Now that your site is live and running, it’s time to maximize your sales and convert your customers. You’ve probably already thought about website navigability and optimization. Your customers should have no problem finding the item that they like and putting it in their cart. Does that guarantee a sale? Not always.
According to The Baymard Institute, the average documented online shopping cart abandonment rate is 69.23%. Many of the people that abandon carts are price browsers with no real intention to buy. Others are skeptical about the payment processor or legitimacy of the site. That is why it is important to follow up and create a great series of shopping cart abandonment emails.
The First Email
The goal of this series of emails is to encourage users to take action with a sequence of relevant reminder emails. Be sure to design these so that they will catch your customer’s eye before they have time to find the product elsewhere. This means the first personalized email should be sent no longer than 90 minutes post-abandonment. The content of this message should feature the item your customer selected to remind them of what they originally wanted. It might also contain some product recommendations based on what they were browsing. This will hopefully get them to buy another item if they abandoned their cart due to uncertainty. Product recommendations are also a great way to increase the value of your customer’s cart.
The Second Reminder
A second reminder email should be sent no more than 24 hours later. Try to get the customer to revisit by reporting testimonials that show them how much others are enjoying your site. An email with a personalized message from a customer service representative that asks them about any questions or concerns would be especially beneficial.
Final Message
The final message should be promotional and come between 48-72 hours after. It’s best to catch the low-hanging fruit with the first cart-abandonment emails and attract those harder customers with a deal later on.
Most importantly, try not to overwhelm your customers with loud, vague emails. Sending several personalized messages within days of each other will assure you catch them at the right time.
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