6 Reasons Your Etsy Shop Needs Email

Email has amazing super powers. If you aren’t sending a regular email newsletter you are losing an opportunity to connect with customers in a way that will keep them coming back over and over again.

Done right, an email newsletter will keep your Etsy shop in the front of your customer’s mind, build trust and increase customer loyalty. And since people buy from sellers they know and trust, an email newsletter can become your greatest sales tool.

Here’s how:

#1 Rise above the noise

You may have noticed that the crafting world is just a teeny, tiny bit crowded. Your beautiful, high quality products have to compete with 72 different Etsy shops selling the same thing.

Sending an email newsletter takes your shop off the crowded Etsy platform and away from your direct competitors. Creating a newsletter with links back to your store keeps customers from doing a product search and ending up in someone else’s shop. Instead, with one click of the mouse, you can take them from their email to your store.

#2 Build brand recognition

If a person orders from you once, they likely don’t remember your store name. If they want to order again or tell a friend about you, they’ll have to comb through old emails to find the transaction email. Hopefully they still have it.

If, however, you ask them to opt-in to a regular newsletter, your store name will pop up in their inbox from time to time. Each time they see it, they’ll think of you, and when they need you again, they’ll be able to find you right away.

#3 One more touchpoint

Touchpoint is a fancy marketing term that means all the ways a customer interacts with you. You already know it’s a good idea to have a Facebook page, a Twitter account and a blog. These are all touchpoints.

The more touchpoints you have with a customer, the better. Each touchpoint should underscore the quality and reliability of your products. Adding email newsletters to the mix gives you one more touchpoint and one more way for people to get to know you and want to do business with you.

#4 Reach a group of customers not on social media

As crazy as it sounds, not everyone is on social media. In fact, only 47 percent of adults who go online report that they use social networking sites.

On the other hand, 89 percent of adults check their email while online. That’s nine out of 10 people visiting their inbox. So sending an email newsletter makes sense is you want to reach the 50 percent of people not on Facebook and Twitter.

#5 Listen and learn

Built into your email service provider (a system like Emma, MailChimp, or AWeber) is a set of advanced analytics and list segmentation options that helps you track
•    who opens your emails
•    what time of day you get the most emails opened
•    who buys from your store by clicking on a link on your email
•    and much, much more!

Used right, this data can help you divide your list and send targeted messages to specific groups of customers.

#6 Keep customers coming back time and time again

The age-old marketing adage is true. It costs more (as much as 10 times more) to get a new customer than it does to keep an old one. Email newsletters that invite and inform will also provide the avenue for someone to come back to your shop when they need your products.

So if you’re not sending email newsletters – what are you waiting for? Seriously, what’s holding you back? Leave a comment and then check back next week for part 2 of this article, “6 Email Newsletter Fears Holding Back Your Etsy Business.”