The biggest concern for the e-commerce industry remains the same throughout the years- cart abandonment. After spending accounts on inbound marketing activities, having a huge loophole in the sales funnel haunts marketers, and reducing cart abandonment is the biggest challenge for online stores as 3/4th of the visitors leave their carts without making a purchase. This results in revenue worth billions of dollars lost every year, and even saving a small percentage of it will help improve your balance sheets significantly.
If you are struggling with cart abandonment, you should definitely try email marketing. It generates 4x revenue as compared to all other channels, and its ROI sits at 4400%, making it the most preferred digital marketing channel. In this article, I am going to discuss the benefits and use of email marketing for cart abandonment. Dive in deeper to know more. Esendex enables you to offer business communications that puts the power in your clients’ hands, from SMS and WhatsApp to multi-channel mobile journeys. Go to this website to know more.
What Is Cart Abandonment Email Series
Cart abandonment occurs when a customer adds certain items to their online shopping cart only to exit without completing the purchase. In order to remind the customer about the items added in their carts, a triggered email is sent as a part of a targeted email campaign.
Cart abandonment emails are aimed at encouraging users to make the purchase. In order to motivate them to purchase those items, you need to understand why they abandoned them in the first place. Here’s an infographic describing the reasons behind the phenomenon:
To understand why your customers are abandoning the carts, you can either use Google analytics, heat maps, and click maps while also gathering feedback. Based on the inputs you receive, you can devise a cart abandonment email campaign series. They have a promising open rate of 45% and can help you tap 10% of your lost revenue.
I think these are enough numbers to convince you for ramping up the cart abandonment email series. This is how an abandoned cart message looks like:
Time Your Messages Perfectly
Cart abandonment messages are triggered email campaigns set through an automation workflow. Timing plays an important role in defining the success of these campaigns. I recommend sending the first message within 12 hours of cart abandonment. This will increase the chances of conversion as the visitor had recently made their mind to purchase your product. Generally, marketers follow the three emails system for serving this purpose. For convincing your visitors, follow the below-mentioned tactics. It’s also definitely worth using an online text messaging platform to supplement the email campaign.
Keep The Message About One Product
No matter if your visitor selected a single item or multiple items, you need to choose only the best performing product from the list. Explain its features and identify if your customer is bothered by the additional costs or its pricing. I do not recommend giving discounts with a free hand. Instead, you can go ahead with free delivery or loyalty programs if they are your existing customers. Pitch a single product and highlight its features exclusively. Keeping your email copy limited to a single product helps in focusing better while you can cater to more extensive information without sounding pushy.
Remove The Obstacles In Decision Making Process
In most cases, you will need to contact the customer more one time. During the subsequent interactions, you must focus on removing the obstacles that stalled decision-making. Offering free shipping, exchange bonus, easy returns, extended warranty-guarantee, and slashing the checkout process are some of the most effective ways of removing the hurdles. If the item is costly, you can inform them about the availability of your customer service representatives. Remember that your email copy should not be similar to promotional messages as the visitors were already convinced about the product.
Have a look at this emailer from Nomad:
The Email Copy For Cart Abandonment Series
It is necessary to state your company name and other relevant details before you start with the core copy. You can use friendly subject lines like:
- Robbie looks like you lost internet connectivity. Thank God we saved the cart for you.
- Cakes can’t wait. Get that oven now.
- Loved the kitchen set? We’ll deliver it for free.
In your main body section, discuss the USPs and leverage social proof. I always find it wise to use email templates that look like your website. This cuts down the need for explaining your visitors, and you can also provide them with the option to make the purchase from the email right away. Provide a clear call-to-action button and optimize your HTML email templates for mobiles. You can also recommend alternatives in your last messages of the series. Talk about the potential of objections and discuss suitable solutions.
Summing Up
Cart abandonment is the biggest issue for the e-commerce industry, and these emails are widely used for containing it. Being a time-tested method, you should definitely try cart abandonment emails. They deliver the best results in the segment, and you can automate the whole process, freeing your marketing team.
Author Bio
Kevin George is Head of Marketing at Email Uplers, one of the fastest growing custom email design and coding companies that specializes in professional email template creation and PSD to HTML email conversion; they are Salesforce Email Specialists. Kevin loves gadgets, bikes, jazz and eats and breathes email marketing. He enjoys sharing his insights and thoughts on email marketing best practices on his blog.