Marketing automation at Christmas: how to improve your conversions

Of all the strategies you can apply to an eCommerce,  marketing automation is one of the most interesting for seasons like Christmas, when tasks to be done may be too much for us.

Everything that improve results making us more productive has to be welcome. But, if it doesn´t require of any direct action by ourselves, beyond supervision and analysis… so, you know what to wish to Santa now, don´t you?

Christmas time, the period between the moment we get ready for Black Friday and the one we send the last order before sales –when after-Christmas campaigns start–, is ideal for this strategy.

We have talked at length on this blog about marketing automation tools. In today´s post we are going to focus on automating email marketing, because it is something within the reach of almost any online store without the need of complicated implementations by neither development nor design teams.

By the way, there is no need to remember that, if you need to create a powerful and easy eCommerce, with all the essential functions, Oleoshop it is exactly what you need for your business.

Let´s see those particular actions.

In fact, and to be accurate, recovering abandoned carts once  Cyber Monday has finished. Keeping converting thanks to those marketing and acquisition efforts made before is always a good idea.

In this case, we propose a very easy but effective workflow that you can apply by using  Mailchimp, Get response or any email marketing tool moderately advanced.

The first step is to send a very well prepared transactional email, on which you say to the user:  “Hey, you have left this in the cart”. The magic of automation starts here.

After 6 hours, and after checking the user aún has not converted yet, we will send him a second message on which copywriting and creativity highlight some of our most important distinguishing advantages, such as free delivery or return policy, or another thing that helps reactivate the interest.

If after 2 days conversion does not occur, you can consider to send a third email including a discount coupon if you consider opportune.

Wait: but what is lead scoring? Basically it consists of contact qualification assigning a score that inscreases while goals set by ourselves are achieved (in this case those clicks made on the mail links). 

We would start carrying out a Christmas themed set of automatic sending. Beginning with an first email in which we explain that, during one week, we are going to send them the best sales right to their email address.

In this first communication (and in all of them) a link will be always added. Every time an user click on one of the links of the sending, he will get a score that could be fixed in 10 points.

Those who, once the action is finished, are over or reach 70 points are showing a very high level of engagement , so they will be susceptible of buying not just at Christmas, but also during the whole year. Keep this mailing list safe as it is like gold dust.

Connecting the email marketing tool with our store, we can provide information about conversions to act accordingly.

Imagine we have an user who make a purchase during Christmas and, immediately after closing the transaction, he is sent a transactional email thanking together with basic information about the service, such as delivery times, return policies…

After that, we wait for a reasonable time, between one week and 10 days. Then, we write to them again automatically to ask if they are satisfied, and we use the communication to offer them related products to boost cross selling. We can also offer services like insurance o maintenance if applicable.