How to email marketing grocery store 2022
- superstoresolution
- Apr 18, 2022
- 6 min read
Grocery stores traditionally relied on marketing channels such as print media, outdoor advertising, and flyers. While these channels are still effective and help get the message out, their nature is untargeted, meaning that you’re potentially wasting part of your advertising budget to reach the wrong audience.
On the other hand, email marketing lets you send the right message to the right person and craft personalized campaigns that resonate with your email subscribers. Moreover, email is among the most effective channels in online marketing, providing a direct line of communication with both past and new customers.
Here are some critical points grocery stores usually targeting on:
enlarge the number of customers;
extend online presence and authority;
drive more consumers with the special deals and sales events;
increase the customer loyalty;
raise the rate of the store’s competitiveness;
boost the year over year sales;
improve the cooperation with the related businesses ;
enhance the traffic for getting a broader range of the products and services offered, etc.
As you can see, these benefits can greatly improve the grocery business performance, which means the constant ROI increases as well as achieving the leading positions in this industry.
Here are the main steps you need to follow to set up an email marketing strategy for your grocery store from scratch.
1. Select an Established Email Service Provider (ESP)
First of all, you should choose the email service provider (or ESP) – that will allow you to send email newsletters to hundreds and even thousands of subscribers.
Your chosen ESP can assist you in email list segmentation, email personalization and automation, and eCommerce integration.
Below you’ll find some key functionalities your ESP should have:
The next step is to build a healthy email list. Growing your email subscriber list can be trickier than it sounds. You need to collect email addresses from people that are interested in your products and will be more likely to purchase from you.
As a first step, you can collect the email addresses of your current customers. According to a study conducted by Benchmark, 56% of grocery business email lists are composed of existing clients.
The next steps to grow your email list should be to go where your potential clients would be:
Restaurant openings
Community events
Food fairs, trade shows, and expos
Customer service desk
Downloadable catalogs
Website sign-ups
You will be able to get active consumers who are willing to be informed about the latest news, updates, sales events, and special deals of your grocery store.
Therefore, you need to segment your audience into smaller groups to be able to target them better and more efficiently. Creating customer segments will help you deliver tailored content and a more personalized experience to your customers.
Some ideas for the customer segments you can create include:
New subscribers: send a welcome email or series to build trust with them and nudge them towards making a purchase.
VIPs: they are the most loyal of your customers. Reward them with exclusive offers or loyalty programs to keep them happy.
One-time buyers: a re-engagement email or a follow-up offer after a purchase could turn them into repeat customers.
Engaged customers: subscribers who open most of your emails.
Expenditure: segment your audience based on the value of their purchases.
Preferences: customer segments based on the product categories or brands they prefer.
After you’re done with the previous steps, it’s time to decide what types of emails you are going to send. Think about what motivates your customers to buy from you and craft engaging messages that will keep them coming back.
The general tendency of most grocery stores is to send sales-oriented messages. However, there are also a plethora of other ideas that you should explore for your email content. Let’s go ahead and see them one by one:
Email is the perfect way to let your customers know that you’ve recently added a new product or product line to your store.
This type of email works particularly well with brand new products which have just been launched, especially if they have also been heavily advertised. Inform your customers about them and amplify their eagerness to try them out.
As you can see, the brand follows a clean email design with high-quality product images and a bright call-to-action (CTA) that leverages white space to stand out.
What is unique about this campaign is that the brand uses a red sticker-like graphic on top of the image to attract attention to the new product line.
To take things a step further, you could accompany this with a limited-time discount exclusive to email subscribers. That would serve as an “irresistible invitation” for customers to try the new product out.
Any kind of news pertaining to store announcements and events should also come in the form of an email update, regardless of its in-store promotion.
The benefit of such emails is twofold. Not only do you establish a close connection with them but you also ensure that customers who might no longer visit your stores get updated about big clearance events, delivery news, etc.
This email informs customers about the new option for “same-day delivery” through their partner while shopping from the comfort of their home or work.
Additionally, the brand nicely promotes the new service by offering the first three deliveries for free. The red banner with white lettering immediately stands out, while it also adds “urgency” to utilize the offer since it is only for a limited time.
Undoubtedly, one of the busiest and most profitable periods for grocery stores is the holiday season like Christmas and Thanksgiving.
Consumers are actively searching for seasonal products and deals to save money and get as many items as they can. At the same time, they are more likely to spend more on groceries compared to other times of the year.
For this reason, you need to provide your customers with holiday-themed content. Such content includes recipe ideas and deals on popular holiday items.
Grocery store marketing could not but include recipe suggestions and ideas that customers can use to upgrade their cooking game. After all, one of the most common reasons for grocery shopping is to purchase ingredients for home recipes.
Emails about promotional sales are a major chunk of grocery marketing emails. These kinds of emails are particularly useful to attract customers to your store and increase their likelihood to make a purchase.
To make your promotional emails effective you need to highlight the product savings and include high-quality imagery of the featured products.
Last but not least, you have to send them at the right frequency. Usually, the ideal frequency for such newsletters is once a week. Avoid sending at a higher frequency as you could potentially annoy your subscribers and risk them unsubscribing.
Previously, we explored those campaigns that require “manual” work every time you need to send them to your customers.
Email automation, however, opens up a whole new level of efficiency in grocery email marketing. Not only do you engage with your customers when it makes sense but you also save crucial time instead of creating the same campaigns from scratch.
If you want to take your brick-and-mortar grocery store online, check out our guide.
Let’s go ahead and see some of the most important categories of automated emails.
To make sure your campaigns work as intended, you need to track their performance and identify ways that they can be improved. Most email service providers offer reporting and analytics tools that help you greatly in the process.
There are three key metrics that you should be focusing on and these are the open rate, click-through rate (CTR), and unsubscribes.
As for the CTR, it shows how many people actually clicked on your email’s elements. If your CTR is not great, you need to improve your email copy and A/B test for CTA placement. Additionally, use actionable wording in your CTA to inspire action and drive more conversions.
Finally, the unsubscribes. While they are unavoidable, it’s important to keep an eye on them, since a high number indicates that you may not be delivering on your promises or you’re providing content that doesn’t resonate with your audience.
Grocery stores email marketing implies a deep knowledge of your customers’ needs. Once you understand what type of information your customers expect from you, you will be able to provide them with useful and relevant emails.
With these tips in mind, you’ll be able to get the most of the email marketing for your business.
Comments