Ecommerce Email Marketing 101 (With The Email Agency)

Author

Rachelle C Davis
October 13, 2023

If you’re an ecom brand or marketer…

Or you’d like to do freelance work with ecom brands…

Listen up because today our Friday Feature guest is an ecommerce email marketing master.

Josh Kropkof is the CEO of The Email Agency (TEA).

Read on to find out how TEA helps ecommerce brands 2x-3x their email list revenue…

In part because they bring the neglected stepsister of marketing out from the shadows.

You’ll also learn about current opportunities in ecom as a marketer or freelancer.

Want Josh’s email marketing tricks?

Join his free newsletter list called “The Email Revolution” right here:

RCD: How’s your year going?

JK: We're definitely moving more into consulting for companies this year. Because we're noticing, we've just had a lot of brands that come to us, and they need help with email marketing, but they don't want to outsource it.

They're not trying to just give it to an agency to do it. And that's something that really is different… they have someone who's already doing it on their team, and they want us to help that person, or they are doing it themselves. And they don't really want to hand it off. So I think that's a big change that I'm seeing…

The other side of it is…we've gotten some of the best results for ecommerce this year that we ever have, in terms of actual like results with email… in terms of how much revenue we generated. But I also think it's been the hardest year to get ecommerce clients on board.

That industry, just selling physical products online in general, I think is having a very challenging year… things like supply chain issues and just different economic things have started to catch up with people and I think they're struggling…

Almost every brand I talked to, even if they're, you know, an eight figure company, still are kind of going through layoffs and going through having to cut different parts of their operation.

People aren't thinking in terms of like, wanting to expand and do more. They're thinking where can I cut, you know, where can I cut back? How can I tighten the belt? How can I save money? And that's again, that's something new this year that really, you know, we were weren't seeing as much of that beforehand.

It's important to get the message out there that, even when things are tough in the economy, it's important to advertise. It's important to still put more effort more resources into that, because even during the Great Depression… like the companies that did well, were the ones that spent more on advertising…

So I think that ecommerce is still a huge, huge opportunity for marketers. Every ecommerce brand needs help with marketing. But at least from what we've done, we've had to adjust our offers to figure out how to best help them during this time.

RCD: What’s the biggest mistake you see businesses make with their email marketing?

JK: They don't use direct response marketing. They don't really understand how direct response email marketing is different from what they're doing already, which is usually void of any strategy, really.

And they kind of treat email the same as they do every channel. So I think that's the biggest mistake. I think most business owners in the world do not know what direct response marketing is. They're not educated on it.

So I think the biggest thing that they can do is learn direct response marketing. Learn how it's different, learn how to apply it and then send more email just send direct response emails.

I talk to a lot of different businesses. And I can always tell instantly, when I'm talking to a business owner that knows direct response, because they're talking about different things, right?

They're talking about funnels, they're talking about buying leads, and how much it costs for a lead and how much that lead is worth. They're talking about things that I just know, okay, this person understands direct response marketing.

Whereas someone who doesn't understand direct response marketing, they're going to be talking about things like photoshoots, commercials, influencer marketing, the terms they're gonna use are totally different.

It’s more like exposure, getting out in front of the mass audience. Whereas direct response, it's more like, how can I walk people down this path to a conversion to a sale? And then how can I upsell them?

We have our responsibility as marketers to try to bridge that gap, because really, both sides are important. But definitely direct response is more the black sheep right now. It's more of the stepchild, nobody knows about them, everybody ignores it.

We’ve got to get this information out there. More people need to learn what this is. Honestly, schools should be teaching it. Like it should be something that, when you go into business - you know what direct response marketing is.

I think all the time, how can we help the situation? How can we educate people? Honestly, doing things like this, you know, doing interviews, putting out articles, email newsletters, that's the way that we're going to help change that situation.

If you’re an ecom brand, learn more about The Email Agency here:

You can also get The Email Agency’s free “Email Profits Cheat Sheet” here:

And don’t forget to get Josh’s free “The Email Revolution” emails:

-Rachelle C Davis

P.S. I’ve personally learned SO much about email marketing from TEA since 2018.

TEA is truly a wealth of knowledge for ecom marketing and email marketing in general. Take advantage of their free resources.