Looking for new ways to feature your products in your email marketing? When you’re talking about your product day in and day out it can feel like you’ve exhausted all your options and like you have no other way to talk about your product!
Well, today we’re going through just that. Between this week and the list of non-salesy eCommerce email ideas, you’ll have 20+ email ideas that you can rotate through each quarter to keep the content flowing and stay top of mind with your customers.
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Plan your email calendar
When you’re planning out your email calendar, list all of your important dates to set the basic foundation. This includes everything from important holidays and promotions to any product launches and cut-off dates.
Once you have all the must-have content laid out then you can layer in other content to fill in the gaps to keep in touch with your customers and stay top of mind with them. The content that will fill in those gaps is the non-salesy content we discussed last week, but sometimes you need a new way to talk about your products too.
The Curated Collection of Content Email
This can either be a curated collection of your products or someone else’s. You can apply this same strategy to your product-focused emails as well, for example, My 5 Favorite Items for X.
When you’re creating the topic for this, you need to think about your products and your customer. What type of collection are you creating for them?
If you sell jewelery or make up: The Top 5 Earrings to Show Off Your Collarbone or My 5 Favorite Colors for Creating a Killer Smokey Eye.
As we’re going into Holiday, think about what gift collections you can create, for example, Our Top 10 Gifts for Moms On The Go.
When you’re creating this email, add substance by talking about why you rounded up these items, who they’re for and what makes them so amazing. That way it has more meat than JUST a product grid.
What if you have a small product assortment?
You can also include other people’s products. If you’re a one-product store with a wellness item your email could be: My Favorite Things for Self-care Sunday and one of those items is yours. Then share some complimentary items like bath bombs or your favorite tea. This way you’re sharing items that aren't in direct competition with you but add value.
The Collaboration Email
One of the best ways to grow your business is to get in front of other people's audiences. One of my favorite ways to do that is by swapping shout outs in each other’s emails.
For instance, I had a strategy call with a client recently and her main focus is growing her business. The majority of her current customers have come from a partnership she has with a complimentary brand where she goes live in their Facebook group.
Not only should she double down on that strategy in general by creating additional partnerships, but she should also deepen her engagement with her existing partnership.
Swapping email shoutouts is a great way to do this. If you can find a way to bundle your products together that you can both market through your email, even better!
The New Markdown Email
This isn’t just when you have a promotion, but when you mark something down and add it to the clearance section.
The purpose of markdowns
They help you move through slow sellers and broken inventory. They clear space in your budget to bring in new merchandise and attract a different type of customer. Just like you have a sale section in a brick and mortar store, you want to have one on your website and you want to make sure you call attention to it.
Why you should email your customer about markdowns
The great thing about featuring this in an email is it gives you a way to draw the customer in and it’s likely they’ll buy some other things while they’re poking around your website as well.
Build this into your regularly scheduled emails and send each season as you mark items down.
The Product-Feature Email
Feature ONE product from your assortment. I get emails like this every day from Steve Madden, although I don’t recommend you send emails every day unless you have millions on your list. But, when you have a wide assortment of products, featuring one at a time will give you a lot of life to your emails.
Feature your best seller
Talk about why it’s so great and if you can tell a story around it, either your own or that of your customers, even better. Throw in a couple of product-specific reviews and add some urgency behind it — are you likely to sell out of it, having trouble keeping it in stock? Let people know!
Feature a discontinued product
Think of it as a last chance item. Similar to a clothing boutique that has a rack of single items with only one or two pieces left of a particular style.
Feature an item that isn’t moving well
It is possible that your customers have qualified your merchandise and they just don’t want it, but it’s also possible that they don’t know it exists or understand why they should buy it. Highlighting it and bringing it some attention might change that.
Think of it the way you’d think of visual merchandising in a brick and mortar store. If something is hidden in the corner, no one is going to see it. In a brick and mortar store, you’d move it to the front table or put it on a mannequin to make sure people are aware you have it, a feature email is an equivalent.
There’s so much that goes into customer behavior, we can’t know it all. Keep trying and testing things out.
When you’re featuring one item, remember to put a little extra love and care into the email and do more than just drag a product block into your template.
The Restock Email
No doubt you already have a back-in-stock alert on your website and that’s awesome. But I encourage you to send a back-in-stock email to your entire list, even if they didn't sign up.
It’s possible they didn’t know it was out of stock to begin with or they didn’t even know you had that item at all. From a buyer psychology perspective, hearing that it was out of stock will trigger them to think oh, this must be popular… maybe I want it too!
If you’re doing both an automated and manual back-in-stock email, exclude the automated people from your manual email so they don’t get two emails. That’s a little obnoxious.
The User Generated Content Email
Share UGC related to your product. If you’ve been working with influencers, feature their posts in an email. For example, What So and So Said, or How So and So Wears X.
If you’re not working with influencers or weren’t granted permission to use the content in an email, you can send a “staff picks” email. This is a fun one to use around the holidays as well. What Sarah is Getting for Her Bestie, or What Our Team is Giving Mom This Year.
Whatever it is that’s related to your product and brand. There’s just something sweet about it. Not only are you featuring your product, but you’re also humanizing your brand and connecting with your audience by introducing them to the team who packs their orders and answers their customer service emails.
The Product Launch Email
On the surface, it seems pretty obvious that you’re going to send emails about a new product. But, one of the things that people miss, is they just don’t send enough emails about their new products.
When you have a new product launching or a new season of merchandise, make sure you send at least one pre-launch message to your list.
When you’re giving your list a little heads up that something new is coming, you can add in a timer that counts down to when the item will be live. I use the one from sendtric. It’s free and doesn’t have any branding on it.
You want them to get hyped up that something new is coming. The same goes for your promotions too. You don’t necessarily have to give all the details away in that first email but just letting them know to keep their eyes peeled for something special is a good way to keep them engaged and warm them up!
The Product Recommendation Email
This works best if you have a wider assortment of products of course, but if you’re in a pinch and don’t have a lot of time, come up with a fun, suggestive on-brand subject line and let the
For instance, at my old job selling adult novelties I would say something like, Your Pleasure Awaits, or The Hottest Toys For a Sexy Night In. This is similar to the curation mentioned earlier, but in this case, you’re letting the algorithm do the work so make it a bit more general. The main goal is just to get them to open the email and sometimes the more suggestive and mysterious, the better!
Cycle through these emails quarterly
Damn, that was a lot of emails! Between this week and last week, you could totally just cycle through these ideas over and over again on a quarterly basis and you’d be emailing your list every single week!
Okay, eCommerce friends. Go forth and conquer that email marketing.
