Many people decide to quit their purchases a moment before they enter their credit card or PayPal data in the checkout page form. We all know this feeling. Just think about all the times you entered the retail store, tried a pair of shoes or jeans and left the store without buying them. If the salesperson comes after you and tries to convince you to buy them, you would think of them as cheap and you would never step foot in that store again.
One of the main differences between online and location based stores is that digital salespeople have more than one chance to persuade consumers to buy their products. The persuasion technique that can turn a weak-willed consumer into a loyal customer is called email remarketing.
Why do Consumers Abandon Their Shopping Carts?
Ecommerce businesses lose more than $300 billion each year, because around 70% of their potential customers abandon the checkout page after making an order. Psychologists and marketing experts determined that these are the top five reasons for shopping cart abandonment:
- Shipping costs are too high (44%);
- Not ready to make a purchase (41%);
- Only wanted to compare prices (27%);
- The overall price was too high (25%);
- Decided to buy it later (24%);
When shopping cart abandonment happens, if the consumer does not return within the next 60 minutes, there is only a 10% chance that they will eventually close the purchase.
That is why companies need to react fast and target the confused consumer with their email remarketing techniques.
Email Remarketing Step by Step
Although we mainly spoke about ecommerce websites earlier, email remarketing is used in many different industries. For example, travel agencies often use this technique for increasing conversions of the underperforming bookings. If you don’t know how to increase conversions on your website, you should invest more time in studying common remarketing methods. Every email remarketing plan should contain the following three steps.
The First Email
The first email should be sent immediately after the visitor abandons your checkout page. It should have a service tone and it does not need to contain any special offers. Use it to let the consumer know that you are at their service and offer them help with completing the signing or registering forms. If you are able to see the product your potential customer was interested in, you can use this email to share some of its extra features or to present it in a better and more attractive way.
The Second Email
This follow up should contain more reassuring words. You can send links to product reviews on independent websites, talk more about the product benefits, top-quality materials, and the production process itself.
You should also share more photos and videos. Never use any of these emails for cross-selling other products or for directing consumers to other websites or online stores. Just focus on the original abandonment and avoid any unnecessary details.
The Third Email
This is the moment where you need to offer some incentive to your potential customer. If we look at the list above, we will see that the biggest motive for cart abandonment is the shipping price. That is why free shipping is the best offer you can make at this time.
Some other options include a free trial period, Christmas gift cards, a discount, or a low-value free product in a bundle with the one that caused the cart abandonment. The third email needs to be your last follow up and it should be sent 6 days and 23 hours after consumer abandoned the checkout process.
How to Get Email Addresses?
Getting a visitor’s email address is one of the most crucial processes for successful email remarketing. You can use several different techniques in order to achieve this goal. You should ask consumers to sign up to your website before making a purchase. You can introduce obligatory sign up required for getting to a checkout page. This way, every consumer will leave their email address which you can later also use for newsletters and other forms of email marketing.
The bad side of this approach is that many consumers will be too lazy to sign up and you might lose some customers. You can also motivate your visitors to sign up by giving them certain incentives. You can offer them a free eBook, free shipping, or a discount code for their first purchase.
Email remarketing is a very powerful technique which can double your website’s conversion rates. Several surveys showed that the cart abandoners are more likely to spend 55% more money than the customers who completed their orders in a regular way. That is why you should definitely add this technique to your marketing strategy.
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