{"id":18613,"date":"2020-04-28T16:13:56","date_gmt":"2020-04-28T16:13:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nutracapusa.com\/?p=18613"},"modified":"2022-01-16T07:20:57","modified_gmt":"2022-01-16T07:20:57","slug":"how-email-marketing-is-helping-brands-increase-sales-plus-4-ideas-for-content","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nutracapusa.com\/blog\/how-email-marketing-is-helping-brands-increase-sales-plus-4-ideas-for-content\/","title":{"rendered":"How Email Marketing Is Helping Brands Increase Sales Plus 4 Ideas for Content"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Editor\u2019s Note: This article is part of a series that explores the impact the coronavirus crisis is having on the world of ecommerce. Explore <\/em>daily insights surrounding the coronavirus crisis<\/em><\/a> or check out these <\/em>additional resources<\/em><\/a> to help you navigate your marketing strategy during this time.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The global coronavirus pandemic has ushered in an era of unprecedented times: social distancing is requiring people to stay home, businesses to temporarily shutter, and millions to seek unemployment relief while we all collectively work together to stop the spread of the virus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Retail is one of the sectors that\u2019s been hit particularly hard. Sales dropped 8.7 percent in March 2020, according to the US Census Bureau<\/a>. But it\u2019s not all doom and gloom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ecommerce sales are up 37 percent, comparatively between the widespread start of the pandemic in the US (March 15-April 20, 2020) to the beginning of the year (January 1-March 1, 2020), according to research by Klaviyo\u2019s data science team which looked at data across 32,000 businesses that sell online. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why are online sales spiking? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reasons vary for each business, but one reason is necessity. People are staying home to stay safe, so they need to find an alternative way to get the items they want and need.     <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another reason is a human need for connection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe current crisis is also accentuating emotional drivers, like a sense of connection, that are already core to the direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand experience\u2026Emotional connections can come from meeting the most basic needs during a time of heightened anxiety and desperation,\u201d said Rich Garnder, vice president for global strategic partnerships at Klaviyo, in an article he penned<\/a> about why a human need for connection is driving people to shop directly from brands online. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One easy way to brands can create a connection with customers? Email. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To see how online businesses have been using email to connect with their customers amid the pandemic, Klaviyo\u2019s data science team looked at a dataset of 18,000 businesses that sell online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The results are encouraging. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within this dataset, both open rates and attributed revenue from email are up significantly since March 15, 2020. Open rates for March 15-April 20, 2020 are up 26 percent compared to the same time period last year. They\u2019re also up 21 percent compared to the first part of 2020 before the pandemic became widespread in the US (January 1-March 1, 2020)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does this mean? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consumers are taking the time to open more emails from brands. It makes sense, considering people have been spending more time at home and less time dealing with the normal hustle and bustle of daily life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The data science team saw email attributed revenue is on the rise for online businesses, as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the chart below, you\u2019ll see that before the pandemic became widespread in the US earlier this year (Jan 1-March 1, 2020), brands were generating $8.5 million dollars per day through email marketing. When the pandemic became widespread (March 15-April 20, 2020), that number went up 68 percent\u2014these businesses are generating $14.3 million dollars per day via email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Upon closer examination, revenue spiked during the week of April 13-17, 2020 when the first round of stimulus checks began to hit consumers\u2019 bank accounts. Revenue attributed to email on April 16-17th, the highest performing email days, was at $24.5 million dollars per day and was more than half of what these online businesses generated across Black Friday (Nov 29, 2019 \u2013 $49.1 million) and Cyber Monday (Dec 2, 2020 \u2013 $47.0 million). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since mid-March, 2020, Klaviyo has also been surveying brands daily about how the pandemic has been impacting their business, and the data science team\u2019s analysis aligns with the results of those daily polls<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consumers may have held onto their purse strings a bit tighter when states began to issue stay-at-home orders and kept their spending focused on essentials like food and toilet paper, but they\u2019ve since been shifting their dollars to new essentials categories like health and fitness, beauty, and home goods. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regardless of whether their sales are up, down, or flat, online brands say the one universal tactic that\u2019s working to help them stay connected to their community of customers is email marketing. They\u2019re using email to talk about how they\u2019re responding to the coronavirus pandemic, ask their community for their help, offer promotions to their customers, promote new products, or, in some cases, to re-position what they\u2019re selling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since data shows that email marketing has been particularly effective for online brands during this time, our data science team dove deep into the data of those 18,000 online businesses to see specifically how email campaigns (one-time sends as opposed to pre-scheduled automated emails) have been performing, as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, 30 percent of brands that have sent a campaign since the pandemic became widespread in the US (March 15-April 20, 2020) have generated at least as much revenue as their best performing Cyber Weekend campaign last year (November 28-December 6, 2019). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With so many exceptional campaigns, the data science team took a closer look at the best of the best\u2014email campaigns that have generated 5-10X a brand\u2019s typical revenue driven by email\u2014to find successful strategies other brands can use as they adjust their marketing strategies to navigate our current reality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What they found? Four common content themes among these emails: sales and promotions, pre-orders and back-in-stocks, home entertainment projects, and shift toward selling face masks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s take a closer look at how the high-performing brands are creating effective email content across these specific content categories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1 | Sales and promotions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Among the brands that have seen the biggest increase in sales, the most popular content they\u2019re sharing is content about sales and promotions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One way these brands could be effectively using content about sales and promotions: To clear out inventory and free up cash to operate and pay for overhead expenses, according to the Wall Street Journal<\/a>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two additional ways brands are specifically using discounts are to sell items for holidays or to link them to the current moment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The holiday promotions they\u2019ve used have coincided nicely with Easter and Mother\u2019s Day\u2014times when consumers may like to treat family and friends to an extra special gift since they can\u2019t be together.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The coronavirus-related promotions have featured extra-sensitive messaging that explains why they\u2019re offering their customers a discount at this time or how they\u2019re specifically targeting promotions to help healthcare and other frontline workers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can see many examples of how brands are effectively using these types of discounts in each of the daily insights here<\/a>, though let\u2019s take a look at a few specific examples. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rufflebutts<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Rufflebutts<\/a> is an online children\u2019s clothing store that offered an Easter \u201cdaily-deal\u201d and outfit inspiration to celebrate the Easter Holiday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pistol Lake<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Pistol Lake<\/a>, an online clothing store for men and women, sent this coronavirus-related promotional email to their customer community with a very clear explanation that times are difficult and why they\u2019re offering their merchandise at a discounted price. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If you\u2019re interested in learning how to get started with sales and promotional planning, now is the best time to start especially with Mother\u2019s Day right around the corner.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking forward to other Spring holidays? Here are a few resources to help you effectively plan your upcoming sales and promotions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n