5 Essential Retail Emails You Need to be Sending

Email is a big win for retail.

In fact, four out of five SMB retailers say that email drives customer acquisition and retention. Retailers ranked it the best way to get customers and keep them loyal.

But customers aren’t won with simple coupons or sale announcements.

Customers expect much, much more: they expect personalized, helpful content. Brands need to please their customers at all stages of the customer journey to win them and keep them coming back.

Here are five retail emails B2C businesses must be sending to their subscribers to win in the inbox.

1. Welcome Emails

Your prospects are receiving a lot of email. The average office worker receives a whopping 121 emails per day.

When a customer gives you their email address, it’s as if they’ve just given you a gift. It’s only polite to send a thank you email.

Plus, welcome emails are a great opportunity to educate, help and convert with great, personalized content.

Suitcase brand Away uses its welcome email to educate customers and emphasize its brand. The email doesn’t just push a sale – it shows why their luxury suitcase is built for travelers.

2. Product Announcements

A great way to build brand ambassadors is to make them feel like they’re an elite, “in the know” group. When the new season’s products come in, it’s essential you drive traffic and buzz.

Healthy meal service Sakura invites customers to try its new nutritional powder with a beautiful, on-brand email. But that’s not all. Sakura gives insiders who signed up for its most recent challenge a sneak peek.

3. How-To’s

Few things are more frustrating than coming home with an exciting new purchase and realizing you don’t know how to use it.

Keep your customers happy. Follow up with a helpful post-purchase email with tips for how to get started.

Google Home Mini gives users a few simple commands to use out of the box.

4. Abandoned Cart Emails

Up to 77% of online shopping carts are abandoned. Sometimes, this is because users are comparison shopping. But others may have just gotten interrupted or forgot to finish a purchase. Others might need a little extra convincing. It’s in your best interest to gently nudge the customer in the right direction. If you don’t, your customer may never return to the cart.

Shoe brand Adidas uses cheeky copy and testimonials to convince customers to hit “purchase.”

5. Loyalty Rewards

A new customer is good. A new, loyal customer is great. Rewarding customer loyalty is vital to ensuring your one-time customers keep coming back.

Clothing retailer Express tempts users with rewards by reminding them of their points.

The key to getting the most from your email strategy is to put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Ask: what will genuinely be helpful to subscribers? Being helpful and empathetic to customers needs requires tapping into your data and adding context with third-party data to better understand customer needs from the get-go.

Ready to wow your customers. Get started with Email Intelligence on our InstantData platform.