Marketing automation is one of the most powerful weapons in your eCommerce business arsenal.

However, in order to take advantage of its power, you will need to use a dedicated marketing automation platform that will allow you to take your eCommerce marketing needs to another level.

Some well-known email marketing and marketing automation platforms are MailChimp and Moosend which by the way is one of the greatest MailChimp alternatives, especially if you are just starting out or you are on a somewhat tight budget.

Those types of platforms will allow you to automate tedious tasks and run everything on autopilot!

Let’s take a quick look at 5 of the most popular email marketing automation techniques you need to have:

 

1. Welcome Emails

When you let people create an account on your eCommerce store, sending them a personalized welcome email is the closest thing you can do to resemble the brick-and-mortar staff question  “Hello, how can we help you?”.

One big advantage you can directly communicate with your newly registered customers is to send them some sort of incentive.

This can be a discount on an order or free shipping that will urge them to complete a purchase on your site asap!

So, coming up with the best welcome email to solidify your new bond can increase your chances of making new customers feel closer to your store.

And since welcome emails have a read rate of 34% compared to 24% of commercial emails, they are the best way to make a great first impression.

 

2. Abandoned Cart Emails

One of the most efficient ways to increase your e-shop’s revenue is with cart abandonment emails.

If you never heard of them before, it’s those emails you receive when you left something in your cart and never completed the purchase. Sounds familiar?

 

It looks something like that:

Such emails offer a new and clever way to remind your customers about their unfinished purchases.

And since cart abandonment statistics show that the number of unfinished purchases keeps rising, offering something extra like free shipping or an extra discount can prove really helpful to re-engage customers with their abandoned cart.

 

3. Upsell/Cross-sell

 

Upselling/Cross-selling is one of the tactics that can not only increase revenue but also influence customer retention.

When it comes to upselling, selling the customer something that is more expensive than their initial product or suggesting a complementary item can expand the purchase margin by far.

 

Here’s an example of upselling:

Cross-selling products can also add to the profitability of your eCommerce store by cementing a caring relationship between your store and customers through unexpected suggestions that will cover their new needs.

 

Here’s a famous cross-selling example from Amazon:

4. Product recommendations

Product recommendations can usually be on-site and off-site recommendations.

When it comes to on-site recommendations, real-time browser behavior data can lead to on the spot product recommendations that will make your customers browse more of your store products.

 

Off-site recommendations in the form of emails can re-engage customers with their store and rekindle their interest in specific items.

Off-site recommendations are an excellent way to bring back customers after purchasing a product.

 

This recommendation will look like this:

Both on-site and off-site product recommendations function as virtual shop assistants that can help re-engage customers as real-life shop-assistants would do.

Recommendations play an important role when it comes to purchasing goods and can influence customers to continue with their search or make new ones.

In both cases, your eCommerce store will benefit greatly by promoting more products and increasing sales.

 

5. Website re-engagement emails

Re-engagement emails are another clever way to bring back customers who made a purchase in the past but they haven’t visited your store since.

In order to create an effective email re-engagement campaign, you have to come up with a successful website re-engagement email recipe that will be the foundation of your re-engagement strategy.

When you have your successful recipe you can send out offers or spicy incentives that will instantly trigger re-engagement.

These emails are more efficient when they are personalized and use emotion to point out the customer’s absence from the website.

 

Let’s take a look at a re-engagement email:

By stressing that the store “has missed” your customers, you make clear that you value them and would love to see them making purchases in the future.

Winning back and keeping old customers who have tested your products can be extremely useful since a loyal customer base will result in word-of-mouth marketing and social proof to support that your products are the best.

 

6. Anniversary / Loyalty / Happy Birthday

What people value a lot is the celebration of special occasions like anniversaries and birthdays.

When it comes to marketing and sales, such occasions give excellent opportunities to come up with a special offer to celebrate.

Birthday emails are extremely popular and will benefit an eCommerce store long term since they rely on passing an offer as a birthday present.

Such emails can be powerful allies that will not only personalize the character of the store but create a bond with the customers.

Here’s what a birthday email looks like:

Loyalty and anniversary offers can also do the trick by increasing the customer’s anticipation about the day-specific offer.

The more you reward loyal customers for their commitment and purchases, the more you are likely to keep them happy, satisfied and willing to spend their money on your shop rather than your competitor’s.

 

Wrap Around

The success of an eCommerce store relies undoubtedly on digital communication between your store and your customers. For the updated version of this list, you can check this mailchimp alternatives 2021 article.

Email automation has come to make this exchange easier and expand your community of loyal costumers.

By employing your creativity and innovation, you can come up with incredible content which, along with your email automation techniques, is going to skyrocket your sales and build a loyal community to support you along the way.

So, which technique are you going to try first? 

Let me know what you think in the comments below.

 

Author bio

Marilia is a Creative Writer working for email marketing software Moosend. Her passion for writing has made her find new ways to combine the art of Creative Writing with SEO Copywriting. When she’s not writing articles, you’ll find her spending time on her drabbles.