing strategy, you must know the mistakes most ecommerce businesses make and how to avoid them.

2.4. 7 email marketing mistakes to avoid

To prevent any issues that might affect your ecommerce store, we prepared a list of 7 common mistakes you should avoid:

1. Using poor email subject lines — Never sacrifice clarity for humor, this leads to ignored emails and lost leads

2. Having broken links and designs — Always check if every element works as it should before sending your emails

3. Not allowing replies — The generic “No Reply” takes away an opportunity for direct engagement with a customer

4. Only sending promotional emails — Apply the 80/20 rule, 80% of your emails should provide free value and only 20% should be sales emails

5. Not segmenting your email list — Without segmentation, you’ll end up sending emails to the wrong customers

6. Writing in ALL-CAPS — This gives the feeling that you’re yelling at customers and can trigger spam filters

7. Forgetting to collect data — Without the data from your emails, you won’t know how effective your email campaigns are

Bad email marketing campaigns can turn away potential customers, damage customer loyalty, and break relationships with existing customers.


To prevent that, follow the recommendations previously mentioned.

3. The best email marketing tools for any ecommerce business

Now, the most essential part before integrating email marketing with dropshipping — picking the right email tool.


Fortunately, there are many email marketing tools to choose from.


To help pick the best option, we made a list of those that’ll give you the email marketing service you need for your dropshipping business to grow

3.1. Systeme.io

systeme.io logo

systeme.io logo

Systeme.io offers great opportunities for new and established dropshipping businesses alike.


As an all-in-one platform, you can collect leads, launch email campaigns, build your dropshipping store, and automate your business.


You can start using our platform for free with our Freemium plan.


We also have several advanced email marketing features:

  • Automation — Eliminate some of your work with an autoresponder that can run your email campaigns for you
  • Email campaigns — Plan, build, and launch email campaigns of any type and schedule them to send at any time
  • Contact tagging and segmentation — Prepare specific emails for different leads based on tags and triggers

With systeme.io, you can do far more than just email marketing.


Some of our other features include:

  • Build a website for your dropshipping business
  • Design courses and evergreen webinars
  • Create sales funnels to promote and sell your products
  • Create and manage affiliate programs

We also offer 4 pricing plans to choose from:

1. Free — $0/month for up to 2,000 contacts

2. Startup — $27/month for up to 5,000 contacts

3. Webinar — $47/month for up to 10,000 contacts

4. Unlimited — $97/month for unlimited contacts

No matter which plan you choose, you can send unlimited emails and access all the features you need to launch your business.


Are you ready? Sign up and join us today to grow your dropshipping business for free!

3.2. ConvertKit

ConvertKit logo

ConvertKit logo

ConvertKit is a tool focused on automated email marketing that has a deliverability rate of 98%.


Its features are perfect for growing a business, and it’s targeted at professional content creators with the promise to help them make a living.


With ConvertKit, you get features like:

  • Landing pages
  • Sign-up forms
  • Automation
  • Email broadcasts
  • Integrations
  • A/B testing

According to ConvertKit, they’ll help you make a living by selling digital products, having a paid newsletter, and creating subscriptions.


ConvertKit has 3 plans:

1. Free — $0/month for up to 1,000 subscribers

2. Creator — $29/month for up to 1,000 subscribers

3. Creator Pro — $59/month for up to 1,000 subscribers

All the plans have different features available, but they all allow unlimited landing pages, sales pages, link pages, sign-up forms, traffic, and email broadcasts.


A downside to ConvertKit’s platform is that it has quite a learning curve, and you need to be good at coding to modify the email templates.


Also, some features are only available on paid plans, like automation or deliverability reports.

3.3. Mailchimp

Mailchimp logo

Mailchimp logo

Mailchimp is probably the most popular email marketing service for beginners.


It’s a user-friendly alternative that combines creative branding with several modern features.


They offer 4 email marketing plans:

1. Free — $0/month

2. Essentials — $9.99/month

3. Standard — $14.99/month

4. Premium — $299/month

There are a vast variety of templates to choose from with numerous integrations.


You can also build your website with Mailchimp and use a single domain.


With Mailchimp’s Free plan, you get:

  • Up to 2,000 contacts
  • 10,000 monthly emails
  • Landing page builders
  • Social media posting
  • Marketing calendar
  • Segmentation
  • Automation

This Free plan does include some limitations, unfortunately.


For example, you can only make certain email sequences like Welcome emails, cart abandonment emails, and order notifications.


To launch other email campaigns, which you’ll want to do as you scale, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan.

4. Conclusion

Using email marketing in a dropshipping business is a cost-effective way to grow and maintain it.


Nevertheless, before you start selling through emails — first build a relationship with your lead.


That’s the only way they’ll want to keep coming back.


To launch an email campaign that’ll get you more customers, you’ll need an email marketing tool that will satisfy all the needs of your business.


An all-in-one platform will facilitate this by having everything you need in one space at a single price.


This way, you won’t need to spend hundreds of dollars on different tools.


With systeme.io as your solution, you can build your dropshipping business, launch email campaigns, manage affiliates, and more.


To get started, try our Free plan today!

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