Creating an eCommerce marketing strategy can be a time-consuming endeavor. Wouldn't it be nice to make it a bit easier?
You can with automation! Automating your eCommerce marketing can save you a lot of time and increase your profit margin.
Keep reading to see our full eCommerce marketing automation guide, learn what eCommerce software and tools are available for you, and take a look at email marketing automation.
How to Use Marketing Automation for eCommerce
There are many different ways to automate your eCommerce marketing to improve processes and hit your eCommerce KPIs. You can invest in a new headless eCommerce platform, email marketing service, or customer relationship management (CRM) software. The key is to use it to drive sales and enhance the user experience.
Here are three ways you can use marketing automation:
Attract New Customers
Growing your list of qualified leads is the key to growing your business. It can also be difficult and time-consuming for a team manager--although it's a great skill to have when seeking a strong eCommerce manager salary. Automating your sales funnel is a great way to lessen the manual effort needed.
Create a welcome series of emails that are automatically triggered when a lead is entered to begin your relationship with the customer quickly. This will keep you top-of-mind and lessen the risk that the prospect won't engage with you. In addition to an automated email series, you can focus on eCommerce content marketing and set up eCommerce PPC to draw in the customers.
Increase Average Order Value (AOV)
One of the best ways to grow revenue is to grow your average AOV. Rather than increasing prices, you can use upselling and cross selling to sell more and higher-priced products. This is made much easier through marketing automation.
One solution is the use of widgets on product pages, in the cart, or in emails. These are automatically selected sets of products that are displayed to the customer to entice them to purchase more. They may be of complementary products, more expensive versions of the same product, or bestsellers. They are a great tool for increasing the total number of products purchased and AOV.
Increase Customer Retention
Most businesses make 80% of their revenue from only 20% of their customers. This means it's vital to retain as many of your existing customers as possible. Unfortunately, customer churn is a problem for all eCommerce businesses.
You may be losing customers due to low customer satisfaction, increased competition, or simply because they've forgotten about your brand. All of these can be combated with marketing automation. Sending abandoned cart emails, reaching out when there's a gap between purchases, or adopting the subscription box business model are great choices. Luckily, BlueCart allows you to automate email sends to customers who haven’t placed an order recently to remind them to shop. This is especially great at increasing conversions when paired with abandoned cart recovery emails.
Best Marketing Automation Tools for eCommerce
With thousands of marketing automation tools for eCommerce available, it can be hard to find the right software for you. While there is no single best ecommerce marketing automation software, there are a few tools that we think every eCommerce business owner could benefit from.
These are our top five marketing automation tools for eCommerce:
BlueCart eCommerce
BlueCart eCommerce is an all-in-one digital sales platform with a slew of useful tools. In addition to it being the best eCommerce platform for SEO and the robust digital storefront, it lets you send emails right from the platform. It even has a built-in promotional function, so you can set up a deal and send out an email blast in one place. If you're looking to increase direct to consumer and B2B sales (see what is B2B sales) while making marketing and customer relationship management a breeze, it's the best option.
Omnisend
OmniSend is an automated email marketing service built specifically to automate processes and streamline marketing. It comes with customizable workflows that allow the users to create, send, and track emails with ease. It has a robust set of reporting options that let you understand what's working and what isn't. It can also be integrated with most eCommerce platforms and software, so you don't have to replicate any work.
LeadSquared
LeadSquared is a lead conversion and marketing automation platform designed specifically to streamline the marketing funnel. It is essentially a customer journey automation tool that pushes customers through the funnel quickly while optimizing customer engagement. It allows you to automatically trigger emails, texts, phone calls, and more to capture leads and convert them to customers. Even better, it reduces junk leads and uses intelligent lead prioritization to push the most valuable leads through first.
Act-On
Act-On is an inbound and outbound lead management program designed to make nurturing leads a breeze. It's been built from the ground up to help you lower your turnover rate and increase customer retention and lifetime value. It also has some additional offerings like a built-in landing page designer. This way you optimize every step of the process for your customers.
AdRoll
One of the more unique services, AdRoll is a tool used to automate your retargeting ads on Facebook, Twitter, and across the Internet. With flexible segmentation, robust reporting, and a slew of dynamic ad options, it's a must-have for anyone investing heavily in PPC ads. It even has cross-device and cross-platform retargeting capabilities so users will see your ads even when they switch from their computer to their phone or vice versa.
Email Marketing Automation for eCommerce
The most common choice for automation is eCommerce email marketing. It allows you to send bulk emails quickly and maximize the impact. You can automate your email marketing through a standalone service or through a platform like BlueCart.
These are the top three reasons to automate your email marketing:
Higher Conversion Rates
The biggest benefit of email marketing, in general, is that the conversion rate is much higher than any other medium. Automating your email campaigns can increase this even more. Order reminder emails, promotional emails, abandoned cart, and welcome series emails can be sent automatically to turn prospects into customers and increase eCommerce sales.
Increase Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV)
Customer relationships that are nurtured yield higher long-term value and convert those customers into brand advocates. Automated emails are a great way to keep customers from feeling neglected, or from customer relationships feeling strictly transactional. This is especially true if you have an automated loyalty program or send promotional emails only to your most valuable customers.
Segment Customers for Maximum Profit
Not all customers offer the same value or act in the same way. That's why you need to segment them into various groups to optimize your marketing efforts. Doing this manually takes a lot of time and can be difficult, especially when your email list continues to grow. Automated segmentation will track the actions and preferences of your contacts and place them into various groups you can target. It's a great way to maximize your profit and sales by personalizing the sends by group.
It's Automatic, It's Systematic, It's Hydromatic!
Taking control of your marketing efforts with eCommerce marketing automation can take a middling campaign and make it great. Follow the tips above and choose the right eCommerce software and you're on your way toward automated marketing. Pair this with an online marketplace and you'll increase sales in no time.