Guest post from Jacopo Mauri at Maropost.
With regards to increasing sales, revenue, and awareness for an e-commerce store, there are many digital marketing strategies to choose from. Email marketing campaigns are those digital marketing strategies that primarily use emails as a medium.
Think of email marketing automation as a way to put these strategies on autopilot.
Email marketing is highly compatible with automation. For 75% of marketers, it is a close second technique to apply automation, after scheduled social media postings. When employed effectively, automated emails can generate great results for an e-commerce market or online retail store.
Overall, it is great for boosting online sales and increasing e-commerce revenues. Below are ten ways email marketing automation can increase e-commerce revenues.
- The Power of Automation
- Lead Nurturing Made Easy
- Segmentation
- Personalization
- Automated Welcome Emails
- Automated Abandoned Cart Emails
- Automated Re-Engagement Email Campaigns
- Behavior-Triggered Emails with Incentives
- Upsells and Cross-Sells
- Automated Post-Purchase Follow-Up Emails
The Power of Marketing Automation
There's little need to toot the horns of marketing automation, mostly because it's a technology where the results speak for themselves. More market leaders now rely on marketing automation; up to 21% also plan to adopt marketing automation tools along with their marketing strategies. Statistics also indicate that marketing automation substantially increases conversions, leads, and even sales productivity.
That’s because digital automation is mainly targeted at removing needless repetition and the drudgery that comes along with it. E-commerce businesses have multifarious processes to put in order. These can range from everything regarding inventory, order, business, and social media management. Customer experience tasks and managing feedback are not left out too.
This is why e-commerce automation is strongly recommended and marketing automation remains an important aspect. Email automation saves time, allowing companies or businesses to focus on other productive activities. Overall, this leads to increased revenue.
Lead Nurturing Made Easy
Lead management is much easier with the aid of email marketing automation. Using marketing automation to nurture prospects contributes to a significant increase in the number of qualified leads. Automated workflows targeted at lead nurturing can lead to increased profit and a shorter sales cycle.
Lead management is a triple interconnected process involving lead scoring, nurturing, and qualification. With lead nurturing, you strengthen the relationship with your customers by providing the resources and information they need. It is a purposefully engaging, value-adding process that sets you on a path to closing sales.
The statistics back this up. Lead nurturing is connected with revenue growth and sales productivity. According to a DemandGen Report, nurtured leads produce a 20% increase in sales opportunities compared to non-nurtured leads. It also fosters gainful interaction, builds brand loyalty, and generates awareness. Brand loyalty and customer satisfaction strongly correlate with increased revenue.
Aside from providing resources and information suited to prospects depending on their stage in the sales cycle, email messages targeted at nurturing leads can celebrate milestones or anniversaries too. With email marketing automation, you can send automated emails, for instance, on a prospect’s birthday. It is a great way to make a prospect or customer feel special, especially if it includes discounts or offers to celebrate the day.
Segmentation
Customers expect to receive content tailored to their preferences, and no two customers are completely alike. This is why it is best to send personal and segmented emails. Using segmentation to send marketing emails helps you market more effectively, better understand pain points, and meet your prospects’ needs.
Segmentation is an important data-driven aspect of any email campaign. When you segment your email lists and build a targeted list, you can categorize existing customers by factors like action taken, purchase history, interests, and pages browsed. So, automated email sequences can be sent based on specific scenarios. These contextual, timely messages tend to deliver excellent results.
Personalization
Segmentation and personalization go hand in hand as they cater to individuals specifically. When brands provide a personalized experience, about 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase. For example, in e-commerce, personalized landing pages provide a more individualized experience that can lead to more conversions. Personalization in messages also contributes to improved open and click-through rates.
With email marketing automation, emails are personalized and sent based on the behaviors and interests of a customer. This introduces a world of possibilities. For example, behavior triggered emails are personalized as they pick up on trails left by your audience. These are more likely to translate to sales and increased revenue than generic emails. What's more? They can be sent effortlessly, to the right person, at the right time. All you have to do is set the right premises.
