If you’ve signed up to an email marketing service like MailChimp, Campaign Monitor or Mad Mimi to help you promote your online store – nice work! You’re on your way to creating a relationship with your customers and subscribers.

But as you flick through all the email templates and designs available to you, you’re probably wondering which to use and how to do a good job. For example, did you know that email design is being influenced by the massive uptake in mobile devices? Around 35% of your emails may be opened on the move, so a mobile-friendly email is essential.

Here are my tips for creating good emails…

Choose a simple HTML template. I’m in favour of one-column layouts as they render well on all kinds of devices and are much easier to read on a smart phone.

Personalise the email. Insert a greeting field into the email so you can address each person by name – research shows personalisation increases response rates. Be friendly too and sign off as a person, not the company.

Try 14pt type for the body copy. It’s easier to read on screen.

Don’t add a lot of images. Images slow down the rate at which an email loads and are often blocked by email services. Use one or two good ones that help you get your message across.

Put the most important information in the first paragraph. It will show up in the preview pane, where most people look to decide if an email is worth opening.

Incorporate a ‘call to action’ (CTA). Don’t be vague. Add an instruction that tells the reader what to do next (ie: “view our autumn sale here”).

Make your CTA buttons big. They need to be large enough to accommodate a thumb click on a smart phone. Try making them at least 44 pixels high.

Use text links as well as graphic buttons for your CTA. That way, if the images don’t appear, the instruction can still be read.

Don’t place buttons or links too close together. It’s really frustrating trying to hit the right one when you’re using a smart phone.

Include social media share buttons in your email. It encourages readers to share the online email with their networks, giving you some free promotion.

Display your physical address and an unsubscribe link at the foot of the email. Most email templates will have this as standard, but do check it’s there.

Put your business name in the ‘from’ field. Your subscribers need to recognise you straight away or you could end up in the trash. Send from an individual email address like sally.brown@prettyfrocks.com, and not a generic department like sales@prettyfrocks.com

Write a really good subject line – it’s the most important element of your email. Its job is to stand out from all the other emails in the inbox, and make the recipient want to read the contents. Be relevant to them, specific and make the value of the contents obvious. Don’t mislead the reader or they might be tempted to unsubscribe!

As a general rule, avoid using ALL CAPS and clichés, keep it short and get straight to the point.

Proofread and test your email before you send it to your list. Send it to test accounts in Hotmail, Outlook and Gmail etc to ensure it looks OK and your links work. Check how it downloads on a smart phone and a tablet, as well as your PC or Mac.

Work out the best time to email your list. Think about your audience. Are they more likely to read it at work, or at home? Most emails get read in the first hour after sending, so pick the time wisely.

The fun has just begun!

Finally, keep testing and learning how your emails are performing so you can constantly improve. Try splitting your list into two and sending out a slightly different version to each half to find out which one works best!

Related articles

• A guide to email marketing for online stores
• Don’t lose your online store visitors – start a relationship!
• Tips for online retailers: How to optimise your store for search engines (part two)

Running a successful e-commerce business requires more than fresh web traffic and a groovy online store. You need to start a relationship with your web visitors and customers so they will come back again!

Used properly, email marketing is a key tool in your marketing arsenal. Use it to keep connected to your audience and drive sales by occasionally sending them interesting information and special offers. Be mindful of the SPAM Act before you start though, and read about the requirements here.

There are five important elements to good email marketing:

1. A permission-based email list
2. Relevant and valuable content
3. A professional email marketing service
4. A well constructed HTML email
5. A specific landing page

1. The list

Your list can be put together from email addresses given to you by people who want to hear from you. This might include current customers and your enewsletter subscribers. Make sure your list is cleaned of bounced or unsubscribed email addresses on a regular basis.

If you have enough information to segment your email list into sub groups (customers, Sydney subscribers, shoe buyers etc), write specific email content for each group. The more relevant the message, the more likely it will be read.

2. The content

What is the reason for your email?

