If you are here, we can assume you run an ecommerce business or are interested in one. Whatever the case, you will agree that having customers add products to shopping carts on your ecommerce platform and then abandoning the cart is frustrating.
I would be frustrated too! Having 7/10 customers abandon their products has a huge impact on your revenue. Not to worry, we have crafted and tested email strategies you can use to play this situation to your advantage.
Before we jump to that, let’s fully understand what abandoned carts are and why tailoring emails to deal with this problem can be effective.
What Are Abandoned Carts?
Abandoned cart emails are sent to both returning and new potential customers who leave your ecommerce platform after adding an item to their cart, without completing the purchase.
Your ecommerce business site has a virtual cart that saves products customers show interest in, from where they can go through products they pick and review them before placing an order and making payment. See it as a shopping cart in a physical store but online.
Many customers don’t end up purchasing, either due to forgetfulness, distraction, or an outright change of heart.
Why Send Abandoned Cart Emails?
As much as 70% of customers abandon their carts online, and you can only imagine the number of sales revenue lost or left pending due to this.
On the positive side, about 50% of customers who click open these emails end up making new purchases or completing the ones they left in their carts.
That is where the Abandoned cart email strategy come in to help reach out to customers to convince or remind them to complete the abandoned transactions. Let’s go through some top notch email samples from popular brands worth emulating.
Examples of Abandoned Cart Emails
For creativity and copyright reasons, we strongly suggest you do not copy these samples. They are meant to inspire your brand email copies. Let’s head straight to them.
1.McDonald’s
McDonald’s is a household name already, and the efforts they put into getting customers back through abandoned emails is stunning. In theemail here, the subject line is a catchy phrase, “Your faves are ready when you are”
The witty line intrigues customers to open the email, after which they are succinctly told to complete their orders. You can also see the links to their social media handles and relevant information for customer convenience.
A high-quality photo of their product is displayed as well, giving the customer a virtual taste of what they are missing.
2. Lamborghini
Subject line: Can’t Decide?
With such a captivating subject and inspiring photo, it is no wonder why Lamborghini makes sales even with the luxury tier cost it is known for. It gives the customer the feeling that the reason they can’t make an instant choice is because all their products are awesome.
3. Something Navy
Subject Line: We shopped for you
The subject gets the customer wondering why shopping has been done for them and upon opening theemail, they see a model rocking the fashion product they added to their carts.
4. Away
Subject line: Forgot Something?
This gets the inquisitiveness of the customer at first, while the follow-up witty lines get them jovial and ready to click on the available links to complete their shopping.
5. Mattress
Subject line: Consider this a sign
The subject line and the follow-up both employ the fear of missing out (FOMO) strategy. This makes customers believe they are missing a lifetime purchase if they don’t follow up by completing the transaction.
Let’s now look at strategies you can employ when reaching out via emails.
Abandoned Cart Email Strategies and Tips
There are lots of strategies to consider and adopt while crafting these emails, and we have outlined them with explanations for you. Here we go.
1. Understand Why it Happens
Before crafting those emails, it is important to understand why customers left their carts to start with. It could be the cost of the product, website loading speed, or any reason one can think of.
Knowing this will help you know what to include in the emails, and what means to employ when reaching out.
2. Personalize Subject Line
Using profiles that are personal to customers is one sure way to get their
attention. The most basic of these personal profile details are the names of customers and potential ones.
With modern-day software, you can add their professional titles and even nicknames. A good example is starting an email with “Hey Jim, we think you forgot these” and other similar lines.
3. Offer a Discount
Let’s face it. Most customers abandon their carts because the product or total cost of products on their carts go way above their budget. You can resolve this by offering discounts but being careful not to cut into your profits too deeply.
4. Timing is Important
From experiences gathered by seasoned ecommerce business owners, sending the email sooner than later yields better results with respect to conversion rates.
However, it is advised you do not send the emails too soon as this will likely result in low conversion rates. So, not too soon but not too long as well. We suggest you test out differen waiting times and see what works best for you.
5. Social Proof
The best way to do this is to add positive reviews from customers who have purchased the same products as the ones in the potential customer’s cart. The effect this has is obvious as the customer’s cold feet about the product gets warm immediately.
6. Send Multiple Emails
Do not bombard the customer with repetitive emails. The strategy here is to send 3 to 4 emails with different but related content across 4-5 days.
The first should remind the customer about the cart, while the second could carry the discount and other offers. The third or final email should recommend a product or a similar alternative.
7. Time Limit on Cart
Setting a time limit or reservation for items placed in your site’s carts creates a sense of urgency for shoppers. The fear of missing out (FOMO) on timed products will prevent carts from being abandoned in the first place.
8. Compelling Email Copies
Don’t be boring or afraid to express yourself. Your emails should be catchy and jovial, something customers would have fun reading. Sound compelling but nice, and ensure to use punctuation while keeping the emails short.
9. Optimize Pictures
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a well optimized, high-definition picture is worth a million when attached to your emails.
Customers might be moved by your well-crafted email copies, but seeing the high-definition quality of the products they added to their carts will give them the push they need to complete the purchase.
10. Add a Call-to-Action (CTA) Link
Your emails may be compelling and perfect, but if you don’t include a call-to-action link, it will likely just end up in your customer’s inbox as another spam email.
Why? Well, most, if not all, customers cannot go through the stress of leaving the email to try visiting your site on another app. So, be sure to link the cart webpage in your email for convenience.
11. Free Shipping
There are multiple instances where online shoppers realise the cost of shipping and delivery and cost of the products are the same and even higher in some cases. This discourages the buyer/customer.
If this is discovered as the reason behind abandoned carts on your site, you can offer free shipping or delivery for customers.
If you are worried about this cutting into your profits, you can make the free shipping offer available only to customers who purchase goods worth a specific amount.
12. Maintain Your Brand Voice
As much as it is required for your email to be creative, jovial, and catchy, it is of utmost importance to maintain your brand voice.
This is because customers and, indeed, everyone associates your brand voice and tone with your brand, and every deviation from it makes whatever message sound fake.
Some may even argue your emails are from scam artists simply because they lack the tone your brand is known for.
13. Use Email Marketing Software Tools
All the tips and points made above sound hectic, right? That should not be a cause for concern, as email marketing software like Klaviyo and Mailchimp can automate most of these without you breaking a sweat.
These software have indepth tools that can manage and organize your ecommerce needs to minute details you didn’t even think you need.
Conclusion
The goal of converting potential buyers who have already stocked their carts into customers does not have a one-size-fits-all approach.
However, with the strategies we have outlined and explained, you stand a great chance of suceeding. It’s a good thing there are software tools you can use to test one strategy at a time till you find one or more that work for your ecommerce platform.
Want to recover more abandoned carts? Get a FREE abandoned cart email strategy built for your brand. Book a free discovery call to get started.
