Your eCommerce Site NEEDS These 3 Marketing Automation Workflows

If you’re trying to grow your eCommerce business, you really can’t afford to ignore email marketing. It’s not new, and it might not be as glamorous as some of the more trendy advertising channels… but it works.

In fact, it works very, very well.

There’s no getting away from it, the figures are impressive

Email delivers an ROI of $36 for every $1 spent.
Email traffic is twice as likely to buy something than search engine traffic, and four times more likely to buy than social media traffic.
The number of daily email users is expected to hit 4.3billion by 2023

When it comes to email marketing for eCommerce, there are two platforms we recommend:

Klaviyo
Active Campaign.

Which is best? Well, that depends! These are both awesome platforms for eCommerce marketing automation, so which is best for you is quite nuanced… We’d need to chat about what ecom platform you use (Shopify, Woocommerce, Big Commerce, etc etc) and a few other things before we can make a recommendation, really.

So for the purpose of this post, we’ll focus on Klaivyo (but hey, if you’d like to chat about which platform would be best for you, book a free 15min chat here).

What is Klaviyo?

But to get the most out of your email marketing, you need an email platform with the power to deliver amazing results.

There are loads of email marketing tools out there, but as we’re talking about eCommerce, Klaviyo stands out as a great option. In fact, we love Klaviyo!

Integrating seamlessly with Shopify and WooCommerce amongst others, Klaviyo allows eCommerce stores to create powerful automations that will capture more leads, boost conversions and increase customer retention.

Here we’ll share with you 3 of the core automation workflows that can generate sales for your business like clockwork.

Klaviyo Flow 1 – The Welcome Series

When new subscribers first sign up to your email list, they are obviously interested and engaged with your brand. The job of a Welcome Series is to turn that engagement into sales.

Now, not all potential customers are ready to buy as soon as they arrive on your website. But by collecting visitors’ email addresses through a pop-up or flyout, you can automatically nurture your leads through your Welcome Series…hopefully turning them from leads into buyers.

What content should a good Welcome Series include?

Your Welcome Series is a fantastic opportunity for you to gain new customers who otherwise may have left your website, never to return. However, to do that you need to deliver valuable content that educates your new subscribers about your brand. This could include:

Your brand’s origin story
A message from the Founder
Snippets from your best blog posts
Educational content about your products and services
Links to your best social media content
Social proof in the form of reviews and customer success stories

All of this is designed to nurture your subscribers to know, like and trust your brand. Of course, you’re in the business of making sales, so it’s important to include regular calls to action and links to your products.

One common (and very effective) way to boost sales in the Welcome Series is to include a time-sensitive discount code. This can then be leveraged to create urgency as subscribers move through the email automation.

How important is the Welcome Series?

Your Welcome Series is your most important automated flow.

Why?

Well, they have 4x the open rate and 5x the click through rate compared to the average email campaign. And those figures unsurprisingly translate into impressive revenue figures too…

Emails in the Welcome Series on average generate 320% more revenue than other types of promotional email.

So in short, you really need to get your Welcome Series on point!

Klaviyo Flow 2 – The Cart Abandonment Flow

Klaviyo is a great tool for stopping money leaking out of your business. And one way a lot of money slips away from eCommerce businesses is through abandoned shopping carts.

Klaviyo’s Cart Abandonment flow combats this by automatically retargeting subscribers who have left the store with items remaining in their cart. These potential customers will receive a series of emails reminding them of their abandoned items and encouraging them to complete their purchase.

What should a good Cart Abandonment flow look like?

Just like your Welcome Series, your Cart Abandonment flow should build on the Know, Like, Trust factor…

Some shoppers may simply have not had the time to complete their purchase. Others may have not had their credit card to hand…

But for many abandoned carts, your potential customer just wasn’t ready yet. They needed a bit more time to learn about your brand and your products.

The Cart Abandonment flow is the perfect opportunity to tackle those objections. You can do this with:

Positive reviews and social proof
Educational content about your brand’s USP
Information about your brand’s ethos
A link to their cart with all items in place (essential!)

How important is the Cart Abandonment flow?

To answer that question, let’s start with a stat from Klaviyo’s own analytics:

Almost 70% of shopping carts are abandoned.

Klaviyo also tells us that Cart Abandonment emails have a very high open rate at over 40%, and generate an average revenue per recipient of $5.81.

That’s a whole lot of money left on the table if you don’t have a high-converting Cart Abandonment flow!

We’re sure you can do the calculations for how these figures would translate to your own store, but it’s clear that a solid Cart Abandonment flow is a great way to boost your sales on autopilot.

Klaviyo Flow 3 – The Post-Purchase Follow Up Flow

Sending emails to your customers after they’ve bought something is an excellent way to build brand loyalty and encourage future purchases. There are a few ways you can achieve this:

Send “Thank You” emails to show that you value each customer
Send an email encouraging customers to join your community on social media
Send instructional emails to help customers get the most out of your products
Send cross-sell emails highlighting other products that may be of interest
Send a “Review Request” email for testimonials which can be leveraged in future marketing campaigns.

How important is the Post-Purchase Follow Up flow?

Klaviyo tells us that post-purchase messaging sees 217% higher open rates and 90% higher revenue per recipient than the average email campaign.

While these are impressive figures, they also don’t account for the longer term impact of a thoughtful post-purchase automation. A strong follow-up flow can build trust and authority that will have a significant impact on customer retention and lifetime value.

With that in mind, this automation is a must for any brand seeking long term growth.

The Power of Email Automation

While we’ve shown you what we consider the three must have automated flows in Klaviyo, there are many more that can drive higher revenues and customer retention for your business.

Each one is like having a salesman working for your business 24/7. To find out more, check out our ultimate guide to all the marketing automation you’ll ever need.