3 Email Marketing Tactics to Encourage Impulse Buying

Why should you care about impulse buying? Because impulse buying accounts for about 40% of all ecommerce purchases. And 54% of U.S. shoppers have admitted to spending $100 or more on impulse buys. Imagine if you were able to increase your average sale by getting more people to impulse buy on your website – pretty cool, right?

Below we’re sharing a few email marketing tactics you can implement to increase impulse buying behavior and your profits.

Create Offers that Are Too Good to Pass Up

Promotional emails are really good at driving traffic to specific products on your website. They’re also really good at just driving traffic and not converting any of it.

But by taking your promotional emails to the next level and creating an offer that is just too good to pass up, you’ll see an uptick in conversions from email. These too-good-to-be-true offers are great for encouraging impulse purchases too.

What types/kinds of offers should you create? Well, that really depends on your product/service, however there are a few categories that can apply to most businesses:

1. Flash Sales

Flash sales are sales that are only for a limited time. Usually, people who are on an email list or follow on social media are told about the sale and the items included. They work best when the discount is higher than a normal promotional campaign. So if you typically offer 20% with a regular sale, try 35% for the flash sale.

Best ways to promote flash sales in emails:

• Put it in the subject line – Literally put flash sale in the subject line with the discount offered. You could also put flash sale and the products that are included.
• Design an email with a countdown in real time – Since these sales are time-bound, why not include a countdown tracker in the email … that actually counts down in real time. This will create a feeling of urgency and more people will be more inclined to take advantage knowing they only have a limited amount of time to do so.
• Send a reminder later in the day to those who haven’t purchased anything, but opened the original email – Email reminders are a good overall tactic. And when used to highlight an ending flash sale, they can really drive more last-minute purchases.

2. Free Shipping

Free shipping, while a simple offer, is one that can easily drive people to buy more items. With shipping fees ranging across the board, shoppers can be discouraged from completing purchases when they find out they’ll be paying $10+ just to receive their goods. So instead, incentivize them by offering free shipping if they spend a certain amount.

Best ways to promote free shipping in your emails:

• Again, put it in the subject line – This is especially true if you rarely offer free shipping. This will get the attention of your recipients, encouraging opens and clicks.
• Make sure it’s clear in your email copy – Even if you put ‘Free Shipping’ in your subject line, you still need to make sure it’s clear in the body of your email. (And don’t forget to update your website so it displays in a popup or banner either!)

3. Recommended Products + Discount

While not really an offer, sharing recommended or related products to a buyer after they’ve made a purchase can get them back on the site and buying even more.

For example, let’s say you sell beachwear and accessories. A customer recently bought a new swimsuit and nothing else. You can send that customer an email with beach accessories that would complement the swim suit like, a coverup, sunglasses, beach hat, towel, beach tote bag and flip flops. The message in the email could be “Don’t forget to pick up these items before your next trip to the beach,” using urgency to get customers to come back.

Best ways to promote recommended or related products in your emails:

• Include an offer, if you have any – If you’re offering free shipping to everyone who visits your website, then make sure to mention it in your email too. This can really incentivize your customer to click through and buy more from you.
• Leverage the subject line – Customers are more likely to open your emails because they already know you, but you shouldn’t leave it up to chance either. Use the subject line to let your customer know the email is related to their prior purchase – and there is an offer inside they can take advantage of.

No matter the offer you choose, make sure it’s relevant to your target audience. Not all offers will work for all industries. As long as you’re true to your business and understand your buyer, you’ll be able to create amazing offers that your customers won’t be able to pass up.

According to Litmus, 46% of all email opens happen on a mobile device. With that many people opening emails on their phone, you have a really good opportunity to get their attention, drive them to your website, and earn their business. And, with Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, and other easy payment options available, impulse buying from emails can positively affect your bottom line.

But if your emails don’t render properly when opened on-the-go, do you think they’ll click through to your website? Probably not. Or if your call-to-action isn’t clear or too far down the email, do you think people will understand/see and click through? Not likely.

The offer itself is important but the way you describe it also matters. Therefore, you should work thoroughly on the text.  Typically, the intensity of email marketing activities differs according to the time of the year. Therefore, if you don’t have enough writers to create high-quality texts during high season, consider hiring freelance writers from EssayTigers or other writing service.

Before you send your next email, here are a few things you can do to make sure it will open, read properly, and convert on mobile devices:

1. Test, Test, Test! Testing is one of the most important things you should do before you send an email campaign. This includes testing the copy, the CTA, and how it looks/read on various email clients. One of the best ways to test is to create an internal test list within your email platform and send your email to that list before sending to the real list.
2. Use Email Rendering Tools – Want to see how your emails look on various email clients but don’t have accounts on all of them? No problem! There are several tools out there that will show you how your email will look on a variety of platforms just by uploading your HTML. Some of the more popular tools are: Litmus, Email on Acid, EmailReach, InboxInspector, and InboxPreview.
3. A/B Test Your CTAs – The call-to-actions you use in your emails are just as critical as your subject line. The wrong CTA or poorly worded CTA and your recipients won’t even bother clicking through. Test two different CTAs in an email campaign to see which one performs better. While they should be similar, maybe one starts with a verb (action-oriented) and the other doesn’t?

Use Emotion to Create Interest and Intent

As people, we’re emotional creatures. And we use our emotions when we’re making decisions… including purchasing decisions.

This gives us email marketers quite the advantage. We can easily use messaging to make people feel a certain way and get them to take an action.

To get people to impulse buy from email, you should include messaging that will appeal to your recipient’s emotions. Here are a good example:

Best ways to include emotion in your emails:

• Segment your list – With a segmented list, you can send your recipients the right message at the right time. If they’ve recently bought something, you can send them a different message than someone who hasn’t bought from you in over 6 months. You can also segment based on their interests and the types of products they typically buy. If a customer usually buys kids toys, then you can send them an email with the most popular toys of the season and how they’ll be the parent of the year for getting the coolest toys.
• Celebrate milestones – Most impulse purchases are made when someone is happy or excited. If you know your customers’ birthday, anniversary, first purchase date, etc., celebrate it! Send them an email highlighting the special day and offer a discount off their next purchase.

Impulse buying is no longer just for brick and mortar businesses. By leveraging your email marketing platform, you can take advantage of impulse buying behavior and generate more sales and revenue for your business.