There is no point emailing everyone just to tell them you’ve got a new desk (you can use social media for that!). Only send out emails if you have something relevant and valuable to share. It could be your cool and interesting monthly enewsletter, a special discount, a sale, a customer event or you may even be running a competition.

3. The email marketing service

Sign up with a professional email marketing provider like MailChimp, Campaign Monitor or Mad Mimi. They have all the tools you need to carry out professional-looking email marketing campaigns, such as designer HTML templates and post-campaign activity reports.

4. The HTML email

Your email marketing provider will offer lots of different tested email layouts, so you don’t have to worry too much about the design and if it will work. However, there are a lot of ways you can increase the chances of your email being read and acted upon.  My next blog post will be full of great tips to help you make the most of your email communication.

5. The landing page

Where are you sending people when they click on your links? They need to be on a logical trip. Remember to be specific, so if you’re promoting a new collection, the link should go directly to that collection, not your homepage.

If you need to make a new page of information to send you readers to, you can read how to do that in this Knowledge Base article.

Keep improving!

Your email marketing service will automatically track the number of emails successfully sent, bounced, opened, forwarded and the number of clicks on a link, and provide this in a simple report. Use this information to learn what worked and what didn’t so you can improve your next email. As a benchmark, an average email open rate is around 22% and click through rate about 4%. Better than this and you’re doing well!

You can see how many website visits came from the email and even resulting sales if you have set this up in Google Analytics, so you can form a whole picture of the effectiveness of the campaign.

My next post will be full of great tips to help you make the most of your email communication…. so stay tuned!

Related articles

• Don’t lose your online store visitors – start a relationship!
• Tips for online retailers: How to optimise your store for search engines (part two)
• Tips for online retailers: How to optimise your store for search engines (part one)

It’s tough I know, but most of your web visitors won’t buy on the first visit.

They’ll check you out, flick through your products, perhaps compare prices, scroll through your blog and then they’ll be off again. Like ships in the night.

If you’re lucky, they might bookmark your site for a later date, but mostly they will disappear and get on with their busy lives. And bang goes all that time, cost and effort it took to drive them to your store in the first place. Grrrr.

But you can do something to improve your chances of a revisit. If you make it easy for interested visitors to stay in touch with you, they can get to know you a lot better and you can be there when they need you. With a simple but planned communication strategy, these strangers can become brand friends, and friends can become customers.

Be visibly sociable

One way to encourage visitors to stay in touch is to install ‘follow me’ buttons to your social media accounts (twitter, facebook and Pinterest etc) on your web pages. Social media is a great channel for offering followers useful information, special deals and even customer service assistance, thereby creating trust and a bond with your brand. Pretty much all of our themes include social media links, and these can be enabled in the “Design & assets -> Theme editor” section of your store’s Toolbox.

Email still rocks

Even better, add a simple sign up form on your website to collect email addresses from interested visitors. Some themes have this built-in, but if you use MailChimp or Campaign Monitor, you can use a “Web Hook” to add people who’ve ordered in your store to your mailing list.

Despite the rise of social media, email is still a reliable and cost effective way to keep potential customers informed, deepen your relationship with your subscribers and remind them what you offer.

But you must get their permission to begin emailing them and a sign up form on your website is the way to go. If they are not already a customer, they must have ‘opted-in’ to receive your communications as this is a requirement of the Spam Act.

Be prepared – plan your calendar

Once you start to collect subscribers, you’ll need to plan a calendar for your emails. This way you’ll know what you want to prepare, to whom, and when. The top reasons people will unsubscribe from your emails are;
1. too frequent emails, or
2. irrelevant content.
…so don’t be too zealous with your communications, and only email information or offers that make sense to the recipient.

Start by plotting out ‘shopping’ events that you want to promote like a new fashion season, Christmas and Mother’s day. Then fill in other regular communications like a regular newsletter. There will always be new opportunities so leave some breathing space in your calendar. That way you can send out announcements like a new product or special offer or tie in a promotion with some topical trend or news story.

