Abandoned shopping carts are simply unavoidable for ecommerce businesses. It is the undesirable yet harsh reality of every marketer’s life.
In fact, the average cart abandonment rate online is a whopping 69.23%.
That’s quite a lot, don’t you think? There must be some kind of way where you can reduce the number of abandoned shopping carts, right?
The answer may lie in dynamic emails. Dynamic emails are one-to-one customized emails crafted specifically for a specific prospect or customer.
It exhibits a certain level of personalization that a prospect is bound to fall in love with. In turn, it might help you realize the unrealized and give lost chances another chance.
Winning Them Back
While I am going to talk about how you can use dynamic emails to reduce abandoned shopping carts on your website, you should also bear in mind the reasons why your prospects abandoned their shopping carts in the first place.
Sometimes, the solution can be a two-pronged one. You can reduce it by sending dynamic emails and looking at the issue that stops them from proceeding further.
According to Baymard, there are two different types of abandoned shopping carts. 58.6% of online shoppers in the U.S. stated that they were not ready to buy, so they abandoned their cart. This is one type of cart abandonment.
Another one would be the prospects who were ready to buy. And, this one is much more crucial because these are prospects who are ready to buy, but something is holding them back.
Identify the issue that is holding them back. The key to this problem lie in that. After all, in order to send out an email, you need to offer them some kind of incentive. This might very well be your leverage that will win them back.
61% of these shoppers stated that extra costs like shipping, taxes, other fees were what made them abandon their carts. 35% blamed the website for not letting them purchase products as a guest browser. And, 27% found the entire process of purchasing too complicated.
As you can see, these are problems that can easily be solved. Moreover, you can address each and every one of these problems in your email. How about that?
Also Read: How Dynamic Content Raises the Bar of Personalization for Marketers?
What Should Go in the Email that will Rescue Abandoned Shopping Carts?
The first thing that you should take care of is the design. A good layout can go a long way when it comes to winning over customers.
Address your customer personally using their first name. Then, offer them your support.
Refer to the product(s) they had in your cart and give them a chance to let YOU know why THEY abandoned their carts.
Make sure that you include a high quality picture of the product(s). Provide your customer with contact details like an email address and a telephone number.
You can also add a call-to-action button which when clicked will trigger a customer rep call for one-to-one interaction with the prospect.
Include a short, but sweet thank you note and let them know that you care for them. You can also offer them discounts.
For example if you see that shipping fees are a major reason of abandoned shopping carts on your website, you can offer them a $5 rebate on shipping.
You can also let them know that the product(s) in their cart have limited availability, so they should buy it as soon as they can.
Wondering how to create dynamic emails for your ecommerce business? Well your ecommerce application may have this functionality, if not you can implement a powerful ecommerce marketing automation tool and this would solve the purpose.
Lastly, but not the least, add an “I’m not interested in this” button. If this prospect has already bought the product from somewhere else, or does not wish to purchase it anymore, there is no point wasting your resources here.
Discounts & the Aftermath
Offering discounts are an easy way out. But how does that bode well for your long-term strategies? Take for example you have prospect X. Now, prospect X abandoned the shopping cart even after being ready to buy.
You send prospect X an email saying that you are offering a 50% discount on shipping or maybe a 20% discount on the cart value.
Prospect X jumps on the wagon and presses the checkout button. You gain one happy customer. However, this customer now remembers what happens. And, the same process happens again after 3 months when X leaves another abandoned cart.
This will create an unwanted habit of delayed purchases. Moreover it will create a breed of customers who will wait for your discounts to purchase.
In order to tackle this, you can tempt your prospects with discounts on their next order. In this way, they will want to purchase now, in order to get the discount. Then, they will purchase again to redeem their discount.
How many Emails Should You Send?
Even then, you should have an email structure in place. You can create a 3-step cart recovery process which is nothing but a drip email remarketing campaign.
The first email does not talk about discounts and offers, but helps your prospect to recover their abandoned cart.
The second email offers a nominal discount on their second purchase and the third might offer discount on shipping for the first purchase and discount on their cart value for the second.
Most experts do claim that 3 is an optimal number, and I agree. But, then again, the decision lies on you. If you are selling expensive products, then your prospects might need more convincing to do.
An online retailer implemented a three-step cart recovery remarketing campaign. The first email addressed the issue of problems during checkout. The second email offered a discount of 10% and the third contained a 20% discount.
29% of the abandoned shopping carts were recaptured through this process. That’s quite an achievement, and a lot of lost sales.
Also Read: The Art of Writing Powerful Drip Emails
When to Send the Email?
Wait for 1-2 days after their visit. Then, send them the first email if they still have not returned to their cart. Timing is extremely crucial.
If you send your email too early, you might come off as overbearing. If you send your email too late, then your prospect might have bought the product from your competitor.
However, time it right, and you will be sealing deals like there is no tomorrow!
What Lies Ahead…
You can send out dynamic emails all you want. But if there are faults in your website, then the number of abandoned shopping carts will never decrease. Optimize your checkout process, and make it more user-friendly.
More often than not, complicated checkout processes deter prospects from purchasing. The simpler it is, the better it will be for your business!