Email Automation Strategies To Help You Sell More
Optimizing your BigCommerce store for upselling and cross-selling is important. But it’s also possible to upsell your customers when they’re not even on your site. How? With email marketing tools.
We’ve said it before – one of your greatest assets as an ecommerce merchant is your email list. And with a smart email marketing campaign, you can upsell your customers right from their inbox. Automated email flows and drip campaigns engage customers who have bought before or abandoned a cart, encouraging and incentivizing them to return to your site and spend more.
Of course, it isn’t as simple as blasting them with abandoned cart emails. There’s an art and a science to email upselling. Here are some best practices.
For Email Upselling To Work, You Need Customer Data
Successful upsell campaigns are based on data. What did the customer buy or leave in their cart? Is there something else that they might need, like a case for a new smartphone? Is there a timing aspect to the upsell? For example, if they bought a three month supply of shampoo, a great time to email them reminding them to re-up would be right before they run out.
That’s why automation software is crucial. We’ve talked about MailChimp and Klayvio before. Both are great options that can help you craft targeted email campaigns. Klayvio in particular makes use of a wide variety of customer data, generating hyper-targeted, numbers-driven campaigns that increase sales.
Having the right customer data informs the life cycle of your marketing campaign. Email flows and drip campaigns are the heart of that lifecycle. These are pre-written, timed emails that are sent out in response to certain triggers. For example, if a customer abandons a cart, they might get a reminder email the next day and one with a discount code three days later. If they buy a cell phone but no maintenance plan, they’ll get a different mail flow.
Email flows and drip campaigns are powerful because they nurture your customers and leads without your having to do anything. And through the power of customer data, you’re able to send personalized pitches that appeal to each specific customers, with no extra work on your end.
Appeal To Emotions With Personalization
Upselling is about catching customers when they’re feeling good. Here are some tips to get them in a buying frame of mind.
- Show them what they just bought. A simple way to increase positive feelings is to remind customers of what they just bought. Seeing a picture (or even just the product name) will give them a little boost and remind them of the state of mind they were in when they made the purchase.
- Talk to them like a human. You could send them an auto-generated image grid of the four frying pans they didn’t buy, or you could send them a note written by a real person at your company. In that note, you can thank them or share in their excitement, while also including some additional products or upgrades they might also need.
- Incentivize. Upsell campaigns are most impactful when the customer feels like they’re getting a good deal. Offering a time-limited discount is a great way to get customers to pull the trigger on something they left behind.
- Add interactivity. If you’re sending product recommendations, giving customers the option to “improve those recommendations” will increase their sense that the emails you send them are useful and important (and, obviously, help you recommend things they’re more likely to buy!). This could be a survey you include or a “Don’t show me this again” button next to each recommended product.
Ready To Let Email Automation Increase Your Sales?
Our marketing team specializes in crafting email strategies that help BigCommerce merchants sell more. If you’re not optimizing your email list, call us today at 866-843-4650!
