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5 Email Automation sequences you should be running for your ecommerce store

The Welcome Series

The welcome series is the sequence of emails you send to people who subscribe to your list. It is your chance to make a good impression and to introduce your subscribers to what you stand for. 

  • Offer a discount or free trial as an incentive to subscribe, which can increase immediate conversions, also increasing the likelihood they’ll open the rest of your emails.
  • Make sure your provider sends the autoresponder email immediately after a new user subscribes – while they’re still interested and your brand is top-of-mind.
  • Include CTAs to follow you on social media or to check out your blog, so as to help build familiarity and cross-channel engagement.
  • Avoid spam trigger words, which can instantly get your message and domain flagged by leading email clients.

Abandoned cart reminders

The abandon cart email is a follow up email that is sent when a visitor to your site adds one of your products to their shopping cart and initiates a checkout and then leaves the site without completing their purchase. This sequence is essential because more than 70% of your shoppers will abandon carts at checkout

  • Offer discounts for the product in the reminder message.
  • Use a curiosity-piquing subject line like “Did you forget something?”
  • Let users know that supply is low or that the amount of time they’ll hold your item is running out
  • Add an authentic, positive user review

Post purchase follow up ( for reviews):

You’ve got one chance to win people over. The goal of your product is to live up to the promise that you’ve made. What you really want to focus on is having this email sequence fulfill on the promise that you’ve made.

  • Ask for a review outright, and make it easy to leave one. A UGC marketing tool can be a major help with this.
  • At the bottom of the email, display a few products that are similar to the ones purchased, or products that go well with them.
  • Thank your customer once again for their purchase.
  • Include information like product care, product use cases, or a product FAQ.

2XBuyer Purchase flow

This is a separate series of communications to people who have bought twice. It won’t be a huge amount of revenue but it will be a difference maker to your rabid buyers. The goal is to get about 50 percent of your revenue to come from previous buyers and how you do that is through content and cross-sell. That’s all you do in this email flow. This sits in the post-purchase pillar of your automation series.

  • Cross-sell additional items, increase our Lifetime Customer Value.
  • Display your most popular items that they haven’t yet bought.
  • Use testimonials and send people directly to product offer pages.

Winback Campaign

This is another post purchase flow. When someone buys from you, if they don’t purchase from you again, say in 60 days, after that mark, you start the win back campaign. This is a very effective campaign.

  • Use easy-to-obtain incentives that even inactive users can redeem with minimal friction – offers like, “Come back, and we’ll automatically give you a 10% discount off your next purchase!” can be major motivators.
  • Split test multiple re-engagement offers and tones to see what people respond to best.
  • Send re-engagement offers based on the recipient’s personal purchase history, which can improve results.
  • Use a discount ladder (If they haven’t purchased in 60 days, send them a 10% off coupon.
  • If they haven’t purchased in 75 days, send them a 15% off coupon.
  • And finally, if they haven’t purchased in 90 days, send them a 20% off coupon as a last-ditch effort.

What other automation sequences do you run? Comment below

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