Email automation and your ecommerce store

If you’re running an ecommerce store, you should take note of the following stats

• Good email automation can mean up to 50% more sales at 33% less cost 
• Nurtured leads make on average 47% larger purchases

This means that if you’re not using email automation, you’re losing out. 

So, what do we mean by ‘email automation’, and what does ‘good email automation’ look like?

By email automation, we mean building a series of emails that deploy automatically and that take care of a particular customer engagement. For example: someone buys something from your store. You will probably want to (i) thank that person for their purchase, (ii) get feedback from them in the form of a review, and (iii) make them aware of more great things they can buy from you.

You can do all of this with an automated email series, which we call a workflow (as a matter of fact, an easy-to-use ‘New Customer’ workflow template that does all of those things is included in Peach’s free Emails That Make You Money ebook).

What other customer engagements might you want to automate?

Well, if someone signs up to your newsletter or downloads an ebook from your site, you’ll want to be able to nurture those people (who have shown an interest in your business) towards a purchase. So, you might want to build a “New Sign-Up’ workflow, to thank the person for their interest, show some positive social proof in the form of 5 star reviews, profile a customer and showcase your product range. You might also want to give them a small discount or a special offer, to give them more reason to return to your store and purchase something.

Here are some other kinds of workflows common to ecommerce stores:

• Cart abandonment workflow: If someone has put items in their cart, they are clearly contemplating a purchase. It would be an excellent idea to have an automated email flow ready to engage them and bring them back to your store to complete their purchase.
• Browser abandonment workflow: If someone has an account with you, or has signed up to receive an newsletter (i.e. you have their details), you can build a workflow that triggers when they perform certain actions on your site. For example, three visits to a particular product page is a fairly strong indicator of interest in that product; why not offer a small discount automatically?
• Win-back workflow: You definitely want to be able to reach out to people immediately if they cancel a subscription or return an item. After all, you have spent a lot ot time and money getting them to become a customer - you should be doing everything possible to keep them a customer!

At Peach Payments, we’re continually looking for ways to help South African ecommerce merchants grow their businesses. That’s why we’ve developed Emails That Make You Money, a free guide to email automation workflows, that includes over 20 easy-to-use email templates. Whether you’re starting an online shop, or looking to take your ecommerce business to the next level, we’d like to think there’s some value in there for you. But don’t take our word for it:

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Wow. Thank you so much. I am much clearer about creating my email campaigns and am so grateful.

Odette, Riverlea Soap 

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An excellent guide to understanding email automations and fundamental to online stores. The guide is well compiled and written and will be most beneficial for small businesses.

Aaliyah, Rattle and Roll  

At Peach Payments, we offer ecommerce merchants a payment gateway with enterprise-grade security, personalised support and a seamless checkout experience that drives more conversions.