It’s been well-documented that the COVID-19 pandemic changed the way we shopped for good, expanding the ecommerce market significantly and accelerating the growth of a boom industry.
But only now are we really seeing just how much things have accelerated. It was recently reported that worldwide ecommerce sales are expected to reach $5 trillion in 2022 and $6 trillion in 2024. The US alone is expected to cross the $1 trillion yard line for the first time in 2022, a milestone that wasn’t expected to be reached until 2024.
With great growth comes great competition, and ecommerce marketers are doing everything they can to stay on top of their customer’s wish lists. Marketing automation is essential to ensure customer communications can scale effectively. These five ecommerce marketing automation strategies will give your business an edge over the competition, and could give your marketing team back some precious time.
1.Use Chatbots to Deliver Stellar Customer Service
It’s crucial to give your customers a personal experience, but customer service representatives are generally swamped with the same questions hour after hour. An AI-powered chatbot with automated responses can take a huge number of tickets off your customer service team’s hands, and give your customers the answer they need in less time.
Some companies use chatbots to help customers find what they’re looking for, asking a series of questions that gives the AI the information needed to point customers in the right direction.
Some even offer personalized shopping recommendations. For example, the customer may be prompted to choose items from ‘this’ or ‘that’ options and, from there, similar products based on data will appear in their recommendations.
2.Reward Loyal Customers with Offers and Discounts
Realize your customers’ full product potential by rewarding their loyalty. Whether it’s a discount code after a specific number of purchases or a gift with purchase offer after they’ve made their very first purchase, a little incentive can go a long way.
When you’re focused on growth, retention must be top of mind. Increasing customer retention rates by just 5% has been shown to increase profits by anywhere between 25%-95%. We like those odds.
3.Create a Referral Program
Asking unhappy customers for a referral is never a good look, which is why it’s crucial to set your referral program up on a platform that gives you a singular view of your customer’s journey. That way, you can ensure the customer will not be targeted if they left a negative review or had a negative encounter with a customer service representative.
Instead, set up some custom activities that indicate your customer had a positive experience, and automate a marketing message that gives them a unique referral link or code to share with friends.
This kind of program works best when both the referee and referral are offered an incentive to share and make a purchase.
4.A/B Test Pop Ups
With marketing automation software, you can A/B test headlines, product mixes, color schemes, and calls-to-action on all your pop-ups to ensure you’re running with something that really drives a positive change.
Sophisticated marketing automation software can also take your customer data and target specific audience segments with different pop-ups. You can even target based on intent.
For example, exit intent detection identifies when a customer is about to leave your site and targets them with a compelling discount or offer, incentivizing them to stick around. The data from this campaign will help give you a sense of whether it’s price that’s driving up your exit rate, or something else entirely.
5.Personalize Content to Re-Engage Lapsed Customers
Using marketing automation software like Ortto, you can personalize your email and SMS content at scale. Whether it’s abandoned cart reminders or post-product upsell suggestions, an intelligent platform can ensure your customer is receiving product suggestions that are relevant to them.
Here’s how it works: Ortto’s CDP will bring your customer, transactional and behavioral activity together to give you a single view of your customer. With marketing automation, you’ll be able to track the activities that matter to your business and activate campaigns based on those activities.
For example, you could set up an email campaign that automatically sends lapsed customers an email with new or trending product suggestions, based on what they’ve purchased previously. With personalized content, you’re more likely to capture the attention of your customers and win them back.
Conclusion
Marketing automation can allow your ecommerce business to grow quickly by giving your customer’s more personalized, relevant messaging at every turn.
To get started today, integrate a marketing automation solution with your Prestashop store to automatically bring your all Prestashop data into a centralized CDP that gives you a single customer view. You can then switch on personalized, automated marketing campaigns styled like your website with attribution built in.