As an e-commerce business, the checkout process is one of the most important activities on any website. Shopping cart abandonment being the ruin of all the digital marketing efforts you’ve put in place to drive customers to that single point when they click the pay button.
Having said that, it is also inevitable that some customers will not complete their purchase. We all lead busy lives today with constant distractions or indecision pulling users away but with an average cart abandonment rate of 69.23% what can we do to encourage online shoppers to buy your product?
Whilst remarketing ads are one method to encourage customers to return to your e-commerce site and is an effective method, it happens further down the buying process sometimes long after the potential customer has left your website. Using cart recovery emails as part of your email marketing strategy can avoid loss of sales and have high conversion rates. The reasons for this, unlike remarketing ads, is that they are personal and re-engage shoppers with a personal touch. Cart recovery emails also have a high open-rate and a better click-through than promotional emails.
We know that email marketing has a better ROI than other online activities including SEO and social media marketing, so it makes sense to engage with shoppers via cart recovery emails to turn their heads back to your website. Here are some tips on using cart recovery in your email marketing strategy:
1. Make It Personal
Making any email personal makes users feel important and helps develop a relationship with your brand or product. With cart recovery emails that ‘engagement’ is essential to persuade shoppers to continue their buying journey with on your site.
2. Tailor Your Message
Finding out when your customer left the buying process will allow you to further personalise and tailor the email. What particular product were they browsing? Did they have concerns about the product, or was it the checkout process or delivery costs that put them off?
3. Timing
Sending the first cart recovery email quickly is essential, no matter what made them leave your site. You should try and catch the shopper as soon as possible, maybe whilst they are browsing a competitors site! It should be a helpful and not ‘salesy’ email, asking if they had an issue which you can help with. If there is no response, then sending a second email a day later reminding the user of their abandoned purchase is perfectly acceptable.
4. Incentivise
It’s time to get clever now and whilst you need to be aware of spam with any email marketing strategy, sending a third cart recovery email in order to invite and encourage shoppers to go back to their cart is a positive move. Try tempting your potential shoppers with a discount or maybe free shipping and see how that works.
Of course using cart recovery as part of your email marketing isn’t available if you don’t collect email addresses, this is why asking for an email address early in the buying process is vital, especially for new customers.