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If you are a marketing professional, small business owner, or startup founder, it’s important to…
In this guide, you´ll learn:
What is marketing automation for e-commerce?
How does it work?
How to start automating your business
Best tools for e-commerce automation
And more!
Section 1
Introduction to Marketing Automation
Section 3
Benefits of Marketing Automation
Section 4
Email Marketing Automation
Section 5
Social Media Marketing Automation
Section 6
How to Get Started
Section 7
Marketing Automation Tools
Section 1.
In this section, I will give you a brief introduction to drop servicing.
Are you struggling to keep up with all the activities in your online business?
You are not alone. Keeping an online business working is a daily effort that requires 200% of your effort and time, especially at the beginning.
But with the technology evolution, are many resources that can ease your burden and start automatizing your process. In fact, with marketing automation for e-commerce, you can get further in less time.
Marketing automation is vital for growing your online business; it can help you drive more traffic and convert returning customers very efficiently. And I will show how you can do it in this guide.
In fact, by the end of this guide on marketing automation for eCommerce, you will know:
So, what are you waiting for? Let’s barge in.
Section 2.
In this section, you will learn more about this term.
Marketing automation for eCommerce means handling and control routine activities by e-commerce automation tools. This allows human resources to concentrate on management and other actions.
For instance, consider recruiting only one person to run the entire online shop. It is the hell of a job for a single person. However, marketing automation software can help you manage from cart abandonment to email subscriptions and more. These tools not only work great for marketing purposes, but they can also help you monitor and track so you can learn and readapt your strategy.
Marketing automation tools let you concentrate more on other important tasks, such as email marketing, advertising, and lead generation.
Also, in e-commerce, email sequences are the most popular examples of marketing automation for e-commerce. With the right email service, you can create powerful evergreen funnels that will generate passive incomes once you set them. All you need to do is configure the email sequence once, and then you can automate the process.
Section 3.
Learn how you can benefit by using automated tools and processes.
The primary benefit of marketing automation for e-commerce is improved power. You will realize that automation will boost the marketing activities in many ways, such as:
Think of those daily tasks, like data entry, consumer addresses, social media management, etc. When you manage to automate a large part of your daily tasks, you can free up a lot of your time.
You can plan eCommerce promotions to go live at the right time, automate your latest product launches, delete outdated items, change pricing, implement incentives, monitor orders, offer rewards, etc.
Most of the time, e-commerce automation can perform these tasks faster and very efficiently.
As mentioned initially, an eCommerce site will normally need a few persons to manage every aspect of the business. However, the right marketing automation platform can literally perform one’s job at a fraction of the time and probably at a fraction of the cost.
Once configured, you can automate most of your processes.
Repetitive work can often force human error due to the lack of excitement and reduced attention.
Marketing automation software does not suffer exhaustion or boredom; thus, errors arising from these human causes would not be a problem as automation becomes a part of the e-commerce marketing practice.
A valuable marketing automation solution can help to customize the messages to a large extent. With this improved personalization, you enhance the user experience for prospective customers over the phases of every buyer path and the potential sales.
Automation also allows you to determine where lies your successful strategies. With different analytics and metrics, you will find which emails are working, what converts, and get a clear picture of your consumer’s path.
When optimizing the procedures, automation has a double benefit. First of all, you have a clearer picture of a lot of your campaign activities. This makes it possible to see how one variable might affect another.
Also, A / B testing will help you understand which strategies resonate the most with your customers. You will be able to build and test your campaigns with automated results so that you can learn and tweak them.
Section 4.
In this section, I will show you the power of email marketing automation.
Do you know why email marketing is important for your business?
Email is a fast and effective method for reaching existing and potential customers regardless of where they are. Besides, it delivers one of the better ROI (return on investment) in any marketing channel you find; Moreover, email marketing automation makes it even more potent.
You can prepare incredible promotions via email marketing automation that can drive you great results with little effort.
This is how you can effectively use email marketing automation for ecommerce:
The first impression could be the last, particularly in marketing.
Email is an essential component in establishing a positive bond among your brand, client, and goods. You can leverage email by setting an email welcome sequence, in which you can introduce your brand and the benefits of using your products.
