Email is not one size fits all. In fact, email is a pretty broad channel and while that may be one of the reasons we love it so much, it can make it a little intimidating to get started. What do I say? When do I send? What should I measure? Will people even care?

Like any marketing initiative, your email strategy should match your goals, so allow me to introduce you to the three types of emails that work brilliantly for indie retailers. Each has it’s own purpose, and while a healthy email program will incorporate all the types, this will help you narrow down your content and measure your results.

Newsletters

Newsletters are your most connective emails. They feel the most personal and help balance the scales of transactional and relationship building in your business, a critical element of successful indie retailers. Your newsletters will become a critical touchpoint in your customer experience and something your audience looks forward to over time. Newsletters are content focused.

Goal: Increase engagement

Promotional Emails

Your promotional emails are your sales driving emails. These are the ones that likely come to mind when you think “email marketing”. There are plenty of ways to make these feel more fun, more exciting, more on brand, but the overall goal is to get those opens and inspire those clicks so you see some $$$ roll through. Promotional emails are product focused.

Goal: Drive sales

Automated Emails

Your automations, flows, drip campaigns (there are so many names for these babies) are emails that assist and automate parts of your customer experience – from welcome flows to post purchase triggers to winback campaigns. These tend to be more set and forget (yay!) and will require upkeep rather than constant creation. Automated emails are experience focused.

Goal: Retain customers

As you can see, email can serve a lot of purposes within your business – it’s one of the reasons we love it so much. In order to make the most out of it, you’ll want to choose the structure that aligns with your goals and get to creating!