Building Email Marketing
Trust For Ecommerce Success
Written by Rob Lane.
1. Overview
Trust counts for a lot… especially if you want customers to purchase online. Email marketing campaigns are an extension of your online retail presence and can contribute to, or diminish, the trust consumers will have in your ecommerce business. If consumers don’t trust you as the sender, they won’t even open your email offers, never mind buy from you. Digital trust works a lot like personal trust. Sender reputation, clarity of communication, consideration for the recipient’s privacy, and the seller’s motivation to offer something that individual consumers value all come into play.
2. Sender Reputation
Your reputation as a sender of email is key as to whether your offer even makes it to a recipient’s inbox. Major ISPs and email platforms decide which senders to block, and which one’s to prioritize in the inbox. A quarter of email messages don’t even make it, as placement rates stand at around “76.5% globally.” Direct Marketing Association
So let’s say that your email has made it past the scrutiny of these filters, human audiences can be an even tougher crowd to crack. Email coming from brands or online retailers will invoke degrees of attraction or repulsion, based on past interactions and the perceived reputation of the sender. Consumers are more likely to open email they expect or anticipate, than messages that come out of the blue with a whiff of spam. This process often starts before the email campaigns are sent out.
3. Make The Opt-In Process A Positive Experience
Anti-spam legislation is cropping up across Europe and North America requiring email senders to obtain explicit permission, or an opt in, from recipients prior to sending them email. Leading ecommerce retailers don’t wait until the law says they need an email opt-in, they know that virtually nobody wants email they didn’t sign up for.
So why not make the email opt-in option a prominent feature on the homepage of your site, which is often the gateway for the majority of your traffic, using a positive opt-in (where the box is unchecked), or even add an incentive offer for new sign-ups, such as: “15% off your next purchase with us.”
It’s probably best to ask a brand new visitor as few questions (form fields) as possible. Figure out the minimum amount of information you require and use this as a guide for new sign-ups. This is not unlike the real world where we must respect the privacy of strangers and allow people to reveal themselves naturally and at their own pace in the course of conversation and visits over time. When a visitor makes an actual purchase, you’ll have a lot more information gleaned from the purchase process, but you must still ensure that your new customer provides consent to receive future promotions.
The purchase process could be further refined to allow customers to select the kinds of offers and promotions they would like to receive, thus helping you as the retailer gain greater insights about individual customer preferences and clues as to how to segment your audience.
4. Privacy Policy
The privacy policy should be readily available and prominently displayed on a sender’s site, if not in the email itself. The privacy policy should be easily understandable and written for consumers. Who wants to read a lengthy legal disclaimer outlining how the sender is protected?
With major data breaches making the news on a monthly basis, consumers are looking for assurances that the personal information they provide to you is going to be kept safe, and for transparency about how it’s going to be used:
“On your email sign-up form or welcome email, briefly explain how a subscriber’s contact info will be used, the frequency of your messaging, what type of content you’ll be sending and how a subscriber can easily unsubscribe.”
5. Ecommerce Success
“A customer will not buy from you if they don’t trust your site,” according to Daniel Burstein, Director of Editorial Content, at Marketing Sherpa. (NOTE : The video below is almost 14 mins long, but contains some helpful information.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY9DA3EbLHAAt the 2014 Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition (IRCE), the world’s largest ecommerce event held in Chicago this past June, Daniel Burstein interviewed Craig Spiezle, Executive Director of the Online Trust Alliance, who explored how companies with an operational discipline that incorporates ease of use, understandable privacy policy, responsive customer service and strong reputation have higher levels of online trust that correlates with ecommerce success.
6. Trust Is Earned With Continuous Effort Over Time
Spiezle emphasized that building consumer trust in your online retail presence is an ongoing process that requires care and consideration for your customers, especially when problems occur. Our customers at Rare certainly understand this concept:
Boot Cuffs & Socks used Rare to send a service announcement to a large number of customers for whom a particular item was on backorder. “From creation to send was literally a matter of minutes” said Tanya. “We used the template, added images and our message and hit send.” Customers loved the personalized message and the mail saved a ton of support time while increasing the positive view of the company.
7. Conclusion
Email marketing is a proven customer outreach method and one of the leading the channels for generating online sales.
Rare.io makes it easy to start using automated email campaigns for common challenges like: Welcome Series, Abandoned Carts, Order Follow-up emails and more! You can learn more about our powerful email marketing automation features here or go ahead and get started right away by using Rare.io for FREE.
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And if you’re one of the thousands of merchants who are already using Rare’s Smart Email Marketing software and want to see how our Customer Success Team can work with your brand to grow your revenue – feel free to book a call at your convenience here.
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