Setting your welcome email automated sequence is almost a must since it will allow you to precisely time each message at times when it is most valuable and convenient for your new contacts. This could raise your welcome email’s open rate and the possibility of subsequent emails being listened to.
Moreover, an automated welcome schedule lets you retain the CX solid, regardless of the number of new connections you get. In addition to making full use of the potential of automation, some of the best practices are:
Lead nurturing is the process of developing and reinforce relations with your potential customers. An email marketing automation can work great for this purpose.
For instance, lead campaigns are fantastic as they allow you to deliver relevant content to a target audience. You gain their trust, guide them through the customer’s path, and bring them closer to the shopping.
Marketing automation for e-commerce will also allow you to distribute the information perfectly timed. just make sure you:
This is an essential part of the automation capabilities that you can’t ignore.
According to a recent study, approximately 88.05 percent of online shopping transactions were dropped by March 2020. This suggests that these orders have never been transformed to purchase and that companies have lost their profits.
Though the reasons why consumers bail out on sale differ (forgetfulness plays a key role), you can get them back with the use of abandoned emails. These normally are email notifications targeted to people who abandoned your cart to remind back they did not finish the purchase. As a result, some of them will come back and will finish the buying process.
This is an excellent chance to increase your sales easily. You probably already have the cart drop-off’s email address because while preparing your order, they offered it. Moreover, because they had the hassle of putting things in their basket, they probably will come back to purchase.
This method is easy to set up and provides a high ROI.
Some of the best practices to make this work are:
During and after the buying process, you may need to send a client notification such as purchase verifications, reminders to ship, password resets, legal documentation, security warnings, and many more.
With email marketing automations you just need to create your transactional emails once. That is a real time-saver.
Cross-selling means an increase in sales revenue by the recommendation of loyal buyers of new or similar goods. With automated emails, you can encourage your customers to keep visting your shop and send future relevant offers.
Existing customers always converts better since they already know you and your products. That is why is importat to keep nurturing them.
Some of the best practices to keep them coming for more are:
Click segmentation is a way of segment o classify your contacts based on what they click. Basically, this will help you categorize your contacts by their interest.
The reason why click segmentation is so powerful is that you will only be sending relevant offers to your subscribers. This will increase the chances of converting them from subscribers to customers.
As far as quick but efficient email campaign practices are concerned, segmentation is at the top of the list.
You can include links, buttons, or clickable pictures in your emails as you pair this with automated tools and instantly get your contacts grouped into relevant lists depending on the links they clicked. This will allow you to send them more tailored emails and potentially increase sales.
In e-commerce, reviews are a big deal. As per the Concordia University survey, approximately 73% of consumers have checked on their buying choices. Also, 92% of customers say they are reluctant to buy without reviews. This clearly shows the impact reviews can have on your business.
With the use of marketing automation tools for eCommerce, you can request and collect customer feedback with a button click. This is way more efficient than reaching each of your clients manually. It also helps you to refine your response rate.
Take these tips into account for increasing your chances of success:
Automation marketing requires more than just email. Social media, can also offer a good solution for many businesses.
Social media is great for building brand awareness and engage with your audience. It also enables you to improve customer loyalty while building trust for your company.
With social marketing automation, you will be able to promote and distribute your content way more effectively. You could schedule a full month of content to be posted on several platforms at the optimum time in one hour. This enables you to sustain a better kind of regularity, enhance your social presence, and lead to more clients.
The best automation software may also provide tools to manage your accounts, react to tweets, gather analytics, and streamline other facets of your attempts to market social networks so that you can produce more outcomes with less effort.
Summarising, the key benefits of using social media automation tools are:
My recommended tool for social media marketing automation is Social Pilot– A marketing tool to easily increase brand awareness and traffic.
This tool is perfect for promoting your content efficiently and provides powerful analytics to see what is working.
Get a free 14 day trial and try by yourself. I am convinced you’ll love such efficiency.
Section 6.
In this section, you will learn the steps you need to follow to get started.
You should start by identifying your marketing automation needs related to:
Marketing channels – Determine the platforms that your company’s market on. Do you need a strategy that fits other media (e.g., Google Ads, Social Media, etc.)? Are you trying to automate the emails? Your ideal marketing software solution should be adapted to your specifics needs.
