9 Email Conversion Hacks for Your Fashion Commerce Brand

When there is an eCommerce, there are emails. Email marketing has grown so much so far that it has become much more important for a fashion eCommerce store than any other traditional or digital marketing techniques.

Why are you looking for email marketing hacks? You want to-

• Increase Deliverability
• Boost Traffic
• Improve Conversion Rates
• Boost Sales
• Strengthen ROI

Though you are here to improve your conversion ratios, it directly affects all of your goals mentioned in the above list.

Hence, let’s straightaway discuss how you can improve your fashion eCommerce emails and see an improved conversion rate.

1. Plan & document your email marketing

Why am I considering planning and strategizing the email marketing campaigns as a hack here? Because

• 77% of B2C customers prefer to get permission-based promotional emails (Source)
• 80% of e-retailers say that email marketing is their 1st rated marketing technique that drives highest customer retention (Source)

Looking at the above email marketing statistics, if you plan and strategize it effectively, you can take the benefit of increasing the traffic as well as conversion rates.

The hacks to improving your fashion eCommerce emails begin with how you plan your complete email marketing.

You have to decide on-

• How many emails do you want to send to your customers?
• What kind of emails do you want to send to your customers?
• How frequently would you send them the emails for each campaign?
• What do you expect out of your emails? (we discussed in the introductory part)
• How would you design each of your emails?
• How would you design your email templates?

Based on all the above decisions, create a documented strategy including all the above.

And, Hubspot shares a template of email marketing plan which you can utilize for your fashion eCommerce store-

Don’t forget-

The plan remains just a plan if it is not documented.

2. Work hard on your subject line

Once, you are done with planning and documenting your fashion eCommerce store, you now need to focus on how you would attract, engage, and delight your customers through your emails.

Among all the other, the most eye-catching thing in your email is the SUBJECT LINE. The subject line of your email decides whether the customers should open your emails or not.

An average email open rate is 41% for shopping industry out of the data of 312,000 emails.

Let’s discuss what you should do and don’t hacks to improve your fashion eCommerce emails:

Dos for Email Subject Line

• Keep it short and simple
• Add personalization even in the subject line
• Give them the reason to open your emails

Personally, I prefer to read the emails that include my name in the subject line. 

Don’ts for Email Subject Line

• Avoid self-promotions only
• Never use ALL CAPS in the subject line
• Never send the subject line without proofreading

And, I seriously don’t even bother to open the emails with the following kind of subject lines.

Don’t forget- 

If your email subject line fails to impress, your customers won’t engage.

3. Don’t “bcc” to everyone

Well, not all fashion eCommerce brands do this mistake. But, this happens to the online fashion brands that are completely new to eCommerce and even with the email marketing thing.

Also, this happens to people who have limited email addresses to set up their email campaigns. So, to avoid buying an email automation tool, they send an email with their own email address in the “To” section and all the other ones in the “bcc” section.

Learn this now and keep it with you forever for your email marketing success. 

Dos

• Always keep recipient email address in the ‘To’ list
• Use email marketing tools like MailChimp, Hubspot, etc. to remove all these bcc elements for bulk mailing

Don’ts

• Don’t send an email with too many recipients in cc or bcc

Here, I share a sample of how people use “bcc” in their email campaigns. And, I was the victim of this campaign. 

You know what? Most of these kinds of emails are considered as spam and are often missed by your customers.

So, always avoid having “bcc” in your promotional fashion eCommerce emails. They won’t drive you any business.

4. Choose personalized email address over “noreply@”

Another eCommerce email marketing hack is to have a personalized email address.

Okay, before I move on to show you the type of email addresses you should have, let’s go in reverse here. Please, please, please! Please never ever use “[email protected]” kind of email addresses.

These emails give an impression of – “DO NOT TRUST and Never Ever OPEN Next Time.”

An article showcases why you should not use “noreply@” email addresses-

Now, that you know that you should never use such email addresses, I would suggest you brainstorm on the names that you would use to give a personal touch to the email addresses.

So, what should you do and don’t to choose the right email address to improve your eCommerce email experience?

Dos for Email Addresses

• Use something like, “support@”, “care@”, “info@”, and anything that suits your brand reputation
• For more personalized email marketing, you can use an individual’s own personalized email address (dedicated to email marketing)

Here, I haven’t known any fashion eCommerce brands doing such things. But, I have an example which I strongly recommend people should do.

Like, if I were an owner of an online fashion store, I would have an email address that gives people a feel to be connected directly to me, rather to anyone random from the brand.

But, since I am not an owner of any fashion eCommerce store, I would choose – [email protected]

Don’ts for Email Addresses

• Never ever use email addresses like- “noreply@” or “donotreply@” kind of email addresses
• Never use email addresses that are too random for your customers like, “abc@” or “branding123@”
• Avoid using campaign-related email addresses like “emailmarketing@” or “yourfirstmail@” or “welcome@” or “newsletter@”

I am sharing with you a sample of an email address which I would never prefer and recommend to anyone-

This is definitely not a fashion eCommerce store. But, if these kind of emails are unable to do good for these brands, then how would they help your brand?

Don’t forget-

Email addresses decide how smart and genuine you are, whether it’s personal or professional.

5. Avoid having too long emails

The most preferred mode of communication is the email these days.

