Running a business online has one vital advantage over owning a traditional brick & mortar business: the freedom you have to communicate with customers at all times in multiple ways.

Customers can place orders 24 hours a day. You can send updates & new offers via email. You can offer instant support whenever they need it, either by email or using a chatbot from your homepage.

The options you have to connect with customers online are endless & in times like these when digital attention is at an all-time high, they are even more vital than ever.

But without marketing automation tools for ecommerce, doing it all on your own is virtually impossible. In fact, it could become just as overwhelming as running the business itself.

Marketing automation tools for ecommerce are designed to essentially handle most lead generation & customer service tasks for you so you can do what you do best: running your business.

However, these tools do the most for you if you take full advantage of them…& automating your business is more than just setting up some email campaigns & gathering leads.

When you really dig into these tools, you find that they solve more problems than you’re aware of, & assist your customers with their purchases in a manner that genuinely meets their needs & streamlines your sales process.

Our patented Customer Value Journey formula is designed to not just generate new customers for your business, but keep the ones who have come to appreciate your product or service coming back to buy more.

And the most expertly designed Value Journey seamlessly transitions customers from one stage to another through a series of actions that presents the right offers at the right places in the process.
If you run an online store, marketing automation is the most valuable tool you have to efficiently accomplish this.

Here are a few strategies for marketing automation tools for ecommerce that meet your customers where they’re at & help them at every stage in the journey.

Cart Recovery Automation

When someone visits your store, they might pick up an item & put it in their shopping cart or walk around with it. However, at some point, they might change their mind, put it back down & leave without making the purchase.

You can’t just go up to them & remind them that they initially wanted the item if they’re shopping in person. That would be creepy.

But if a customer puts something in their virtual cart & forgets to check out, you have the ability to reach out to them with a reminder to finish their transaction.

Snatcher Online is one business that experienced great success from instituting cart recovery automations. Based in South Africa, the company sells everything from pet supplies to beauty products to electronic devices, plus much more.

The business was already successful, but the introduction of the cart recovery automation into their Shopify store became one of their most useful resources.

When a customer leaves an item in their cart, they receive an automated email an hour later reminding them that “something was left behind.” But Snatcher doesn’t stop there.

The email also presents a special discount to bring you back to complete the purchase.

The success started with the open rate. The first time Snatcher sent the email out, it got a 50% open rate & nearly a 20% click through rate.

But in less than a year, the company has been able to regenerate more than $120,000 in revenue simply by sending that email.

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Creating Engagement With Pop-Ups

Generating leads from your website is a must for ensuring that you are consistently creating more customers. Offering coupons is a great way to gather contact information in exchange for something valuable so you can make this happen.

However, marketing automations for ecommerce can take this concept to a whole new level, as the essential oil store Organic Aromas discovered when they started incorporating pop-ups on their website.

Organic Aromas started out using just two opt-in opportunities: one at the top of the homepage & one in the footer. They were generating around 264 leads per month, with an average subscription rate of 3.24%.

Their first step in changing their strategy was to incorporate an exit-intent pop-up—a pop-up box that appears when the visitor makes a move to leave the site. The pop-up offers a 10% off discount on their first order in exchange for providing their email address.

After incorporating this strategy, they saw a conversion rate of 19.03% among new visitors. But they didn’t stop there.
They also included a popup that appears immediately when someone begins browsing inviting them to sign up for Organic Aromas’ newsletter and receive a 10% off coupon.

In just one week, it generated 135 new leads with a 6.8% conversion rate.

Maybe pop-ups come across as pushy & as a result, many businesses have mixed feelings about using them. But the data doesn’t lie—including extra opportunities for visitors to opt in generates more leads & sales.

Creating The Ultimate 1st Impression

We’ve talked before about the importance of having a great welcome email to send your new subscribers. But the way you use email automations to communicate with your list is so important that we feel the need to mention it again.

The fact is, one email isn’t enough. You need to follow it up with additional messaging to keep your brand at the forefront of your subscribers’ minds. Otherwise, there’s a possibility that you’ll never hear from them again.

Harper Liz Boutique, a small online store that sells uniquely crafted clothing for children & toddlers, used 3 emails sent over the course of one week to showcase the brand & compels subscribers to buy.

These emails saw almost immediate positive results, including a 36% open rate & a click rate of nearly 9%.

The welcome email, which provides new subscribers with a 15% off coupon, shows off “hot items” that are attracting shoppers’ attention, has resulted in $47,000 in sales.

The additional 2 items, which show off more products with delightful & engaging graphics, have also added an extra 7.5% of sales (around $3,600).

The lesson? The way you communicate with your customers matters, & using the right emails as part of your marketing automation tools for ecommerce makes a difference.

Want to learn more about automations & how they can help you save time & money so you can efficiently run your business & communicate with all your customers?

Our Next Level Segmentation guide will teach you a strategy for using automated email to speak to specific segments of your list with different needs so you can personalize your emails.

Check it out here.