One last word on email lists here. Don’t be tempted to buy or rent a list of email addresses. It’s inefficient, irritating to the recipients and contravenes the Spam Act. Grow your opt-in list over time with people ho have a genuine interest. Quality over quantity.

In another post soon I’ll provide be a tips sheet on creating killer emails to drive traffic to your online store. Don’t miss it!

Related articles

• Tips for online retailers: How to optimise your store for search engines (part two)
• Tips for online retailers: How to optimise your store for search engines (part one)
• Tips for online retailers: How to choose the right keywords for your online store

We’re pleased to announce the release of a new Spiffy Stores theme!.  The Seattle Theme for Spiffy Stores includes a host of features including unlimited colour schemes, Facebook comments, wish lists, social media integration including Google +1, customisable slideshows and 9 different font options.  Read on to find out more about this theme.

Unlimited colour schemes.

Easily choose one of the 6 built-in colour schemes in the Theme editor section of your toolbox… or make your own colour scheme by choosing colours for your titles, background, menus, footer, buttons… just about everything!

9 title fonts.

You have a choice of nine different fonts for your store’s titles and/or menus.  Hopefully you’ll find one that works with the look you’re trying to get for your store.  If not, we can easily add a new font to your store for a small fee.  Our technique for achieving native font display in browsers is tried and proven, and works on most modern browsers.

Upload your own logo.

Easily upload your own logo to your store.  It’s re-sized automatically for you.

Display a slideshow on your home page.

Your store home page can display a slideshow of up to 5 images.  You can choose how many to display, upload your own images, and select the transition you want the slideshow animation to display… as well has how fast you want your slideshow to run.

Social media integration.

Facebook “like” buttons and Facebook comments, Twitter “tweet” buttons, links to your Facebook and Twitter pages, link to your newsletter service provider (such as MailChimp), and even a new customer wshlist function (currently in Beta testing)…. they’re all included, and all configurable in your Theme Editor without you having to edit a line of code.

Plus more features!

You can easily edit your colour scheme, and choose the menus to display in your store with a few clicks!  There are so many options in this theme that it’s difficult to list them without going on forever.  For more information about this theme, head over to our Knowledge base and view the Seattle theme guide.

To preview the Seattle theme, head over to the theme’s demo store at http://seattle.spiffystores.com

We’ve just released a bunch of new features, and this is the first of a series of blog entries to let you know about the changes.

As you’re probably aware, email marketing is an important part of  running an ecommerce site. At Spiffy Stores we’re always on the lookout to find new and better ways to help you run and promote your online store.

The first of these changes is a feature to help you create an email marketing mailing list. To recognize the importance of Email marketing, we’ve added a whole new section under “Marketing” in your store toolbox for the subject.

You now have the option of enabling an additional option to ask the customer whether they would like to be added to your mailing list at checkout time.  This option takes the form of a check box and a message that appears on the second checkout page of your online store.

You can enable this option and choose whether to have the option ticked or unticked by default. You can also change the default text that appears, and replace it with your own text.

If the customer agrees to accept email marketing, this fact will be recorded in a new customer record that we’ve created for email marketing purposes. If the customer places another order in your online store at a later date and doesn’t agree to accept email marketing, then their most recent choice will be recorded as the default for that customer.

Once you have some customers who have agreed, you will see a section in the side-bar of the “Email marketing” page where you can download a CSV file of all the customers who have agreed to receive email marketing. You can use this file to import into an email mailing list manager, such as MailChimp or Campaign Monitor.

This marketing page also includes some well known Email marketing service providers, and we include links to their sites so that you can signup for an account if you’re interested.

Finally, at the bottom of the page is some information about Web Hooks, which is another of our new features.

Stay tuned for another blog entry on how to use Web Hooks to automate stuff and link to external services. We’ll also give you all the information you need to link up your Spiffy Store to MailChimp or Campaign Monitor and have new email addresses added to these services automatically.