Too many email marketers rely solely on offering simple discounts to their subscribers in an effort to increase ecommerce sales, but there are so many other options to incentivise your readers to take action. But remember, ecommerce incentives have become expected, so you really have to be creative to stand out.
Here are 21 creative ways to use ecommerce incentives to increase your email engagement stats and boost conversions.
1. Discount (Straight Up X% Off)
Discount codes are used by a huge number of customers, many of whom will regularly scan their inbox, and even discount code websites, in search of a deal. However, this doesn’t mean marketers can afford to get complacent when creating their campaigns.
You can keep your discount emails looking fresh by introducing new elements into the mix. Try to leverage urgency with a countdown timer or end date for your offers, and create scarcity by limiting the available supply of your product.
2. Discount Off Your Next Purchase
This strategy offers a twist on the straight up discount. While it’s closely tied to the discount incentive, it’s frequently used as an incentive to gain repeat custom from your existing list by getting them to purchase again in the future and become loyal customers.
3. Giveaway Entries for Making a Purchase
This is where the customer is automatically entered into a free prize draw for some awesome prizes when they make a purchase.
It’s important to note the distinction between asking customers to make a purchase as a necessary condition for entering a giveaway, versus simply rewarding customer loyalty with rewards and giveaway entries. This incentive falls into the latter category. This is an important distinction to be aware of to stay on the right side of GDPR regulations.
4. Free Coupons
While there are many brands which use a coupon strategy as a blueprint for their business model, it’s also something which regular ecommerce marketers can include as part of their marketing plan.
Try this strategy out on specific product ranges, or send a gift card to say thanks to customers for buying. This promotes customer loyalty, can lead to a higher purchase volume, and can encourage customers to purchase products that aren’t selling as fast as you’d like.
5. Free Product Upgrades
This is an ecommerce incentive often used by SaaS (Software as a Service) companies and other software firms. While not cost-effective in every scenario, free product upgrades can be also used to kick-start new product launches. They can even be used as a way to grandfather-in early adopters and create brand advocates.
For example, you could run a campaign such as “Sign up for our Basic package in the next 24 hours, and receive a free lifetime upgrade to our Pro package!“
These campaigns can also be used for physical products. For example, “Pay for a 256gb hard drive, and we’ll upgrade it to a 512gb hard drive completely free of charge“.
6. Free Shipping
This is especially useful for ecommerce products where the price of shipping can be prohibitive to the completion of the sale (when you’re competing against Amazon Prime, this can be a make or break situation). Adding free shipping as an incentive eliminates customer hesitation and reduces the amount of abandoned carts. It’s also common to see “Free shipping on orders over $50” which can be used to increase the average cost per sale.
To add a sense of urgency to this incentive, try something like “Free shipping on all orders for the next 72 hours!” This promotion can work especially well if sent to visitors who abandoned cart at the shipping page.
7. Free Shipping Upgrades
Giving consumers the choice for expedited shipping is popular with many online shopping marketplaces, such as eBay, Etsy, or Amazon. Offering free expedited shipping as an incentive helps you stay competitive and can sway customers who prefer a premium level of service. Use this incentive as part of your email marketing strategy to offer your brand a level of prestige that will boost sales.
We’ve seen this approach work particularly well in the run-up to Christmas where customers have left it too late for a package to arrive using standard shipping. For example, “Free expedited shipping so your gifts will arrive on time!”.
8. Free Samples Included
Ecommerce brands who are confident in their ability to win over customers with the quality of their product can use this strategy in their emails. Offering free samples is an excellent way to build trust with your customers, many of whom will go on to make a higher volume purchase further down the line.
For these campaigns, you could go all out and offer free samples to the next 1000 people who sign up to your email list. Or your could send out a campaign offering people free samples of your next product range on any orders made in the next seven days.
9. VIP Treatment
Consider offering a VIP service to highly valued customers or subscribers. This VIP service could include things such as exclusive offers, free shipping, insider information, free live streams, access to membership groups, etc.
If you have a particularly enticing VIP service, you could charge a monthly fee for this. Otherwise, you could set up a campaign where any customers who place an order over, say $150, get automatic access to your VIP service for the next 12 months.
10. Product Bundling
Rather than simply offering individual products, bundle together a range of related products and offer these with a discount. For example, a nutritional supplements company may offer an “Energy Boosting Supplements Bundle” for $50, whereas if the individual supplements were purchased separately, it would cost considerably more.
