Everything you need to know about email marketing

The success of your online store relies on the ability for you to correctly market both your products and brand in order to create an interest in your customers, which then results in them visiting your store and making a purchase.

One of the most important aspects of promoting your business, especially if you are a small business looking to establish yourself is through email marketing. This form of marketing allows you to not only make people aware of your business who may not have come across your store through other channels, but also allows you to constantly engage with your current customers in order to help them become repeat buyers.

A recent infographic produced by iContact, has proven that despite what some people may think about email marketing, the marketing technique is very much growing from strength to strength. While there are now a number of different ways people can communicate with each other through social media, mobile devices and other communication tools, many people are still using email as one of the primary sources of communicating with both individuals and businesses. This is underpinned by the fact it is predicted that there will be close to a billion new email accounts created within the next four years. Although the vast majority of these obviously won't be customers to your ecommerce store, it just demonstrates the potential email marketing still has in being able to effectively engage with your customers to generate sales.

The most attention grabbing aspect of this infographic is the statistic showing the average return on email marketing. For every 1 dollar that a store owner spends on their email marketing, it will generate on average $44.25. For any business, whether it's a large established business or a small online store looking to get on their feet, this ROI is unbelievable and substantially better than what you would find through any other paid marketing channel.

However, you shouldn't just use email marketing to bring in new customers. You should be using this channel to send content to people who have already purchased from your store on a regular basis. This means sending them surveys on how they found the purchasing process, the latest news about your store and any promotions or offers that you are currently running. This will not only help you create relationships with your customers, but it also actively engages them and encourages them to come back to your store time and time again.