We all know how powerful a tool email marketing can be to reengage with existing customers. Whether it’s letting them know about new products or services or alerting them to upcoming news and updates via a newsletter, it’s important to plan these emails properly so that they go to the right people at the right time. To do this effectively, you should implement an automated email strategy.
In this article, we are going to highlight the importance of different types of automated emails you should be running, how to best implement them within your store and what value they can have for your business.
Abandon Cart & Abandon Browse Emails
Cart and browse abandonment is a common thing for eCommerce. We’ve all done it; we add an item to the cart with the intention of buying it and then, for whatever reason – maybe we lose interest or decide to look at another store first, regardless of the reason – we leave.
And this is the case for a substantial percentage of online customers too. Does that mean that that customer, that potential revenue is lost forever? No, it doesn’t have to mean that.
The reason this is so important for your site and the reason it’s so beneficial also is that; new client acquisition is the most expensive thing for E-commerce sites. If your site conversion is 4% that means that 96% of potential customers never buy from your site and leave. With an abandon cart function, you have the ability to retarget those people that got so far along the buying journey and increase your conversion rate from 4% to upwards of 7% if you have a dynamic retargeting strategy.
How can you make your Abandon Cart and Abandon Browse emails convert more customers? You could offer that customer an incentive that would entice them to complete their purchase, something like a code for 10% off or £5 off of their order. You could highlight your USPs, such as Free Delivery. Or, you could look to make their experience easier, by offering them recommended products that they are more likely to buy.
Post Purchase Emails
Another automated email strategy you should be running is follow-up purchase emails, or ‘Post Purchase Emails’. Now the most basic option; that you are likely already running is the thank you for your purchase email – which is great to have up and running, however, there is much more you can add to this strategy to allow for customer loyalty and more repeat customers.
Here are some options for post-purchase emails:
‘Leave us a Review’
Review emails are very self-explanatory. You send a customer an email after their purchase arrives and ask what they think of it. We all know the power of reviews for increasing usability and the conversion rates of your site. This is great – you get a streamlined review, the customer understands what the email is for; and if they enjoyed the product it works as a potential indirect upsell.
Another way you can implement review Emails is directly after purchase. You may be thinking ‘but how are they going to review the product if they haven’t received it yet?’. They’re not. They’re not reviewing their purchase. In this email you should instead be asking for feedback about your site, your services offered or your product range. While these reviews can’t bolster the marketing capabilities that product reviews can, they allow you to instead get direct feedback and know what is and isn’t working in the customer buying experience.
‘Products recommended for you‘
Recommendations are something you want to be giving to your customers – You want to make a customer’s journey feel specific and more personalised. By sending recommended products to a customer after their first initial purchase, they will be more likely to shop with you again. You’ve not only made their next purchase simple and easy by giving them more inspiration and directing them straight to something they may want. You’ve also made their experience more personal and more specific to them.
For instance, if your store sells skincare products, and a customer has bought some basic essentials, like moisturiser and face wash. To encourage them to purchase again, you could send them an email recommending more products within that range, or even application tools.
Newsletters / Informative Emails
Newsletters are a great way of strengthening your relationship with your customers and building up rapport, as well as informing current or prospective customers about your brand/business. There are many different angles and strategies around this type of email, from offering up educational content on how to best use your products, to announcements within your brand that might be of interest to your customers.
They are also a good way to keep your subscribers engaged without overloading them with purely sales-based emails. Offering them different content and something useful will keep them interested, and might also encourage them to share this information with others.
Now, this may initially seem like a waste of time. Why would you want to not sell your products? Well, whilst you aren’t pitching for a sale in these emails you are priming your readers for their next purchase. If they trust you as a business they are far more likely to come back for repeat purchases.
We hope that this article has given you some insight into the importance of automated email campaigns, how to implement them in eCommerce and how they can aid your marketing strategy.