Marketing automation for eCommerce stores is catching up faster than you think. eCommerce marketers aren't able to keep up with the changing dynamics of customers using inbuilt tools of eCommerce platforms like Shopify, Magento, PrestaShop, and others. Large eCommerce players like Amazon pioneered the usage of marketing automation for engaging, retaining, and upselling to customers.
Many of the large eCommerce businesses have in-house marketing automation tools to streamline their daily marketing tasks. Due to the unique nature of these businesses, they have built their own custom marketing automation systems. If you are managing an eCommerce business it is extremely necessary that you implement marketing automation, if you haven't yet.
Why Choose Marketing Automation for eCommerce?
Using a marketing automation tool for your eCommerce business makes sense in more ways than one. It helps you gather all the data that you have in one place, and take quick, informed decisions based on this data. You can automate your day-to-day marketing processes that are repetitive, mundane and time-consuming. This saves your time, and it also ensures that everything is error-free.
Marketing automation systems cannot replace your marketing department. If you are fearing for that, then let me assure you, your fears are in vain. On the other hand, if you are feeling too relieved thinking that marketing automation will do everything for you, I’m afraid I have bad news for you. It is, after all a machine. You will have to tweak it, monitor it and work on it if necessary from time to time.
But, if you keep doing that, you will see the changes first hand: more visitors on the website, more leads, and successful campaigns.
Marketing Automation Can Change Your eCommerce Business
For eCommerce businesses such as yours, marketing automation is not a growth tool anymore. It is a survival tool. With so many marketing channels and rising customer demands, it has become very difficult to survive without marketing automation for eCommerce businesses. Here’s how it can change your business:
#1: Improves Demand
If you want to survive and thrive in the eCommerce sector, you need to ensure a steady flow of visitors and buyers on your website/mobile-based application.
With marketing automation, you can track prospects from the moment they land on your online store. From that point onwards, all their actions on your store are recording and they are segmented based on their gender, products, geography, income level, purchase history, and other segmentation metrics.
You can send then nurture them via emails, social media, ads, SMS, push notifications, and other channels.
#2: Reach Out To The Right Person At The Right Time
Once you start tracking your lead, you can segment them based on their activities. For example, if a lead starts checking out prices of a certain product on your website, you know their interests.
You can send them a dynamic follow-up email to help them look for the perfect product the next day. Not only does this genuinely help your lead, but it is a great way to impress your leads. It lets them know that you care about them.
#3: Upselling and Cross-Selling
If you own an eCommerce store, you know this better than anyone else. Upselling and cross-selling to existing customers is a great way to market your products and reduce your cost-per-customer. However, the secret to achieving success via upselling is good customer-centric personalized marketing.
Additionally, you should also know how when to reach the customer via the right channel and the right offer. But all this can only be possible if you have a robust marketing automation system in place.
#4: Saving Shopping Carts
Shopping cart abandonment is a problem that we all face. It is a necessary evil, something that is unavoidable. But that shouldn’t stop you from pushing forward. You can combine the power of dynamic content and email marketing to create personalized messages for leads and customers who abandon their carts. Marketing automation tracks actions, so it allows you to dig deeper.
Did a customer spend a lot of time on the pricing page after adding a product to the cart and abandoning it? Then, they may not be ready to spend on that product.
Maybe, a little discount might help them. These are the little things that marketing automation allows you to do so that you can keep winning over customers no matter what.
#5: Progressive Pop-Ups
Pop-ups are annoying. This is usually because they are irrelevant. But what if there were relevant pop-ups? Marketing automation tools allow you to send relevant popups to the right people at the right time. Since you can track lead activities, you can send them pop-ups based on their browsing habits.
You can send them individual discount codes. You can also provide them with extra credits. All in all, you can help make their experience on your eCommerce website a memorable one.
Also Read: Website Pop-Up Banners- Bone or Bane?
What Lies Ahead?
If you are still thinking about whether to get your own marketing automation for your eCommerce store, then go ahead, and opt for one. In this day and age, you need marketing automation to survive. Ensure that your customers don’t get hijacked by competitors because their web experience is better than yours.