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Tuesday, 31 January 2012 15:42

Take another look at your email

Aside from a very simple signup form on our Shoes of Prey home page, and a monthly email newsletter, we've never explored email marketing in great detail.

We recently added a dismissible email signup popup on our Sneaking Duck online try-on page and we're now capturing email addresses from about 5% of the total visitors to the Sneaking Duck website. This has us thinking about ways we can use email marketing more for both Shoes of Prey and Sneaking Duck.

Successful online retailers like Fab.com, Gilt Group and BrandsExclusive here in Australia require you to sign up and provide your email address to even access their site, and email marketing has been a key component of their success.

We don't want to go that far, but we've been thinking of adding a dismissible email signup popup on our 3D shoe designer page, then creating a five part email series that goes to new customers explaining some of our most commonly asked questions around shipping, delivery time and returns policy.

We also cover some key sales messages, like the very bespoke way our shoes are made, the natural leathers and materials we use, the fact we sell gift certificates and that our shoes are great for events like weddings.

Have you considered using email marketing in your start-up? If so, what has worked well for you?

Michael Fox managed Google’s online sales and operations agency team for Australia and New Zealand before moving into entrepreneurship. He's a co-founder of Shoes of Prey, an online retail website which allows women to design their own shoes and Sneaking Duck, which sells fashionable prescription glasses online. He blogs in detail about the process of running Shoes of Prey at his blog www.22michaels.com.

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Great article. We have many ecommerce businesses using our www.mantismail.com.au email marketing platform and find it really easy to use and send out email promotions. The clients that do use it notice a huge increase in sales from existing customers and new customers that have signed up for newsletters and promos.

David Mason , January 31, 2012

A really nice addition to this article or separate article is info on the Spam Act. You'd be amazed at how many businesses buy dodgy cheap email lists online and then start 'cold emailing' them...usually totally unaware that they are breaching the Spam Act.

And not to mention damaging their brands. If they are reported by angry recipients, and then investigated by ACMA, ACMA will name the spammer in their media releases...and guess what appears when someone does a Google search of the new company? "ABZ Company given formal warning for breaching Spam Act." Or worse: "ABZ Company fined for spamming". Ouch.

Please advise start-ups that you must have permission to send a commercial email, and you cannot cold email from a purchased list of emails unless you have a written guarantee that everyone on the list knows they are on it and has given express permission.

Don't get fobbed off by "oh just stick an opt-out at the end and it's legal." Yes you need an opt-out on all emails, but you still must have consent to send in the first place.

The awareness of the Do Not Call Register is very high (which now covers faxing businesses) , but the Spam Act has low awareness. so make sure any email lists are legal!

Kerryn Marlow , February 01, 2012