Let’s say you’re running a productive eCommerce store with a decent marketing campaign. You're converting customers, but your gut feeling is that you need to be making more sales through critical elements like an abandoned cart email campaign.
By not sending any emails, you’re really hurting your store's profitability. Sadly, many online stores ignore email marketing completely. For some, it might be too complicated so they don’t implement it. For others, they might be lacking in information and strategy.
But the thing is, not having an abandoned cart campaign can be a huge mistake when you're trying to grow your business. Want to know why?
Abandoned cart rates now account for 50-80% of “unfinished” eCommerce (eCom) transactions. And this problem is only going to get much worse.
How much worse? Abandoned cart purchases now cost marketers around 2-4 trillion dollars per year. Ouch! That’s a huge number of missed sales opportunities. Mind-boggling, isn’t it?
With that in mind, It’s not all doom and gloom. You just need to start implementing a plan. Most people don’t realize how powerful abandoned cart campaigns really are. They have very high open and click-through rates.
On average more than 40% of abandoned cart emails are opened by customers. And out of those opened emails, 21% received click-throughs. These numbers are much higher than your average email open rates. So it’s important we take advantage of them.
Very shortly, I’m going to go over some of the abandoned carts strategies you can use. I’m also going to explain in detail how to run these abandoned cart marketing campaigns.
So, are you ready to discover more? If so, then let’s begin.
I want you to picture something for a moment. Imagine one of your customers is browsing your store on their mobile device.
They’re extremely busy but interested in your products. Your customer adds an item to the cart, and put their email information in at the checkout. Something comes up, and they decide to close their mobile browser and abandon checkout. After finishing with their distraction, they end up losing your website information, and can’t find it in their browser.
Since they didn’t receive any emails, your store becomes a forgotten shopping experience. For your customer, it’s a distant memory of the past and they simply don’t buy from you.
So, how do we keep this from happening again? It’s a good question, and it starts with setting up a simple abandoned cart reminder.
Your customers have tons of distractions and busy lives. So if they are forgetting a shopping cart every so often, it’s normal and expected. If we don’t create reminders in our marketing campaign strategy, we are doing our customers a disservice.
This keeps your store fresh in their minds and makes it convenient for them to complete the purchase.
You’ll want to include simple reminders like:
Hey! Did you leave this item by mistake? We’ve saved it for you.
I noticed you left something in your cart. Would you like to complete your purchase?
Did you forget about me, John?
Your product is waiting for you…
We’ve missed you!
Please allow me to transport you back to your shopping cart.
Make sure to include a picture of the product in your reminder email. Also, include a big hyper-linked button that allows your customers to resume their order.
Typically these emails are simple and get straight to the point. Feel free to get creative with your marketing campaign reminders. You could even include a funny gif if it’s appropriate for your store's theme.
By automating these reminders with an autoresponder, you should see a big uptake in sales. You’ll want to choose one that integrates well with your shopping platform.
If you’re short on time and looking for extra help writing emails, consider hiring a good copywriter to help.
The other type of marketing campaign strategy includes limited-time offers.
You want your prospect to feel some type of urgency, a reason to buy your product right now. Without urgency, they might just say to themselves, “Maybe I’ll grab this later” or “I’ll wait until it goes on sale."
It’s very important to nudge people into taking action. Without scarcity, they might wait and forget about doing business with you.
Want some scarcity examples that can help your next email marketing campaign?
You can add:
Digital bonuses
Free shipping
Express shipping
Bonus products
Discounts/coupon codes
Discount codes can do some real damage, but only if you use them tactfully. Just don’t abuse them. If you use discounts or incentives make sure to send them AFTER the reminder emails. You don’t want to give discounts and incentives for no reason.
By using real scarcity and setting an exact date for the offer deadline, you can make extra sales. By telling your customers “this offer expires Jan 31st” you're setting exact deadlines. Make sure that you remove the deal once the offer expires.
Quick question: Is it safe to assume we should only send one abandoned cart email? Sending too many would bother our customers right? Not exactly.
By sending one email, you’re missing out on a ton of sales! So, why do so many store owners stop at one abandoned cart email? Many people are under the assumption they might “bug” the customer by sending too many emails. But that’s simply not the case!
“Customers who receive multiple abandoned shopping cart emails are 2.4 times more likely to complete the purchase than those who receive only one follow up email.”—Ezra Firestone, high-level eCommerce marketer
Pretty interesting don’t you think? Don’t be afraid to remind your customers more than once that they forgot something in their cart. Once you set these emails on autopilot, your store will become so much more profitable.
Now that we’ve discussed the type of strategies you need to implement, let’s talk about timing. You will want to set, at the very least, three abandoned cart emails for your marketing campaign.
The question remains, how often should you send emails? Well, if you’re looking for a good foundation on abandoned cart email timing check this out:
Email 1: one hour later
Email 2: one day after
Email 3: three days after
Sending the second and third emails after abandoned cart are critical to recovering lost customers. You can generate a lot more revenue by adding a few extra emails.
If you’re feeling adventurous, you can experiment with more emails than that, but this is a great place to start.
Now, I’m going to tell you a little secret that will help with your marketing campaigns. Make sure you set your first abandoned cart promotions to first-time buyers only!
This prevents repeat customers from abandoning their cart on purpose. They often do this to receive the same discount over and over. If you want extra tips on improving the open rates of your emails, check this article out.
By setting up a proper email marketing campaign, your store can generate a lot more revenue. Remember, it takes time, strategy, commitment, and a proper team to get massive results.
I hope you’ve discovered some valuable tips that can help with:
Abandoned cart email reminders
Using scarcity emails to create urgency
Implementing strategic email timing
Copywriters are experts in detailed research, marketing strategies, and writing copy that converts. Want help writing powerful email strategies that convert? Consider hiring a dedicated copywriter for your next email marketing campaign.
Chris Hoff is a full-time copywriter and marketer, who specializes in e-commerce.
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