A B A N D O N M E N T. This is the word that makes merchants depressed. This is the world that kills business. This is the word that means your products are out of the scope of customers’ interests.
Certainly, it is not about the word itself. ‘Abandonment’ means a dead-alive phenomenon in e-commerce. But let’s think of words as a powerful tool to achieve different goals. You see that there are a lot of the words able to improve the situation related to abandoned carts and bring forgetful customers back to a store. What do exactly I mean? The issue at stake here is the letters written for the customers whose carts are abandoned. The composition of such letters is a decisive factor. And there is no technical tool to create effective ones. Fantasy, imagination, and emotionality are at the heart of success of such letters. Don’t you want to know how to put all these components into one impactful letter? Please, see the tips below.
First of all, I would like to fix the idea that you are a merchant with an online store. You have abandoned carts. You have written multiple letters, and they are not effective. The situation described makes sense. Why? Just because this article is addressed for the merchants who are in need of help because their letters don’t make abandoned carts disappear.
I’m guessing your letters start with the phrases like: ‘I just wanted to check if…’. It’s completely wrong. You are not going to check. You’re going to return a customer who forgets his/her products in a cart. And there is only one meaningful way. You should generate interest demonstrating the value of the products your customer has left in a cart without shopping.
Put in subject line
Look at your mailbox. It’s full of trash. Can you be sure your customer will open just your letter? No, you can’t. But! The shining subject line may help you to get assurance. Your subject line catches the attention of a customer if only:
- It’s brief and precise;
- It doesn’t contain the words like ‘free’, ‘% off’, ‘remind’, ‘check’ etc.
- It’s personalized.
Are you in a mess? But there’s always A/B testing. Create two subject lines, define what your strong sides are, slag off a part of your list, set the winner and then get rid of the rest part of your list.
Don’t lose in details
I have no reasons why you should put a long prehistory into your follow-up email. It’s great to start your letter with a clear offer, favorable cost, and profit for a customer. Be clear and not overload your email with multiple empty words. No one wants to know how much you are witty or how much you are smart. People are hungry for new proposals which make them happier. So come on! Don’t test your customers!
Add the personality into your emails
There is nothing worse than mails which are out of concern of the addressees. Try to write personally. This is the only way to make them read your letters till the end. Otherwise, they may block your irrelevant emails and you will be able to do nothing.
‘I’m aware that you have a heavy schedule, but let me take your time for a little while…’ Even this opening phrase sounds personal. While acknowledging your customer has a lot of tasks to perform, you’re demonstrating your awareness and making your message heart-to-heart.
Add the value into your emails
Along with the personality, clear information presentation and bright subject line don’t forget about the value. You should create the value of the product abandoned. Show the problem and its solution that is the result of your product applying. Try to describe this problem as dramatically as possible and demonstrate the solution as loudly as possible. Put into your letter the statistics. The figures and graphics say more about your product value.
Mind your grammar
It’s clear that typos are easy to make. But it’s difficult to forget them. And this is a big problem. The mistakes in your letter automatically make your customers think of you as you’re not an expert but an amateur. It isn’t sounding good. Compose your letter carefully avoiding typos, mistakes, misprints and other things able to downgrade your professional value.
These tips will help you to compose the letters your customers can’t ignore. And now while the abandonment rate is still killing your business, it’s reasonable to remind the Follow-Up Email extension for stores based on Magento.
More than 250,000 merchants all over the world prefer Magento considering it as an excellent platform for the online commerce. Every day the developers try to make store owners more successful producing new powerful extensions for Magento. One of the most advanced extension developers Aheadworks has managed to create the Follow-Up Email extension for Magento 2, and it actually works. Why do I think so? Why do I advise you to take it seriously?
The functionality of this plugin is impressive and fully aimed at abandonment reducing. You are able to:
- choose the motive for your follow-up email;
This extension offers a long list of the reasons why you may disturb your customers: newsletter subscription, review submission, birthday, cart abandonment (of course!) etc.
- differentiate the customers between different groups;
It provides rules for customer segmentation to set. As a result, you will have an ordered system of letters to monitor and produce prompt business solutions.
- select the best time for follow-up emails to send;
It’s significant to be at the right place and at the right time. While defining exact timing for the follow-up emails, you may be sure you are on time with your letter.