Automated Welcome Emails
If you have ever made an online transaction or subscribed to a list, you probably know the triggered sequence of emails that follow. They are less sales-centered than many marketing emails and instead simply extend a warm welcome. These welcome emails are purposeful not only because of purchase confirmation, email subscription confirmation, or expressed gratitude, but because they set the pace for further engagement.
They should be sent automatically, especially at a time when your brand is fresh in a consumer's mind. These emails should also have a clear call-to-action, or CTA. When combined with incentives to sign up like free shipping, reward codes, or discounts, customers are more likely to open your emails and engage further.
Automated welcome emails remain a great way to create a lasting impression, build a budding customer relationship, and inevitably boost e-commerce revenues.
Automated Abandoned Cart Emails
Abandoned carts are common for any e-commerce platform. These may occur for many reasons, including unexpected costs or even problems loading the website. Abandoned carts present an opportunity to close a sale and boost revenue, and the right email marketing approach can help.
You can send triggered automated email responses targeted at getting a consumer to complete those specific orders. To achieve this, send reminder emails with visuals and specific references to the carted items. Strategic remarketing campaigns like these are known to have higher recovery rates. Use a catchy subject line and incentivize the entire process. For example, a decent discount or free shipping may help seal the deal.
Automation is very fitting here because abandoned cart emails should be triggered by user behavior and populated with the information specific to their cart. Overall, you must use an appropriate call to action and strike a sense of urgency.
Automated Re-Engagement Email Campaigns
Re-engagement campaigns aim to stage a comeback and win over a once-loyal customer. By automating your re-engagement campaigns, you can effortlessly trigger them to send after a span of time when the subscriber is most likely to convert. A series of sequenced emails may attempt to re-engage a consumer by providing educational content, updates about new policies, or smart recommendations based on customer data. Consumers can be incentivized too.
These email campaigns are a great way to move inactive consumers further along the customer journey and get them to purchase. A successful campaign leads to an increase in revenue.
Behavior-Triggered Emails with Incentives
A well-timed triggered email can provide the extra push that gets a consumer to complete an order. With email automation, you can seamlessly target a consumer when they are most likely to make a purchase. This is done by taking advantage of picked up customer behavior.
For example, if a customer repeatedly searches for certain type of product but never makes a purchase, automation can trigger a discount to their email inbox. These kinds of emails incentivize making purchases and do it at the best time.
Upsells and Cross-Sells
Upselling and cross-selling are e-commerce processes targeted at increasing the order value of a customer. These are incentivized, personalized suggestions that persuade a customer to complete additional purchases. With an automated upsell or cross-sell campaign, customers can receive emails in a sequence after they complete an order. As such, they work better and are seamless when automated.
Upsells target getting a customer to purchase more expensive products or add on services. Cross sales on the other hand are more supplementary. Adding these emails to your program are a strategic way of increasing e-commerce sales and revenues.
Automated Post-Purchase Follow-Up Emails
Follow-ups are an essential way to communicate gratitude to a customer after purchase, improve the customer experience, and even collect customer reviews. Overall, these are indispensable to sales.
Sent after the customer has made a purchase, these emails should convey that you care about your customer's satisfaction. When crafting an automated post-purchase email, your main CTR should be getting your client to leave a review. To maximize customer feedback, customers must find it easy to leave reviews, and providing a quick link in this email is a great way to streamline the process.
Providing recommendations, educational information, and care tips in your emails can also improve their experience. Once you set up an email flow for a post-purchase process, all of this can occur effortlessly.
About the Author
Jacopo Mauri
As Maropost's Senior Director of Demand Generation, Jacopo Mauri oversees the global demand and pipeline generation strategy to support the company's continuous growth and success. He has more than 10 years of experience in the B2B SaaS Marketing sector with a focus on strategic growth and scalable demand generation.
