This ecommerce strategy article is an excerpt from our new book, The Ultimate Ecommerce Email & SMS Playbook. We’re diving into our ecommerce strategy chapter focused on the 7 Reasons Why Ecommerce Customers Leave Your Brand.
We established in the last few chapters that everything revolves around a customer’s email or phone number, so it’s no wonder that texts get a high click rate, and emails are checked on average 40x a day.
If you think about it, every form of correspondence, both at work and at home, tends to revolve around those two channels. You ask coworkers to “send you an email with the meeting rundown,” or you tell your spouse to “text me the grocery list, so I have it,” or even encourage home services to “email us your quote.” We use email and SMS to communicate about every little thing.
Yet each person has a communication preference. Some prefer email, some like texts, some look forward to mail, and others are phone people. So, those individuals who prefer not to clog up their inbox tend to project their own email experiences and preferences on the channel.
People who can’t stand getting too many emails assume that EVERYONE is like them. They posit that since THEY never check their promotions or sales emails, it must be that NO ONE ever checks those emails either. This leads their brand to neglect the channel and make assumptions about their subscribers. As shown above, the number of email users is rising, so neglecting the channel will lead to a massive miss for brands that detest getting too much in their inbox.
There’s also another type of person who goes 50/50 on email & SMS. These types of people tend to send very few emails, so they don’t “spam their list,” clearly projecting their own experience on the channel yet again. Every unsubscribe bothers them, so they go entirely hands-off on their program, even though others have indicated a preference to hear from their brand often.
In this case, they miss 100% of the shots they don’t take; revenue doesn’t happen unless you start emailing. This method of sparse marketing could also lead to deliverability problems when they do opt to send an email.
Projecting your personal email experience on the channel and on your full subscriber base is why brands fail at email & SMS.
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