5 tips for BigCommerce email marketing beginners

Years after it was declared dead or dying, email marketing is still king. It remains by far the most effective marketing channel for ecommerce businesses, with BigCommerce email marketing generating a whopping $38 for every single dollar spent. 

Creating a successful BigCommerce marketing strategy is fairly straightforward with the right knowledge and marketing automation tools at your disposal. In this article, we’re going to provide you with some useful BigCommerce tips to get the most out of your email marketing efforts. 

Ready? Let’s go!

1. Create a professional email address

First things first—you need to create a professional email address. Using a free domain email address such as Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo is bad practice. Those email addresses are for personal use and not for commercial purposes. Most internet service providers will automatically spoil your campaign results by marking your emails as spam.

An example:

• [email protected] – improper email address
• [email protected] – good email address

An official email address helps with credibility to both your subscribers and spam filters that may otherwise block you. It’s also crucial for building a good sending reputation for your domain.

How should you create a BigCommerce email address for your business?

Some time ago, BigCommerce provided email hosting. However, they changed their email settings in 2015 and now recommend using a 3rd-party email service such as GoDaddy. 

Services like this make it easy for you to create your professional email address, providing you have your website up and running and have chosen an appropriate domain name first. 

2. Find an email service provider that fits your needs

Whether your business is big or small, you’ll need an email service provider for email marketing. Here are some reasons why:

• Email deliverability: General email marketing practice shows that approximately 5%-10% of subscribers never receive the emails that businesses send them, even campaigns sent from a professional email address. Due to a better online reputation, an email service provider has a higher deliverability rate, somewhere between 90% and 99%. For example, Omnisend delivers 98.25% of all emails. 
• Email bounce rate: This is one of the most important metrics to monitor when you’ve launched an email campaign. Without email service provider reports, proper bounce rate management is impossible. You can read more about bounce rates here.

• Mobile readiness: 49% of all emails are opened on a mobile device, so a mobile-ready or responsive design is crucial for BigCommerce email marketing. Using responsive BigCommerce email templates that adapt to your subscribers’ screen sizes will ensure that your recipients see precisely what you want them to see. 
• Analytics: Detailed statistics about your campaign are one of the most significant benefits of an email marketing service. Open and conversion rates are standard data for most email marketing software. Don’t rush your campaign—dig deeper to see which CTAs your recipients respond to, what devices they use, and more. 

There are many revenue-driving and time-saving apps available in the BigCommerce marketplace. You should pay attention to the main focus of your chosen email marketing platform. Does it provide all of the features needed for a successful BigCommerce marketing strategy? At a minimum, it should offer:

• A variety of signup forms and the ability to track their performance 
• Advanced, behavior-based customer segmentation for your campaigns
• Pre-built and customizable automated email workflows
• Added channels such as SMS and push notifications for omnichannel campaigns
• Value for money

Omnisend is an excellent example, with its ecommerce-specific design delivering all of these features and many more. It also has a unique focus on email marketing for BigCommerce clients. This is evident from the recent announcement that Omnisend has become one of only two email service providers chosen by BigCommerce as an Elite Technology Partner. Omnisend is also the only ESP on BigCommerce that has cross-device cart abandonment.

3. Launch signup forms on your BigCommerce store

The more active and engaged subscribers you have on your email list, the more effective your BigCommerce automated emails will be.  

Set up various signup forms throughout your website. Omnisend research suggests that interactive signup forms such as a Wheel of Fortune are the most effective, converting 12.74% of the time. To put this into perspective, the classic static signup form converts at an average of just 1.28%. Gamification in email marketing is definitely worth the investment.

Other options include popups that appear when a user gets ready to leave, also known as exit-intent popups, plus dedicated landing pages that provide a focused and easy sign-up directly from your ads or social media campaigns. 

It’s always useful to add incentives to your sign-up forms. These could be anything from simple discounts and free shipping to giving free access to an online course, event, or ebook. Offering these kinds of gifts in return for a sign-up can be the difference between a one-off visitor and a loyal returning customer, and has become standard practice. 

Find the nine proven methods on how to build an email list from scratch for more information on building a killer email list.

4. Work smart, not hard with BigCommerce automated emails

Marketing automation is a powerful tool that helps businesses reach their goals faster. Its timely nature and personalization potential also provides a better shopping experience for consumers. 

