Recently, marketing automation has become a hot trend in the e-commerce sector. However, not all companies make the most of the system’s potential that can effectively contribute to their sales growth. How to really increase the number of conversions in the online store?
- Recover abandoned carts with automation
On average, 3 out of 4 people who add a product to their shopping cart leave the page without completing a transaction. Abandoned shopping carts mean lost revenue, so it’s a good idea to implement a solution that will effectively encourage users to visit the page again. One way is to send a push notification to the recipient reminding them of unfinished purchases. The lead will receive a personalised message with reference to a specific shopping cart. They don’t even have to check their email box – the reminder will appear in the corner of their computer screen even after they leave the website.
- Use segmentation to boost sales
Segmentation is one of the key elements of marketing automation. By dividing your audience base into segments, you can offer potential customers exactly what they need and send ad messages to the audience with the highest retention rate. Segmentation can affect almost any event and action taken by users – an average order value, products viewed, number of orders placed, frequency of purchases, number of brand interactions taken, or abandoned shopping cart. By sending the right message to potential or existing customers, you can not only increase sales, but also win customer loyalty.
- Use win-back campaigns
Win-back campaigns are designed to reactivate contacts to perform a specific action, e.g., in the case of online stores – to make another purchase. Marketing automation tools allow for analysing the audience behaviour and sending dynamic messages. With automation, there’s no need to track when a customer has made a purchase, visited a store, or clicked on a link. A properly configured tool will track audience engagement and automatically send messages to a specified segment.
- Show your products in automatic notifications
Marketing automation enables tracking the behaviour of users on the website, analysing their needs and level of interest in the products in question. It is a good idea to use a push notification to show your audience the product they have been viewing and encouraging to purchase, e.g. by offering free delivery.
- Reward loyal customers with discounts and special offers
With marketing automation, it is possible to easily segment and tag one’s customers and then send them personalised offers. For example, it is worth offering a discount to celebrate a user’s birthday, thanking them for their loyalty with an attractive discount, or sending a message with a coupon if the customer has not made any purchase for some time. Marketing automation also allows for segmenting loyalty program members based on lead scoring – special discounts or special offers can be sent on that basis as well.
- Nurture leads and build customer loyalty
Marketing automation in e-commerce supports potential customers in making purchasing decisions, owing to the possibility of creating various types of information and education campaigns. Simply put, the lead nurturing process involves sending a recipient cyclical, predefined messages, all in an automated way. Customised marketing campaigns make it possible to keep in touch with a potential customer, engage them in interaction, educate them on products or services, and then encourage them to take advantage of the offer. All actions taken by leads are analysed and evaluated using scoring – lead scoring allows for classifying sales leads based on the degree of the audience engagement.
- Send automated up-selling and cross-selling campaigns to your customers
Customer activities, such as product page visits or previous transactions, can be used to run automated sales campaigns. It is worth using the cross-selling strategy, i.e., to offer a customer complementary products, e.g. a belt matching the colour of the shoes purchased by the user. Another option is up-selling, namely selling additional products or their more expensive version to increase the value of the shopping cart. For example, a shoe care kit can be offered to a customer who has bought a pair of shoes. It should be borne in mind that it is more expensive to acquire a new customer than to keep the existing one. Therefore, it is worth nurturing the user experience and providing them with exactly what they need.
