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Top Tips for Ecommerce Marketing Automation

Ecommerce is a busy—and constantly growing— business. Brand-new entrepreneurs cut their teeth in a range of different roles and swap hats almost continuously to keep their companies running. They organize sales channels, create marketing schemes, arrange shipping options, run one-person customer service departments, develop new products, and perform a host of other essential tasks.

It's all just so tiring — and it's also not scalable. To grow their online stores, business owners have to delegate and find time-saving solutions. How do they find the time to do it all? That's where ecommerce marketing automation can play an important role. 

In this guide, we'll cover a few ecommerce marketing essentials and how they can help you to increase efficiency with technology. Then, we'll reveal four essential campaigns you can implement right away to boost conversions and make your business stronger.

What is Ecommerce Marketing Automation?

Ecommerce marketing automation leverages technology to save you time. You can use marketing automation software to set up and send automatic messages across a number of channels, such as email or mobile. You can also use automation programs to personalize the user experience (UX) for your customers and other site visitors (and potential customers). 

Different Types of Ecommerce Marketing Automation

Some ecommerce marketing options make workflows easier to manage — others deal with customer analytics or create custom landing pages. Here are four essential automation software options:

1. Email marketing automation.

Email marketing automation software can help you create targeted campaigns, test emails, and monitor results. Generally speaking, most modern email marketing automation programs are cloud-based, so you can access them from any computer in any location.

Most industry pundits agree that the following four types of emails are marketing strategy staples:

  • Cross-sell and up-sell emails: These provide customers with information about complementary products that will work well with their purchases. 
  • Customer loyalty emails: These emails provide customers with periodic engagement 30, 60, 90, 120 (etc.) days after visiting your site to encourage them to come back.
  • Abandoned cart recovery emails: Registered visitors and customers get email reminders if they leave your site without checking out.
  • Promotional emails: These emails allow you to showcase new products or tell site users about sales via email.

2. Automated workflows.

Automated workflows help personalize your UX and save you a lot of time. For example, automatic customer relations management (CRM) software keeps your consumer engagement strategy on track. And of course, payment gateways process transactions 24/7. You can also automate your social media posts. Services, like Hootsuite, let you schedule and publish Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter posts without ever visiting time-consuming social media platforms (Larq does this on a daily basis). Workflow automation programs work at any time of the day or night and require little human oversight.

 

 

3. Customer analytics.

Customer analytics software can help you find trends and gaps in the market by analyzing the consumer data you gather on a daily basis. Analytics tools get more and more useful the bigger your business grows. You can look at purchase histories, email engagement, hot spots on your site, and lead conversion. The more information you have and the better use you make of it, can have a big payoff. If you know where you stand, you can hone your tactics to achieve better results.

4. Creating landing pages and webinar funnels.

Custom landing pages drive conversions — and cloud-based page-building programs simplify the creative process. Drag-and-drop editors loaded with high-converting page text help you design landing pages that match the rest of your sales funnel. You can also leverage different webinar software to integrate both landing pages and high-converting webinars into your customer relationship strategy. 

This type of automation software comes in really handy during seasonal marketing campaigns. Here's a great example of a custom landing page on Crest's website.

 

 

Why Adopt Marketing Automation Software for Ecommerce

To put it simply, marketing automation software can help your business become more profitable. According to Social Media Today's 2019 State of Marketing Automation report, roughly 75% of companies use automation software to improve sales. The same analysis found that 83% of business owners particularly liked being able to auto-schedule social media posts.

Here are four more reasons why people love marketing automation software:

1. Decreases human error.

People zone out after working on repetitive tasks for a while; ecommerce marketing automation software doesn't. As a result, programs record accurate data, collect more email addresses, complete essential jobs, and reliably implement marketing strategies. It’s hard to beat the consistency of a machine. 

2. Elevated average order value (AOV).

You can use automated marketing software to identify high-performing products, segment your customer base, and send targeted emails to specific site users. Instead of chasing new leads and taking on the increased costs of winning brand new customers, you work with what you already have and increase your AOV without spending a lot of extra money.

3. Enhanced customer insights.

Marketing automation programs channel information into a centralized database, which you can leverage to your advantage later on. When visitors sign up for email newsletters, they're added to a list. Later on, you can send incentive-laden email questionnaires to gain more data about each consumer.

Specific programs also track user engagement. You find out where people spend time on your site, which pages are most popular, your bounce rate, and how many unique visitors you get every month. This is all valuable information you can use to hone your marketing efforts. 

4. Saves times and increases efficiency.

Automation software handles a lot of information quickly and efficiently. By outsourcing more mundane tasks to automation, you can focus your human resources on product development or design elements while your automation program tackles the boring stuff. Later on, you can generate detailed reports which will inform your marketing strategy. 

Marketing Automation Campaigns Suited For Online Stores

Now that you have a sense of why to choose marketing automation for your ecommerce store, where should you start? Email marketing is a great place to dip your toes into the world of marketing automation. Automatic emails drive traffic to your store. The more targeted emails you send, the more customers you gain — and follow-up emails keep people engaged. Here are four really effective email marketing campaigns to help you get rolling:

1. Welcome potential customers.

You have one chance to make a good first impression. Welcome emails give you the opportunity to present your brand and provide new subscribers with an onboarding incentive (a coupon, a free gift, or the chance to win something in a prize draw). Include interesting copy and attractive, useful images to increase the chances of consumers opening future emails. Many companies go with a welcome series, rather than a single email, as they are shown to improve conversion rates.

2. Re-engage formerly active customers.

You can use email automation to turn dormant customers back into active customers. How? By using a win-back email series filled with personalized recommendations and high-quality information. For best results, segment your recipient list into age groups, interests, or average order value, and send targeted emails every few weeks.

3. Win back customers with abandoned cart emails.

Abandoned carts are a big problem for ecommerce merchants. In fact, more than 73% of consumers abandon carts when shopping on desktop computers, and roughly 86% of people abandon carts when shopping via mobile devices. Thankfully, automatic emails help. If you set up a cart abandonment email to give them a gentle nudge, you'll encourage about 10% of cart abandoners to return and complete their checkout.

4. Offer personalized promotions.

Personalization is king in the ecommerce world. Here's where you leverage the data you gather using your analytics program. If you know which products customers buy most frequently, or how much they usually spend, you can tempt them with custom offers delivered via email. Who doesn’t love a message tailored just for them? A recent high-level report found that personalized emails produced 150% more conversions than regular emails — and a 50% increase in AOV, too.

Conclusion

Ecommerce marketing automation software provides a great return on investment (ROI) in most settings. To figure out which software is right for you and your business, think about which marketing channels you work with most often and which analytics you'd find most useful. Don't forget to check reviews, engage in demos, and try the program out before making a commitment.

An effective marketing strategy is a crucial part of any successful ecommerce venture. Powerful, user-friendly marketing automation software can help you gain new customers, keep old customers, and ultimately grow your business.

 

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