BigCommerce automated emails are a set of marketing emails that are sent to customers automatically. They’re triggered by user behavior and the way that they interact with your marketing. 

For example, when they sign up to your list, browse a product, make an order, or abandon a shopping cart. This kind of email can help you onboard, educate and retain customers, as well as upsell products and wish them a Happy Birthday.

The stats for BigCommerce automated emails are impressive. For example, Omnisend found that the conversion rate for automated emails is 359% greater than promotional campaigns. Not only that, but 29% of all email orders come from automated messages, even though they make up less than 2% of all email sends. 

Even if you are a beginner at email marketing, you should start sending the following automated emails to boost your revenue on autopilot:

BigCommerce welcome series

74.4 % of customers expect a welcome email when they subscribe. With this kind of email, you can expect an impressive 2.8% conversion rate, the highest of all automated emails.

Welcome email workflows work even better if you send a series of three emails in a row. The main benefits are as follows:

• You can tell your story and better introduce your brand
• You build credibility, trust, and anticipation 
• You can quickly convert new subscribers into customers and make sales

This kind of email automation is one of the easiest ways to take your marketing tactics to the next level. Read more here about building the best welcome emails.

Abandoned cart emails

Abandoned carts are a huge challenge for ecommerce brands. Sadly, only 3 out of 10 shopping carts end up with successful checkouts.

Automated abandoned cart emails go a long way towards solving this issue by reminding customers about their abandoned products. This is usually done with a series of 3 carefully-timed emails that provide a direct link back to the cart, include a photo of the product, and offer incentives to seal the deal. 

See the example below:

Abandoned cart automations are one of the easiest and most effective ways to boost your bottom line. They should be a top priority when creating your BigCommerce marketing strategy. 

You can use Omnisend’s pre-built cart abandonment workflow to get automating straight away. Simply add your content and branding to the BigCommerce email templates of your choice. 

Order/shipping confirmation emails

Customers need reassurance that their purchase was successfully completed and that their order is on the way. Order and Shipping Confirmation automated emails are effective ways to provide this, and even offer the chance for upselling. 

With surprisingly high conversion rates of over 18%, businesses have realized that they can include similar product recommendations in their confirmation automated emails, as well as discounts and other incentives to make a repeat purchase. This is an excellent way to make extra revenue and one that is often overlooked by retailers. 

Make good use of your confirmation automated emails by including personalized product recommendations and discount coupon codes.  

Other automated emails that you can add to your BigCommerce marketing strategy include: 

• Lapsed-purchase emails for customer retention
• Birthday emails with tempting discounts
• Browse Abandonment for re-engagement
• Transactional emails
• And more    

5. Schedule email newsletters

Although marketing automation is becoming the main focus of your BigCommerce email marketing strategy, BigCommerce newsletter campaigns are still a useful way to provide brand communication. You can send them on a regular schedule, weekly or monthly for example, or when you have special news or updates. 

Let’s run through a quick checklist for your BigCommerce email newsletter campaign. Before clicking the “Send” button, make sure that:

• Your subject line, the preheader, header, and footer are free of typos and up to date
• Your physical business address is included in the footer
• The “unsubscribe” link is in place
• Your social icons link to the correct network
• Your newsletter mirrors your overall branding (more about design and email templates)
• The newsletter body copy is free of typos
• All images, headlines, and CTA buttons are linked correctly
• All images have fallback and ALT text
• Sending times are relevant to your audience
• Different audience segments have the correct rules and exclusions
• Your test email looks good in your inbox on both desktop and mobile phones

Key takeaways

• Create a professional email to make your business credible to both your subscribers and spam filters
• Choose an email service provider focused on ecommerce
• Don’t postpone launching signup forms. Start collecting emails and phone numbers (for SMS marketing) immediately
• Enable email marketing automation. The first on your list should be high-converting welcome series, abandoned cart emails, and order/shipping confirmation emails 
• Send regular newsletter campaigns that are in line with your brand identity and provide value to your community.

With deep BigCommerce integration and all of the features you need to quickly grow your ecommerce business, Omnisend is the natural choice for BigCommerce users. Get started for free today and start driving sales on autopilot with pre-built automation workflows.