The power of email marketing in changing eCommerce businesses for the better is absolutely immense. Even with the non-stop growth of social media, email marketing remains one the most powerful tools for businesses to communicate with their customers and make an impact. However, there is a fine line between consistency and spamming when it comes to email marketing.
Thankfully, email automations have been designed to only be sent out when a trigger has been initiated. Some common examples of these triggers are when a customer makes a purchase or when someone joins your newsletter. Each automation usually consists of one or more emails that will be sent out to customers entering these flows over a certain period of time defined by you.
That said, there are many different email automations that you can build and each of them serves a different purpose. We have put together a list of 5 game-changing email automations that can help your ecommerce business tremendously as you develop your email marketing strategy further.
1. Abandoned Cart Email Automation
What if there was a way to change customers' minds when they don't complete their purchase after adding some items to their cart?
Well, there is.
If a customer makes an effort to visit your website, browse through your products and add a certain product to their cart but for some reason doesn't proceed with finalizing their purchase, chances are you can still make the purchase happen.
Usually, customers change their minds last minute due to high shipping costs or delivery time or they simply get distracted and forget to complete their purchase.
With an abandoned cart email series, these customers will automatically receive an email with a direct link to their cart as a reminder to finalize their purchase. To give your customer a reason to go through with their purchase, you can include a shipping discount code in your abandoned cart email to motivate them to complete their order. Everyone loves free shipping.
2. Brows Abandonment Automation
Browse abandonment automations are email flows triggered when someone visits your website and spends some time browsing but doesn't add anything to their shopping cart. Your goal by setting up this email series is to guide them further in the process. Essentially, this is almost like getting the attention of people who are window shopping, but online.
Although this one is slightly trickier since your visitor hasn't already committed to purchasing anything yet. Some of the most common reasons as to why people don't go any further than checking out some items online include pricing, availability, etc.
With browse abandonment email automation, you can send product recommendations or discounts to people visiting your store based on products and categories that they have visited. Some of the sections you can include in these emails are personalized recommendations based on visitor's activity on your website or sharing your featured collection with them.
3. Product Review Automation
Many people have a hard time trusting businesses that they don't know over bigger and well-known businesses, which makes it challenging for many small businesses to expand their reach.
Although people might not trust businesses, they usually feel comfortable trusting other customers, which is why online reviews have proven to be reassuring to customers who are hesitant about their purchases as they increase the credibility and trustworthiness of small businesses.
We can't emphasize enough how important it is for you, as a small business, to ask for as many reviews as you can. By asking your customers for feedback you also show that your business cares about their experience and their thoughts on your product and overall operation. Instead of reaching out to customers individually, you can get the same results or better by setting up a product review email series that will be sent out to customers when they complete their purchase and receive their product.
Depending on your product, an ideal time frame for sending out review emails can be anywhere between 3 to 7 days. The key is to ensure that your review email is not sent out too early before customers have some time to use and experience the product. However, customers are less likely to write a review for a product long after receiving and using it. So make sure you understand your customer journey and identify the best time period for asking for feedback.
4. VIP Engagement Automation
As amazing as it is to have "regulars" who keep purchasing from your brand, it is important that you identify your most loyal customers and send them emails to reflect the fact that you recognize and value them.
Don't let your customers forget about your brand. But once again, don't spam them! Customers are more likely to stick around when they feel appreciated and valued by small businesses. Therefore, if you have repeat customers who keep ordering from your store, make sure you create a VIP segment exclusively for your loyal customers.
Your VIP engagement email automation should include recommendations and exclusive discount codes or early access to certain sales events or new products. The focus is to ensure customers within your VIP segment recognize that emails that they are receiving from you are of high value and not all customers share the same privileges. Needless to say, over time, most of your profit comes from your most loyal customers.
5. Segmented Email Automation
Last but not least, let's talk about segmented email automation. Although this one is not talked about as often as other automations we discussed so far, it is quite an important one which can make a great impression on customers.
Segmented email automations are email flows that are sent out to different lists and segments that you create based on certain criteria. For instance, if you sell various products with totally different categories, your customers will not engage with emails about categories they are not interested in. The best solution here is to set up your email automations based on specific segments. Each segmented email has to be designed based on the interests and activities of users within that segment.
Based on your goals, you might even be able to break down some of these email series to various automation for more customization as your email marketing strategy continues to grow over time.