Successfully Employing Email Automation For eCommerce

Companies often focus on finding ways to constantly bring new customers in but then fail to build relationships of trust with those existing customers.
But businesses can easily fall into the trap of neglecting these relationships, thereby losing out on repeat sales and long-term loyalty

The Challenge

Our client works with a highly-skilled but small team and a limited budget. They had budgeted for ads, but scaling was a challenge—and their conversion rate was at a dismal three percent.

Too many businesses focus on reaching new customers and unintentionally neglect the lifetime value of their current customers.

Ninety-seven percent of people do not convert on their first visit to a store. To build relationships of trust that will lead to conversion, companies need powerful,
effective remarketing that will bring customers back in.

The Solution

We know with the right tools, it’s possible to reach a repeat purchase rate of approximately 50 percent. But achieving this requires moving beyond the sale—it’s vital to understand the customers better and build relationships of trust.

To help our client break open their ability to convert and increase repeat sales, we designed a powerful weapon: email marketing automation.

Our Process

Our client needed to create a way to develop relationships with customers that helped them feel they were receiving individualized attention.

Segmentation

We broke the audience up into segments. By creating these specific segments, we could apply a far more personalized and targeted approach when speaking to customers. Authenticity and ensuring the email copy speaks directly to the recipient genuinely is essential in building relationships of trust.

Email Collection

We created two different forms, to target two distinct audiences. In this way we segment
audience from very beginning.
Email collection is extremely important, as most of visitors won’t convert so they will leave their email addresses.

Workflows

Once we segmented the audience, we could create carefully tailored workflows to offer each segment specific value and information. Our Welcome Series was instrumental in immediately offering value, then following up with more information about our client’s mission and commitment to quality. We created workflow of 4 emails. You wondering maybe it’s to much?
Answer is – definitely not. You just need to provide value.

Welcome email nr1
Welcome, introduction, and a coupon for x% off (or whatever your pop-up promised).
This email is short and snappy.

Welcome email nr2
Brand story – what makes your brand different?
About quality standards, and what benefits are there of shopping with your company.

Welcome email nr3
Social proof. People tend to trust other people more than brands.

Welcome email nr4
This final email focuses on community elements.
Ask them to follow you on socials, join your groups, or interact by replying to your email itself.

Essential Nurture Programs – Cart Abandonment Flow, Post-Purchase Emails, Browse Abandonment Sequence

We monitored cart abandonment rates and set up an abandonment email flow to effectively boost the conversion rate. There are various reasons why people add items to
the cart and don’t check out, but with the right strategy, you can recover lots of sales.
A timely flow of reminders led to a significant increase in opened emails and customers returning to complete their carts.

We created a sequence of 5 Abandonment cart emails and 3 Browse Abandonment emails. Are you wondering again whether it’s too much? The answer is the same – no it’s not.

Once the customer completes a purchase with our client, we set up an additional post-purchase email series to continue nurturing the relationship and prepare them to re-enter the lifecycle funnel.

All those emails are dedicated not to selling more, but to understanding customers better and building relationships. Only then people will return and buy again.

Client Results

Return customer numbers lifted significantly. As a result of the flows we put into place, 27 percent of our client’s revenue is entirely automated. In addition, pop-up sign-up rates consistently reached 11 percent, ensuring a constant flow of new potential customers to the email list.

As the needs of our client continue to evolve, we’ll keep working with them on:
• A/B testing to prioritize the most effective pop-ups
• A/B testing of email flows
• Performance reviews of open, click, and conversion rates
• Regular analysis of buyer behavior patterns to develop the appropriate email campaigns

Based on initial success, our client’s goal is to achieve 33% percent of all revenue through email flows.