Hello everybody and welcome to Surge. This week we will talk about e-commerce email funnels.
This topic is extremely important; when a prospect or a client comes to us, we always like to look at the lowest hanging fruit: “Where can we make the most amount of impact at the shortest amount of time?” Email funnels are one of those fruits.
When we talk about email funnels, why is it essential? Why do we go back to clients and say, “Are you doing email marketing?”
Look at the data from multiple industries and different clients. Some of your highest converting customers come from email.
How is Email Marketing Useful for eCommerce Businesses?
There are multiple reasons why.
These are customers that have already engaged with your brand. Either they’ve already made a purchase or they’ve subscribed to your newsletter so therefore they are more likely to convert.
Without a proper email funnel set up in place, you’re missing out on thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars just coming from email alone.
Types of Email Marketing
There are three types of email marketing that businesses usually do.
The first is none at all. We don’t recommend this; have a budget on hand.
The second type of client that does emails is they’ll just send like a newsletter, weekly or monthly, with coupons. That’s the weakest type of email marketing that you can do.
The third one, which we emphasize as effective, is actually a dynamic email retargeting. You’ll need to use some third-party tools for this. But if I’m your customer and I come to your eCommerce site, regardless of you being on BigCommerce, Volusion, Shopify, Magento, 3dcart, Miva, whatever it is, and I log in, you then can with a JavaScript tracking code, you can track my activity.
Dynamic Email Retargeting for BigCommerce, Shopify, Magento, etc.
Let’s say I look at a specific product online, like an iPhone. Suppose I add the item to my cart, don’t complete the order and I leave within the next twenty-four hours. You better send me an email saying, “Hey, you were looking at this item, you didn’t add it to cart,” or “You were looking at this item, you added this item to your cart and you didn’t check out. Here is a 5% coupon.”
Imagine if you did that for all the customers or potential customers you have on an engagement basis. This is the power of email marketing.
We have a client that does probably $10 million annually. They weren’t doing any email marketing twelve months ago. After we implemented this dynamic email marketing on a monthly basis, now their email revenue is about $50,000 so annually. They started bringing in $600,000 not changing anything or spending a dollar on new acquisitions.
If this is such an easy concept, why are people not doing this?
People are afraid of the setup because it does take time. You need to make sure that you have all of this in place.
3 Things You’ll Need for Successful Personalized Retargeting Emails for eCommerce
1. Third-Party Tools
You’re going to need a third-party tool. Many business owners don’t know what tool that is and how to configure that tool to get the maximum results. The hardest step is setting this up so that it will then run seamlessly in the background without you having to really actively work on generating revenue.
2. A Robust eCommerce Platform
You have to be on a platform that this technology can meld with easily. If you have any questions about that technology, contact us and we’ll be happy to guide you in the right direction. You have to install a JavaScript file that actually tracks this, integrate with this technology all your customers, signups, database as well as your products.
3. eCommerce Catalog Setup
Remember, you need to have your catalog integrated with this system for the system to identify when to do the follow-up. A funnel expert like our Optimum7 experts need to build the funnels and track them. These can include exit intent, specific product view. Others involve situations where somebody adds an item to or views the cart, goes to checkout or asks a question.
4. Setting Up Customer Groups
Then you have existing customers and customer segments. Because if I’m a customer and I’ve purchased from you 10 times in the past year, I want to see some good discounts or something in return. And if you can segment out your customer base, you can give them hyper-targeted emails that are obviously going to give you the best result.
How to Automate Your eCommerce Dynamic Email Retargeting
You’re really automating this process. semi-automating this process, but you’re setting these funnels and rules for your type of customers. And another thing that this type of technology does is it will track every single customer and it will basically create a timeline.
Let’s say President John Adams is a client or customer of yours. John Adams in the past three years purchased $5,000 worth of merchandise from you and this system will track when he is getting cold. On average John Adams purchases every 60 days. If it’s been 90 days and John Adams hasn’t purchased anything, trigger him to do so.
Automation is the next step. You can use SMS messaging — opt-in only — voicemail drops, or push notifications. It’s all about that touchpoint with your engaging customers.
That’s what this kind of email marketing funnel strategy can do for your business. If you’re not doing this, you might be leaving hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars on the table. If you are on Shopify, Bigcommerce, Magento, Volusion, 3DCart, Miva, Woocommerce or any other e-commerce platform, you need to be doing dynamic email retargeting.
If you have any questions, let us know. We’ll speak to you next week.
