You may already have a successful email marketing campaign with enough subscribers who seem to like and read your content. Unfortunately, you’re not seeing the conversion of sales you’d like with this current strategy. Quality content and an audience to give it two are only the first steps to monetizing from your improved customer relationships and brand recognition.
Photo by Joe The Goat Farmer, CC BY 2.0
In addition, you’ll have to use smart marketing techniques to turn interest into sales. It’s not too late and it won’t cost a dime to change your marketing strategy for the better, boost sales and have greater customer retention.
In this article we’ll discuss the common obstacles which come in the way of an otherwise good email marketing strategy’s ability to convert leads. If you’re not implementing these helpful tips, you’re missing opportunities to sell. Get ready to turn your B- campaign into an A+ one and finally see a return on your investment.
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Cart Abandonment Opportunities
The scary truth is that even the big guys experience very high cart abandonment rates, with the average at about 68%. Can you imagine an additional 68% of sales, lost for any number of reasons.
The most common reason people abandon their carts is sticker shock, when they go to check out and are confronted with high shipping charges or additional fees. For this reason, it’s integral you be as transparent as possible about fees and charges before your customer reaches the check out. People also don’t like having to create an account to make a purchase, so try to collect as little information as you need until the sale is finalized. For example, you could redirect them to your email sign-up form or to a questionnaire about their experience.
The 3rd most common reason, however, was that people were not ready to check out, either because they did not have the funds or weren’t done shopping. These people constitute your main reason to send cart abandonment emails- simple reminders that they forgot to check out. Be smart and give them incentive to finalize the transaction, or even ask them why they abandoned their cart in the first place. Such responses are invaluable to developing a better campaign and bring us to the next strategy on the list.
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Ask for Reviews
How are the reviews for your business, services, or individual products? Do you have a strong understanding of where your reviews are coming from and who is writing them? Have you ever reached out to people who have written negative reviews in an interest to reconcile?
Put simply, reviews count for a lot when you’re trying to sell online. People can review anything from their local plumbers to summer blockbusters, and what they say matters. Look at these eye-opening facts:
- 69% of consumers check reviews before purchasing a product
- 88% of these customers trust the reviews as much as they would a personal recommendation
- While 72% of consumers would consider purchasing an item rated 3 stars, only 27% would be willing to try a 2 star product.
You can learn more facts about the importance of reviews here, but what does it mean for your email marketing campaign?
Your subscribers represent a base of existing, interested and happy group of customers and leads who are the perfect individuals to ask for reviews. If you find repeat buyers or long time subscribers, send them a personal appeal for their opinion on a recently purchased item. By simply targeting customers who are more likely to be happy with you, you can generate quality, organic reviews.
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Maximize Transactional Emails
Too many ecommerce businesses treat transactional emails like necessary evils; while their newsletters may be colorful and eye-catching, their receipts and shipping confirmations are in plain text, black and white. What a missed opportunity! Transactional emails are commonly opened TWICE as often as promotional email, so use this space to reach your customer.
Ask for reviews or feedback, and promote similar products or other popular items. Offer them a limited time discount for their loyalty to encourage them to keep shopping, or use the opportunity to gain a subscriber. Don’t forget to use the same attractive templates and images you would in a regular promotional email, while maintaining all the necessary information and easy functionality. Find the balance between overloading or annoying your customer and giving them content they want and can relate to.
A popular and successful strategy is to add links to social media at the bottom of transactional emails. This is simple promotion that doesn’t detract from the original email’s intent. Mailrelay email marketing can help you make professional and engaging automated transactional mails with the click of a button.
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Reach Out to Past Customers
An inactive list does not automatically mean you have to start from scratch. Do you have contacts who only purchased once last year, or who were once a repeat customer who went away? These are perfect candidates to reach out to, either with incentives to come back and shop, or a softer approach, like appealing to them to join your social media. As you may have already guessed, you can also reach out to them to ask why they left with feedback forms. These are not ideal candidates to ask for reviews on products, however.
Targeting these individuals will require you to segment based on loyalty, watching how long it’s been since they were last active. You then want to target these lost individuals with triggered automated posts like those mentioned above. Be as personal as possible.
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Mobile-Friendliness
Losing mobile phone and tablet business is akin to losing the potential of abandoned carts. Over 40% of individuals check their mobile device for email, and most people in the United States check their email multiple times a day. If your campaign is unreadable on a small screen, or doesn’t work without images, you’re losing a huge portion of your audience.
Keep mobile versions of your emails simple, using common fonts and simple fill-out forms or links. Your landing pages need to be mobile-friendly too, so that once they’re on the hook they don’t fall off due to a technicality.
It’s Up to You
The benefits of a successful email marketing campaign are obvious, but getting there takes time and dedication to your customers and their individual needs. Staying competitive online means you have to take every advantage to stay ahead and be better and more engaging than your competition. Responding quickly to your customer’s concerns and cultivating organic, high-rating reviews will go a long way.