If you are reading this article then you must be at least slightly familiar with what email marketing automation is. If you’re not, don’t worry, here is a quick reminder:
Email marketing has always been one of the most effective tools for marketing your business, however, in order to surpass the competition, smarter companies have leaped to another level and started using automated emails, are triggered by predefined website visitor’s actions.
You may ask, “Why?”
Well, the answer is pretty straightforward – email marketing automation saves a ton of time, and therefore enables business owners to spend their time more efficiently. Moreover, automated email marketing allows for segmentation of your audience and personalized content, which, as a result, makes people open their emails more often, visit the website, and drive up the revenues!
This article will present 5 tactics you should follow to boost your ecommerce revenue:
1. Welcome Series
Difficulty of implementing: Easy Emails in Series: 3
You will might be surprised to learn that 74.4% of visitors expect a welcome email after their subscription (BlueHornet survey). What’s more, when compared with all other email marketing tactics, welcome emails are responsible for a 3x higher click rate as well as 5x higher revenue generation for the average business.
Usually, welcome series consist of 3 emails, which help the client get acquainted with the brand and eventually influence him/her to make a purchase. Here is an example of the usual flow:
Email 1:
The first impression matters the most. Heard this before, right? Well, the same applies for email marketing. Your first email must explain what your brand is all about and what values it represents. In the example below, it is clear that the brand favors quality and luxury, but at the same time – simplicity. If it hits the right customer segment – the click on this email is guaranteed!
Email 2:
In the second email it is advised to take your potential client behind-the-scenes and show him/her how you put your values in action – where the quality, the luxury, and the simplicity come from – product manufacturing process:
The usual logical step here would be to offer a discount, right? Not so fast. Remember that we are currently building an emotional connection with our potential customer, so the part of the brain responsible for price/money should rest for now. It’s all about the long-term game, where customers’ loyalty and the brand’s relationship with them is what matters.
Email 3:
This is where we finally pull the emotional trigger by showing previous happy customers and simultaneously offering a discount. Remember – the end goal of this Welcome Series is to encourage the subscriber to make a purchase, so don’t shy away from placing a CTA button here, including previous positive reviews, and making an offer they can’t refuse!
2. Birthday Series
Difficulty of implementing: Easy Emails in Series: 2
Do you like birthday wishes? Of course you do! So do your subscribers!
A Birthday Series is a set of message sent to your subscribers on their birthdays. Not only it is extremely pleasant, it also greatly beneficial for the business. According to Omnisend’s accumulated client data, those ecommerce businesses which implement this email marketing tactic reach a whopping 45% open rate, 12% click rate and 3% conversion rate on their emails.
You may ask – but how do I know my subscriber’s birth date?
Well, with Omnisend email designing tool you can simply ask for clients’ birth dates (as well as their phone numbers) onto the popup:
A perfect workflow would include a set of 2 messages via email & text: one in the morning to congratulate the subscriber on his/her birthday, and then the second one a bit later including a gift! A gift can be anything from a special discount code to an actual freebie – you decide!
Message 1:
Below is an example of the morning’s text message wishing the client happy birthday:
Message 2:
Below is an example of the second email coming later in the afternoon. Make sure it fulfills three necessary requirements: it must be colorful and eye-catching; it must include a clear CTA; and of course it must include a birthday gift with some extra time to redeem it (at least a week).
3. Cart Recovery Series
Difficulty of implementing: Easy Emails in Series: 3
This Series is all about the customers who have recently added items to their cart but didn’t buy them. A series of 3 cart recovery emails will encourage them to come back to the website and complete their order.
You’ll be surprised how highly effective this technique is – the average conversion rate of the promotional newsletter is 0.17%, while the cart recovery emails proudly sit on an order rate of 4.64%. Moreover, it‘s been tested that cart recovery emails can generate 70% more orders than a single cart recovery email. Below is an example of a typical flow:
Email 1:
“Still shopping?” – this might be a perfect subject line of your first email to be sent out within 1 hour, reminding your would-be customer about his/her abandoned shopping cart. Showing them the items they left behind might be a good emotional trigger too:
Email 2:
“All you have to do is… say Yes!“ – an ideal, and quite convincing subject line for your second email to be sent out 12 hours after the visitor abandoned his/her shopping cart.
Including such lines as ‘….while these products are still in stock‘ in the body of the email, puts some slight pressure on the client to make up their mind a bit quicker.
Email 3:
The last email‘s subject line should put the maximum pressure on the client‘s decision-making process, so something along the lines of ‘Hurry up! Your yesterday‘s cart is about to expire!‘ would do.
Your should also include a few emotional triggers in the body, such as the sentence ‘Will you be able to sleep well tonight knowing that you left something behind?, and of course a discount code, to ease the pressure off!
4. Using more than one channel
Same as you use multiple channels to connect with your friends, you can and you should use multiple channels to communicate your message to the clients.
In order to outcompete your rivals, you must stay visible all the time, and what can be better than using a combination of emails, text messaging, and Facebook retargeting?
According to Aaron Orendorff, Editor in Chief of Shopify Plus, too many businesses focus on onsite experience automation or email marketing only. Instead, they should automate promotions across multiple channels to help reduce abandoned carts or upsell current customers using messaging apps and direct text messages.
Just make sure you are not bombarding your clients across the board, as your brand can quickly end up in a spam folder!
5. Focusing on customers after the sale
Did you know that acquiring a new customer is 5-25 times more expensive than keeping an existing one?
Also, did you know that customers, who enjoyed the experience of buying from you for the first time, are 5 times more likely to return and shop again?
It proves our previously made point about building a long-term relationship with your customers and create a long journey for them, rather than focusing on short-term profits.
Also, it makes perfect sense to put your first sale closer to the beginning of your marketing funnel, rather than the end. Once the customer has made the purchase, there should still be a long journey ahead set up for them to become loyal and repeat customers of your brand.
These were our 5 key email marketing automation tactics, which are often neglected by a great number of businessmen. Don’t be one of them! Use these tools and see your ecommerce revenue boost!
As long as you’re implementing critical email marketing automation tactics, integrating new channels into the mix, and focusing just as much on the post-sale as the pre-sale, you’ll have a great automation strategy in place.