Email automation might just be my favourite kind of email marketing. Not exactly set-and-forget, but pretty much! If it’s done right, it can have a huge impact on sales and customer retention.
When building the Eloquesta Email Automation Suite, we took advantage of the Mailchimp marketing automation tools which were released in back in May 2017. These are great tools in you email marketing armoury and, amazingly, completely free!
For this project we focused on 4 different email automation campaigns to stimulate customer engagement. These campaigns were:
- Abandoned cart
- Email list welcome series
- Post-purchase reorder and winback
- Post purchase review
Abandoned Cart Email Automation
Purpose: to encourage potential buyers to complete their wine purchase.
This was the first automation we initiated. Needless to say, it’s the one with the clear financial benefit. Customers are close, so close, to completing their purchase but get cold feet at the final hurdle. The main aim of this message is to encourage customers to complete with a gentle reminder.
To date this has been the clear winner in terms of revenue. If you’ve been procrastinating about setting up an abandoned cart email automation for your eCommerce site, wait no longer! This is an essential element in your marketing automation toolkit for stimulating purchases.
Quick Stats
- 94% open rate
- 50% click rate
Welcome Email Automation Series
Purpose: to welcome new subscribers to the mailing list and reward them with a voucher.
Next on the priority list was the welcome message for new subscribers to the Eloquesta newsletter. This comprised a series of We decided on a fairly light series of only 3 messages:
- A welcome offer to give customers an incentive to purchase.
- A follow up with the top selling wines for that month.
- A friendly invitation to come and meet the winemaker in person at an event.
The series has produced a healthy number of sales via the site.null
Quick Stats
- 52% open rate
- 13.2% click rate
Post-purchase Reorder and Winback Automated Campaign
Purpose: this campaign reached out to customers who hadn’t purchased from the store or interacted with the website in a longer time period. The aim was to bring them back in with similar and new products of interest.
This is a slow-burn campaign owing to the long time lapse before the first message is sent. But it’s well worth setting up to keep existing customers in the fold.
Quick Stats
- 64.7% open rate
- 14.7% click rate
Post-purchase Review Campaign
Purpose: to drive customers to the website once they’ve purchased and leave a product review.
This last automation had a different purpose. Rather than driving sales, the aim is to encourage social credit and sharing of reviews.
Quick Stats
- 78% open rate
- 6.3% click rate
Final Thoughts on Email Automation
Marketing automation is a great time saver and can bring customers to your checkout if you have an eCommerce store. Once your automated emails are in place, they can keep working for you while you focus on your next project.
But don’t forget about them altogether. Everything gets stale over time and it’s worth checking in on your copy and content periodically to make sure it’s still fresh and relevant.
Check out the Mailchimp tools for yourself, and happy automating!
