In the first part of this post, I provided advice on helping increase conversions and ROI through email marketing. I looked at welcome messages, segmentation, content automation, testing and reminders programs.
In the second part of this post, I’ll look at recapturing cart abandoners, cross selling, re-engagement, social sharing and reactivation to help engage your subscribers and increase ROI.
1. Don’t let them get away
Recapture cart abandoners
There can be many reasons why a customer abandons their shopping cart so it’s important to find out why. Give your abandoners the chance to continue the shopping process because it may not have been intentional.
It’s your choice, and probably a learning process as to how subtle to be in your email messaging – either giving your potential customers a friendly reminder that they still have items in their shopping cart, and do they need any technical help? Or the slightly more subtle % discount on the items they’ve left in their carts.
This can lead to reclaiming potentially lost revenue and you can include contact details of your customer support details to ensure you offer the right support to your customers.
2. People who bought this also bought…
Cross/Up-selling
Including relevant products to the ones your customer just purchased is a good way of upselling to your customer, and making them aware of other products they may be interested in that they may not have noticed during their shop.
You may also be able to add a number of complementary products to enrich the use of the original product they’ve purchased – whether that be warranty, or peripherals for an electronic product.
This can help increase conversion rates as the products you are highlighting are relevant to the customer. The add-on offers can be added as early as the purchase confirmation or over the next few weeks.
3. Come back soon…
Re-engage
It’s essential to keep your customers engaged once they are on your subscriber list or once they’ve made a purchase. The goal is to get them to become a repeat buyer as soon as possible.
To do this you need to be providing them with incentives to shop again as well as more relevant content. Sending coupons or voucher codes as a thank you or ‘we miss you’ can encourage repeat purchases.
Ensuring you know your subscriber and are providing them with the most relevant content possible, will help ensure higher response rates and ultimately conversions for your campaigns.
4. Reach out beyond the inbox
Social Sharing
With the social media boom continuing to grow at full force, it is important to use these communication mediums to extend the reach of the email message and offers beyond your subscriber base. Facebook and Twitter especially are great viral marketing tools.
Including share buttons per content element of your email rather than the whole newsletter, allows email recipients to share specific content with relevant people. The more people your message reaches, the higher the chance of increasing conversions.
5. Inactivity shouldn’t be tolerated
Reactivation
Although having a large list of subscribers sounds ideal, it is not necessarily a good thing if a substantial amount of those subscribers are inactive. If they are not opening or clicking through your campaigns, they will drive down your response rates and impact upon your deliverability.
Why spend money trying to reach subscribers who don’t respond anymore? Sometimes a little incentive and reminder is all that’s needed to help them re-engage with your emails and make a purchase or simply to give you an idea on whether or not these subscribers will impact your conversions for the better or not.
