Whitney Blankenship, guest writer at AdvertiseMint, Facebook advertising agency
Whether you are technology-savvy or still in the dark ages, you probably have an email account for basic online communication, as most people do. That means you can reach many of your potential customers through this single medium. Sending emails manually, however, can quickly get monotonous, time-consuming, and labor intensive.
Here are six email automation statistics and actionable items to help you flesh out your strategy this year.
1. Nearly a Quarter of Potential Customers Sign Up through a Landing Page
Before you sell anything, you have to snag the interest of potential customers and encourage them to give you an email address or other contact information. According to a recent study, a whopping 23 percent of people who encounter a landing page will sign up on any given site.
If your web visitors sign up using your landing page form and provide their contact information, start your relationship off on the right foot by offering a first-time discount, coupon, or other incentive automatically.
2. More Emails Mean More Closed Orders
Many potential customers will spend time browsing different categories and products on your site, either searching for something specific or looking for a product that piques their interest enough to make a purchase.
Companies find that they can close 75 percent more orders in trying to re-engage with customers by sending a series of three or more emails compared with sending only one. Thus, use email marketing to help support their buying decisions. By using a great email marketing automation tool that is triggered by customer buying behavior, you can send links to related products, sales or specials, or complementary items to your browsing customers to encourage them to buy.
3. Before and After the Work Day and After Lunch Offer Highest Open and Click Rates
Automation of email software can help you determine the times and days that each customer is most likely to open email communication from you. We studied the best times and found that most people will open and click on email links first thing in the morning, immediately after lunch, and at the end of a business day. Additionally, the first day of the month has a slightly better open and click rate than other days.
Combine this data with customers’ behavior to increase the likelihood of closing a sale. For instance, if a shopping cart has been abandoned with items in it, you can plan an email automation reminder at the end of a typical work day with a discount if the cart is completed.
4. Post-Purchase Communication Is Frequently Opened
Everyone likes to understand what is going on during the many streams of conversations, decisions, and processes that occur during the day. For instance, if you send information to a person, it’s helpful if they respond back with an answer or at least an acknowledgement that they received the communication.
Open and click rates are second highest in the category of order confirmation and shipping notifications, with more than 59 percent of customers engaging. Keeping this in mind, use order confirmation and shipping notifications to solidify relationships. Set up your automation of emails so that those notifications are sent upon the receipt of an order, as well as when shipping the products to keep your customers in the loop.
To further solidify relationships, ask for feedback and ensure customer satisfaction. First and foremost, you want to ensure that the customer is satisfied with the product, delivery time, and customer service received. If there is a problem, you want to have a channel to address the issue as quickly as possible to maintain a positive relationship.
Once you receive positive feedback, gather those ratings. Word-of-mouth and five-star reviews can make or break online stores these days. Potential customers will rely on those positive reviews more than any other factor so you want to make sure they are shared as often as possible.
6. Automated Email Systems Generate Higher Results than Manual Campaigns
Once a purchase is made and your customers are pleased, you want your email automation to help your business stay top-of-mind so that any future needs will come to you.
When it comes to customer reactivation, you’ll have 159 percent more opens and 139 percent more click rates in an automated email system than a manual campaign. Consider sending these emails to recognize birthdays, anniversaries, or other special occasions.
Automation of emails is a cost-effective, results-driven solution for today’s online e-commerce businesses. Email marketing has been proven time and again as an effective way to reach new customers, establish and maintain ongoing relationships, and re-engage with former customers. Embrace these statistics and the action plan that logically follows to take advantage of this automation opportunity.
Whitney Blankenship is a content marketing manager for Omnisend. When not writing, Whitney reads the latest in digital marketing, e-commerce, and social media trends. She is also obsessed with pop culture, art, metal, and coffee.
