There are several marketing methods that you can use.
Within this, I am certainly not going to tell you to that you should not explore what other marketing methods out there.
However, my goal is to encourage you to try email marketing if you think it is a possibility for your ecommerce website.
First of all, you should be aware that there some pretty strict rules when it comes to email marketing.
In fact, when most people hear about it for the first time they immediately think of the countless spam emails they have sent to their email inbox every day.
Fortunately, this is not what email marketing is about.
The difference between spam and email marketing is that within the proper way of email marketing you are required to not send unsolicited emails.
For example, pulling a random list of email addresses from a database of some kind and sending each of them an email is pretty frowned upon.
Not only by those receiving the emails, but also by law.
You could end paying a hefty fine if you are caught doing this.
Not only is it illegal, but it will not work.
How many times, if ever, have you responded to the spam email that you receive? You have more probability of having your email added to the junk senders list than you do to get someone to respond.
I, for one, have never responded or purchased anything from spam that has hit my inbox.
Even if I am interested in their type of service or product, I might read the email.
If I know that I never subscribed to receive the email then it reeks of unprofessionalism and I will go elsewhere to make my purchase.
So when does it work? It works when you have real leads with people who are really interested in your products.
I will use a classic example.
I have purchased my airline tickets several times online.
I ended up purchasing once from a popular company online that sells airline tickets.
Every month or so they will send me an email with specials they have going on.
Typically, I always go through them when I am looking to go on a vacation.
I have probably made at least three or four purchases through them, several times through their email.
Their email seems to be targeted to me as they know my routine buying pattern.
I do not rent hotels from them normally, but their emails target the area specials from my airport.
The idea here is that I am not simply getting an email from them when I have never purchased from them and have no interest in buying plane tickets online.
They know that I buy plane tickets online.
They know where I flew from.
I am interested in what they have to offer.
Maybe not every time they send me something, but if I buy something from them once out of every 12 emails they might send me a year that is worth it for them.
The concept here is that you need to market via email to those interested in your products.
If you are not doing this then you may be wasting your time.
You will even see better results if you are capable of refining your emails to specific people who might be interested in a certain product.
For example, if you sell office supplies and you had someone buy staples from your store, I would encourage you to send them an email each time you have a sell on them.
They probably couldn't care less when you send them emails about specials on laptops or something else.