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Abandoned Cart Advantages, The How

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Abandoned Cart Advantages, The How

Last time I checked in with y’all I discussed some of the biggest reasons customers were abandoning their cart as well as potential revenue that could be gained by setting up an abandoned cart workflow. This month’s episode is all about the tact and strategy that is needed to create a successful abandoned cart workflow for your email marketing program. Now onward and upward to step 1!

A lot of abandoned cart workflows I see include 1 email to send to clients a few hours after they have abandoned their cart with a button to return to their shopping cart, and that’s that. While it is great that you decided to create an abandoned cart workflow there are so many more opportunities that were missed!

Our Magento integration features up to 3 abandoned products including an image of the product, SKU, Product name, Product page URL, Product Description & cost. If you have another eCommerce platform, you can have your programmer setup API calls to carry this information over as well. To insert any of this information into your abandoned cart creative, edit the section of the creative and click on the green + button there. In the second tab, Database Variables, you will be able to drop in any variable information needed to customize your creative.

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After you have finished building your creative(s) get ready to create the logic for your workflow. Before I came into the Email Marketing industry I would think 1 email within a few days of abandoning a shopping cart would suffice, but of course much more planning and strategy can go into making a successful abandoned cart workflow.

No to Repeat Emails:

Do you plan to include more than 1 email in your workflow? Make sure that the subject line and layout is different than the initial email. Sending the same (or dang near close) email can backfire and lose the longevity of an engaged subscriber when they think you are sending them the same campaign every time.

How many emails should I send out?:

You want to pay attention to your industry to see what method is right for you. What works for a clothing boutique might not work for an appliance store! Sometimes sending out 1 email within a few hours of cart abandonment can grab potential customers, but what about 2 or 3 emails?

  1. Sending out only 1? Let’s make it count! You want to send out an email inviting them back to their shopping cart soon after they abandon their cart. A lot of customers will shop around and purposefully leave their cart abandoned, whether shopping for price, quality or perhaps shipping rates. Reach out to them before they make their purchase elsewhere by sending them an email within the hour. Sending an initial email 24 hours after they have abandoned their cart could leave you with a wasted email, as the customer most likely has already purchased the item elsewhere.
  2. Decided to send out 2 in total? A great method is to send out the first email within an hour of abandoning their cart. According to MarketoBlog, this message should be more about helping the customer rather than pushing for a sale. Was the process too long? Was it not exactly what they were looking for? Ask for feedback. Giving your customers a voice in your business will keep your subscriber engaged over longer periods of time when they know their manufacturer cares about them. The second email should be sent 24 hours after the initial send to remind customers about items waiting in their shopping cart. Perhaps you want to offer an incentive. Great! Our workflows can control the rate at which subscribers are hopping back into the Abandoned Cart Workflow so they won’t get the coupon every time they abandon. Completely up to you!
  3. Decided to send out the full enchilada of 3 total? Great! Let’s start the first and second email as we discussed last by sending the first email within an hour of abandonment designed to help the customer with their purchase, not sell. The second email should create a sense of urgency, letting customers know their availability or free shipping etc is about to run out. Getting them to return to their cart quickly and making their purchase is your goal. A third email should be sent 3-5 days after the second email pushing the product one more time. Perhaps this could be the most detailed email with their products individually parsing out in the email with an incentive if one is not used in the second email. Remember, if you are sending 3 emails you want to make sure you do not send them too close together or you could risk irritating your subscriber and receiving an unsubscribe.

Pay attention to your subscribers and logic!

Remember that you don’t want to annoy your subscribers. Sending 3 abandonment emails can become overkill unless you are in the right industry and sending useful, engaging messages. Do you sell larger purchases like refrigerators or hot tubs? These purchases can take longer periods of time to spend the money, so a third email a week or so later to remind them of their abandoned shopping cart will still be successful as opposed to a retailer selling shoes. By the time a third email is used to remind the subscriber about their looming shoe purchase chances are the buyer is long gone and has already made the purchase elsewhere.

Chief Marketer, and myself of course, think it’s a great idea to implement some logic inside your Workflow to allow subscribers to exit if need be. To do this, insert a query after every email is sent (allowing time to pass so they can open the email as well) to allow openers to exit so they do not receive more emails. You can also query if subscribers have made a purchase since the last abandon cart email was deployed, allowing them to exit without annoying your subscribers with further abandon cart emails. At EmailDirect we also have workflow recurrence options, allowing you to choose how often a subscriber can enter your abandon cart workflow. If you offer Free Shipping or another incentive, you can limit re-entry to once a month or once every two months to avoid your subscribers receiving endless amounts of incentives.

There is always a chance to bring back a subscriber and make a sale for those who were initially interested! Personalizing these emails to display items abandoned in their cart tackled with strategy can help you achieve that sale. And at EmailDirect, you also have your trusted Dedicated Email Marketing Consultant with Abandon Cart knowledge in their arsenal to help create successful Workflows. Until next time y’all!


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