But, we should understand the value of our customers’ time. We cannot expect them to read whatever that we write in an email. I was searching a lot to find a perfect example for you and I found that here – 

OMG! Hats off to smartrmail.com to bring such a huge newsletter which even I was tired of looking at it.

If the email marketers cannot enjoy such a huge email, how can you expect your customers who have too less patience, to read the entire email?

The eCommerce emails tend to have less text and more of images to attract your customers. Hence, you need to be extra careful while crafting your promotional emails.

So, here I come up with another email marketing hack for your fashion eCommerce store is to keep your emails short and simple.

Dos

• Use high quality but fewer images that you can use to attract the customers
• Have one-fold email scroll to improve conversions
• Keep your email relevant to the campaign you’re running

Don’ts

• Don’t have your emails too long
• Never go more than 2-fold scroll to avoid distractions until it has bigger images to showcase your products
• Don’t add everything offer in one email to make it look uninteresting and confusing

Here, I am sharing an email from Myntra which is not at all long and I enjoy these kinds of emails-

Don’t forget-

Customers have the lowest patience level. Keep your emails short, relevant, and conversion-focused.

6. Include personalization

We have been listening to this PERSONALIZATION thing for a long time now. As per an infographic,

• 82% of marketers saw an increase in email open rates when they used email personalization
• 75% of marketers say it gives higher CTRs
• An average median ROI of a personalized email marketing campaign is 122%
• 58% of the revenue is generated by the emails that are segmented, targeted, and personalized

So, if email personalization has such great after effects, you must do it for your fashion eCommerce store.

Check out what I received from Amazon, when I was searching for JBL speakers – 

Dos for personalized email

• Create an email strategy based on appropriate segmentation- demographics, interests, audience, and much more
• Prepare personalized emails based on products searched, bought, and left in the cart
• Always, write email content in 2nd person language for each individual customer

Don’ts for personalized email

• Having a personalized email subject line is not enough for a personalized email and hence, have a personalized email body content as well
• Adding just the “you” in the email body content does not make it personalized and hence, you need to analyze customer behavior and habits to personalize the eCommerce emails
• Don’t personalize each and every email that you send and hence, you focus on personalizing emails where you are looking to improve the open and conversion ratios

Nykaa sends me an email during a sale going on and that is not personalized, but highly effective-

Don’t forget- 

Personalization is necessary. But, when and how, makes a huge difference.

7. Format your fonts effectively for mobile

Everything is going mobile.

Recently, Google rolled out an update named mobile-first index.

Also, the entire eCommerce industry is shifting their focus towards mobile because as per Statista, almost 40% of retail eCommerce is expected to take place via mobile in 2018 and 54% by the year 2021.

And, does the conversion ratio of your desktop emails are more compared to the mobile emails?

This means, your fashion eCommerce emails look great on desktops compared to mobile.

8. Highlight the promo codes appropriately

Why do you use promo codes for your fashion eCommerce store?

Obviously, to boost the conversion ratios and ultimately, sales. But, promo codes decreases the cost at which you are selling your products. So, I have seen various brands not focusing on sharing promo codes that are easily visible.

But, as you do on your website banners, you also need to highlight the promo codes even on your emails.

Dos for highlighting promo codes

• Highlight it with appropriate font style, size, and color
• Use a background on the promo code to allow to be visible neatly
• Use in your email banners to improve conversions drastically

See, how Adidas emailed me when I had registered-

Don’ts for highlighting promo codes

• Never write promo codes in the plain text
• Never add promo codes within the content of your email that is barely visible to your customers on desktop or mobile
• Don’t add too much styling to the promo codes which leads to user confusion

Well, I didn’t like the email that I had received from H&M–

Don’t forget-

Promo codes invoke the conversion ratios. Use it strategically to work for your own benefit.

9. Strategize your unsubscribe process effectively

If customers are given freedom to opt for subscribing to your newsletters, then they have all the rights to opt out.

And, this is important for almost all the companies focusing on email marketing.

In fact, fashion eCommerce brands never fail to entice their customers through emails. But, sometimes, the users are no longer your follower or maybe he/she is frustrated by your emails or anything else.

Rather having the subscribers unnecessarily, who are hardly going to get converted, you should only focus on the people who are actually going to buy from your store- your genuine brand lovers, customers, and followers.

But, it is even more important to plan the ‘unsubscribe’ process effectively.

Dos for unsubscription

• Add the “unsubscribe now” link at the top and the bottom of all of your emails
• Have a perfect process of unsubscription that does not send emails to people who have opted out (choose your tools wisely)
• Highlight the “unsubscribe now” in your welcome email

I liked the way, the Verge Girl crafted their welcome email highlighting “unsubscribe here”-

Don’ts for unsubscription

• Never ever avoid having a link to unsubscribe because it affects customer experience
• Don’t place the unsubscribe links less visible in the email
• Don’t make your unsubscribe links too small in size

This is the footer of H&M where they have placed a link to unsubscribe and I really liked the way they’ve placed it. The link’s font color is darker compared to other information present in the footer. So, it is easy for a user to find the link to unsubscribe.

Don’t Forget- 

Unsubscription to emails is not about your wish. It is about the customer’s choice.

Start Looking at Your Emails

Email marketing for fashion eCommerce receives almost 100-1000% or more conversion ratios if done rightly. Don’t email your customers just for the sake of marketing, do it in a way that increases your count of loyal customers and improves your overall ROI.

What is that one email marketing hack that made a spike in your Google Analytics? Share it with us.