11. Cashback
This is a popular strategy for ecommerce sites who want to encourage customers to shop via their service rather than elsewhere. It works by applying a percentage of money back to the customer’s account each time they purchase an item. Customers can save money and potentially earn $100s per year, while the cashback site earns affiliate commission on sales.
This is a win-win situation for marketers with strong affiliate ties and a list of hungry consumers. Plus, announcing awesome cashback offers to your email list can be a great way to get people spending money with you if they haven’t made a purchase in a while.
12. Buy One Give One
This philanthropic ecommerce incentive is often used by eco-conscious brands or those with a commitments to supporting communities in need. Each time a customer makes a purchase, a like-for-like donation is given on their behalf. It’s a sustainable business model that’s gaining popularity with many brands and is worth investigating if your product could be used to support less wealthy communities. A variation on this strategy is used by investment companies who can offset carbon emissions by working with sustainable energy investments in poorer countries.
13. Bulk Discounts
This is somewhat related to product bundling and helps to increase total order volume. An example of this is the ‘buy one get one half-price‘ offer, which is the perfect strategy for selling excess stock or increasing your sales with items such as boosters or add-ons, to keep the user engaged with your product.
14. Free Download with Purchase
Depending on the type of product you offer, offering a digital download can be an attractive incentive for your list. Brochures, user guides, templates, cheat sheets, white-papers, ebooks, and catalogues are examples of free downloads that can be offered in multiple formats and can add significant extra value to a purchase.
15. Free Gift With Purchase
Similar to digital downloads, a free gift is a powerful incentive that can result in an uptick in sales. By purchasing items in bulk, you will get wholesale discount. You can then offer this item as a free gift in return for purchasing a specific item from your website. It’s obviously important to make sure that offering the free gift doesn’t chip away at your profit too much. But the added incentive to purchase can easily make this offer worthwhile.
If you wanted, you could offer gifts that promote your own brand. Pen drives, portable phone chargers, tote bags, reusable coffee cups, and sunglasses are examples of items that can be branded with your company info, meaning that your free gift also acts as a promotional item for your company.
16. Free Set-Up
Free set-up serves as testimony to your commitment to customer service, alongside your confidence in the quality of your products. If someone purchases web hosting from you, offer to migrate their site free of charge. If someone purchases a garden shed, offer to erect the shed in their garden free of charge. This can really help you stand out from your competitors and be a deciding factor in why a customer should choose to spend their money with you.
17. Discounted or Free Customization
Offering discounted or free design or customization can be a huge pull for customers who are looking for a great deal. If you sell hand-printed posters on Etsy, offer to add a small customization to your prints at a discounted rate, or even for free, to really persuade customers to buy from you.
18. Free Charity Donation
While in some ways this is close to the “Buy One Give One” incentive, a free charity donation can be personalized to a charity of the customer’s choice. Amazon is an example of a brand which makes extensive use of this incentive by allowing shoppers to donate to their favorite charity at no extra cost.
If this sounds too complicated to set up, simply running a campaign such as “We’re giving 50% of all profits from this campaign to Charity X” can be enough of an incentive to get people to make a purchase, while allowing you to give back to a charity you have an affinity with.
19. Free Gift-Wrapping
Gift sites, clothes retailers, and card stores can take advantage of this incentive to offer a personal touch to their customers. This can help tip the scales in your favor over the competition and can be used in conjunction with seasonal occasions, such as birthdays and Christmas.
20. Extended Returns Policy
Risk free buying is a huge incentive for the budget conscious shopper. Offering an extended returns policy over busy periods such as Christmas can entice your customers to make the purchase with added peace of mind. It can also encourage shoppers to purchase earlier knowing that if the recipient of the gift wants to exchange the product, they will still be able to do so.
21. Extended Trial
While the 30-day trial is a tried and tested way to on-board new customers, you can stand out from your competitors by offering an extended free trial period. This can work for various subscription models including software and apps, and can increase the conversion rate to paying customers as users become more invested in the service as time goes on. This type of trial works well with a supporting email campaign which highlights the benefits and added value the customer is receiving as an honorary paid subscriber.
Which Ecommerce Incentives Will You Use?
There are so many different kinds of ecommerce incentives you can offer you email subscribers. Some will work well if they’re offered to everyone. Others will work best if they are targeted at specific segments of your audience. The best approach is to run some A/B tests to see which offers resonate with your audiences. Double down on those that work. Discard those that don’t.
Buy running email campaigns that promote carefully crafted ecommerce incentives, you can make a sizeable impact to the success of your business.
