Want to know one simple way to increase your sales by up to 60%?
Three little words… abandoned cart emails.
Yes that’s right, studies have shown that you can recover around 60% of abandoned cart purchases simply by following up with an email.
Let’s look at this handy little email in more detail…
Why Do Customers Abandon Cart?
There are many reasons why your customers might abandon their online shopping cart before completing a sale. Studies have discovered that the main reasons are…
- The total was more than they expected due to added shipping or taxes at the checkout
- Having to create an account to complete their purchase
- Research purposes – they were simply comparing your products or services with others on the market
- Complicated check out process
- Internet issues
- Getting interrupted
Some of these issues you can fix by having a well functioning and easy to use website, or providing your customers with more information upfront. The rest you can try to recover with an automated abandoned cart email.
What Are Abandoned Cart Emails?
Before you can use this valuable tool, you need to know what it is. An abandoned cart email is sent to a customer that has added things to their shopping cart on your eCommerce store but has not completed their purchase for some reason.
It is a really effective sales recovery tactic. Many times a customer intends to go back and make the purchase, they just run out of time or forget. A little reminder can be just the thing they need to push them across the line and buy the things they abandoned previously.
How To Make Abandoned Cart Emails Effective…
If you are going to the effort of sending an email or automating the process, you want to make sure it is going to be an effective message that converts.
There are two things that you need to successfully retrieve a sale in this way:
1: A Reminder Of What They Left Behind
There is no point sending a message asking your customer to return and buy a product if they can’t remember what it was they were going to buy in the first place! Definitely mention the item, or items that they left in their cart. Bonus points if you can preserve the cart and send them a link to continue where they left off, or send them a link to go directly to the checkout with their abandoned items.
2: Great Copy
Sending this email is a bonus marketing opportunity you would not normally have had. Do not squander it with boring, formulaic copy. Instead, have an attention grabbing subject line, catchy body copy, and a strong call to action that encourages them to finalise their purchase. Don’t be afraid to show some personality in these emails, humour and storytelling can work really well to convert the sale.
Bonus Tip: Sweeten The Deal
The main reason people abandon purchases is the fact that the final price was more than they were expecting. Whether they forgot to add shipping, didn’t factor in GST, or are really bad at adding things up in their head, if the price was more than they were expecting they might jump ship before whipping out their credit card. To remove the objection to price, you can offer a small discount to help sweeten the deal. Make sure you make it a time bound offer so it encourages them to act quickly.
If you are looking for one simple way to increase the number of sales in your business, then Abandoned Cart Emails are the way to go. I am not saying that you will recover every sale, but even if you get one or two a week it will be worth it!
Sometimes it can be hard to know what to say in your emails. Will people even want to read them? Abandoned cart emails are a bonus opportunity you don’t want to squander, so grab my top tips for writing emails that your customers actually want to read and wow them with your copy!