- make your email valuable;
It allows filling the emails with appropriate content including personal data, coupon codes, products, pictures, etc.
- use figures to evaluate your store efficiency;
Analytics is what Aheadworks provides store owners with an opportunity to produce right solutions based on the following data: the number of sent, opened and clicked emails; open rate and CTR; A/B testing stats; the number of coupons used, etc.
The functionality described is not limited. The most pleasant news here is that August 2017 promises to be sensational for the users of this extension. A/B testing is what many owners of this extension are looking forward to. And it’s coming soon.
Don’t you agree that nothing is perfect and you’re always in need of positive changes? So A/B testing is just for these goals. Soon the opportunity of testing content and subject line of emails becomes reality. We have already discussed that it’s better to test and then to send. And this extension will be able to provide its users with this good option.
About BCC and its value
There is one more option that has an ‘upcoming’ status. This August would please the users of Magento 2 Follow Up Email extension by BCC entering. Let’s shed the light on what BCC is. It will help to understand how much this feature is valuable. Leading by ‘safety is primary’ principle the Blind Carbon Copy is great to apply when you send an email to multiple customers simultaneously.
While putting email addresses into BCC field, these addresses are invisible for email recipients. While putting email addresses into CC field, the addresses are visible for all the recipients of the email. Note that most people don’t want their email address is publicly accessible information. So, in this case, BCC is an operable way. Each email recipient gets the email without seeing email addresses of other participants of the mailout.
While applying BCC:
- The privacy of the email addresses is protected in the initial email. The recipients get the email copy and are not be able to see the addresses of other recipients.
- There is the following claim to the effect that sensitive data is under protection. The email addresses are not sent in case of the emails are resent.
- Besides, while using BCC, you are able to protect your customers from spam getting. In case of CC applying, there are more chances your customers are suffered from junk mail. Why do I think so? There is one simple example. In order to answer to the email sent via CC, customers apply ‘Answer to all’ option. The spam is inevitable in this case.
I hope you are assured this feature costs to be waited for. While applying the product by Aheadworks, you will be awarded with the opportunities to:
- create/change the templates or operate the predefined ones;
- preview and send test emails;
- add headers and footers.
Manage with a great relish
After reviewing the basic and extra features of the product by Aheadworks, I propose you to check the management process of the extension. This is the first thing users are interested mostly.
Generally, you may find management process easy and intuitive. The mailout is not always a pretty good idea. In many cases, we need to apply the definite action to the definite email. And it’s possible to implement the differentiation with Follow Up Emails by Aheadworks. You may create and modify template, preview and send test emails. Easy and effective management is the most desirable combination for users and Aheadworks offers it.
Let’s see management process using screenshots.
- You may send, cancel or delete multiple emails simultaneously or singularly.
- You may differentiate due to the topic and see when they are to be sent.
- You may easily see all the required information to make your mailing activity more effective.
- You may easily compose/edit the templates or use the predefined ones.
- You may choose an appropriate time for emails are to be sent.
Finally, I would like you to think of time issue. You may be skeptical of the issue when to send your follow-up emails. But to choose the best time is a real challenge because it impacts the results crucially. I would like to share some advanced approaches related to time management for following-up.
- Do you know that ‘opening hours’ are between the hours of 6 pm and midnight? At the same time most companies continue to follow the tradition to send emails from 6 am till noon. I can’t say that this old-school principle doesn’t work completely, but why not to be different and opt for the unpopular but more effective way? ‘Be different! And ‘See the difference. These taglines could not have been better for the issue described.
- Remember that when you sleep, some of your customers wake up! Don’t be afraid to find out what time zone you customers belong to. You will be really surprised how willingly people share the information about their location if they are sure it makes their life simplier. I advise you to differentiate your customers between time zones not to be abused.
- You may not believe but while sending your emails on weekends, you may get the highest rate of opening of the letters. As Experian thinks, the volume of mailing is much lower on weekends, but the chances for letters being opened are greater. Don’t you remember that we live in terms of a mobile era? So, a person without a smartphone in his/her hands is an unusual situation. While sending letters suitable for reading them via smartphones, you have more chances to reach the eyes of your customers.
Now I can breathe easy. Now you know what to do to eliminate abandoned carts and increase sales rates. I have provided you with valuable information about a top-notched extension and given you some tips to maximize the profit from your activity. I hope that you have also started to breathe easier!