Metrics/Analytics – Determine the campaign KPIs you’ll need to and track and the outcome you want.
Integrations – Marketing software offers different integrations. If you are using several platforms, make sure the solution you use can be integrated with your services.
It is a good idea to do some research and see what your competitors are doing.
Chances are they have already done their research about the different options in the market. A good starting point would be to become their subscribers- This will allow you to learn how they approach potential customers, if they use email marketing automation, etc.
For instance, you could start by simulating you are ordering something from their site and do cart abandonment. Then, wait to see if you receive an abandoned cart email and check the signature, where the software solution is normally displayed.
You could also check their social media activity to learn post frequency and used platforms. This will give you an idea about which might be the best platforms to market your goods.
In any case, although these techniques can be wonderful to get some insights, it does not mean that what works for them will work for you, which takes us to step #3.
The good news is that almost every tool offers a free trial, so take advantage of this.
It would be best if you had a shortlist of apps you are considering at this stage. The next move is to implement the spin systems. Book a session with the providers, or if possible, test the app yourself to see it first-hand. Get a checklist of functions and conditions and ensure that the solution satisfies your needs.
With the previous steps, you should have good information, to begin with. Take your time and do some thorough testing. Marketing automation for e-commerce can be very lucrative, but only if you choose the right tools.
Once you narrowed your options, it is time to look further into what marketing automation approach would suit you.
Here are some factors to consider before choosing:
In the next section, I will disclose some of my preferred marketing automation tools for ecommerce.
Section 7.
In this section, I’ll provide you with a list with my favorite tools.
It does not matter how good is your marketing strategy if you don’t have the right tools. And again, you don’t need many tools, just good ones.
That is why I have compiled a short list with my personal best marketing automation tools for ecommerce:
HubSpot is an advanced all-in-one advertising platform supported by an amazing marketing toolkit. It offers a great variety of features for every market need and performs closed-loop marketing attribution.
You can fuel your eCommerce strategy with Hubspot marketing by building abandoned cart emails, use clever advertising CTAs, and other automation options that will definitively free up your time.
If you wish to combine the online store information with leading CRM, marketing automation, and customer support tools, use HubSpot for Shopify.
Zimplify is a cloud-based software for digital marketing that offers companies a wide range of solutions to scale a business. It provides users with a robust software solution that simplifies the marketing process, coordinates marketing activities, and helps recruit more clients while promoting business growth.
With Zimplify, users can efficiently target their audiences and have promotion and content messages on the right platform at the right time. Its robust inbound marketing solution supports companies in boosting their website traffic, leading, and conversion rate optimization.
Zymplify finds your business qualified prospects who are actively looking for your products or services and gives you a complete toolkit to connect with them and close sales at speed. It puts you in control. It gets you the customers you need. It works, and it works fast.
Keap’s CRM and marketing platform will help you dramatically grow your sales and save time by eliminating unnecessary steps.
Keap has done a remarkable job with evolving the software to help businesses growing with a user-friendly interface. It helps you automate your business, engage more prospects and send targeted, automated follow-ups that convert them to steady customers.
It also allows you to capture leads from your website and social media with landing pages which you can place directly into your automated sales and marketing campaigns.
For these reasons and much more, it has been chosen as one of the best marketing automation for beginners marketers.
If what you need is simply an easy to use but powerful email service for marketing automation, meet Constant Contact.
This tool provides a smart email editor, which makes it easy to customize and design great-looking emails. Also, email marketing automation helps you drive sales by keeping your audience engaged and building relationships—a real time saver.
Lastly, their email marketing for eCommerce tools will help your online store grow: from finding new customers to keep them engaged and keep them coming back for more with segmented and automated emails.
Now it’s your turn!
E-commerce marketing automation has many advantages. The main goal of this technology is to make it easier for you to manage your company by gaining control over simple, repeated activities (such as email contact).
Remember, you need to use the best tools to optimize the marketing automation benefits. It’s just a matter of setting your objectives here, learning how to deploy your newly discovered instruments, and watching how you will boost your future success.
Now I’d like to turn it over to you:
Will you start using automation for you ecommerce business?
Leave a comment below with your feedback.
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Section 5.
Social media marketing for eCommerce
In this section, you will learn automation for social media tips.