s anyone using Interactive Direct Mail to upsell and market to a customer after an ecommrece shopping cart has been abandoned.
Does anyione see the need to communicate to a client individually with a single piece of direct mail after they abandon an ecommerce shopping cart. What about a post purchase offer days after they purchase a product online???
Answers (4)
Marston G
VP Database Marketing
Best Answers in: Direct Marketing (2), Internet Marketing (1), Career Management (1)
The answer is - it depends. Its important to understand the context of the visitor session. Factors to consider: 1) where is the person in the purchase consideration window. Do they make 1,2,3 or more visits before purchasing? Interupting the 'normal' consideration cycle can have both positive and negative consequences. 2) Where do prices go between visits? Is there considerable uncertainty in the quality or purchase of the product/sevice. Can you message a guarentee? 3) Do you have strong qualitative data through ratings/reviews - preferably from similar profile customers? or satisfaction data ? 4) when to message also needs to be considered. often based on the item purchased or nearly purchased customers will respond better at different latency intervals. 5) can customers restart their shopping from where they left off? 6) is there comparitive pricing/quality info available?
End of the day - there is value in this type of communication, but like everything else the mechanism has greater use if the roots of abandonment are studied, tested, and understood.
Yes, I have found that remarketing to consumers that have left the cart via email is very effective. I would recommend you test different offers in order to understand what triggers the most conversions. You also need to understand what will maximize ROI.
Post purchase offers are also very effective, but the most important thing to consider is that the offer has to be relevant to the purchase. I would consider testing different product mixes and the delivery schedule: a couple of days after the transaction is made vs. a couple of days after the order is received.
Hope this motivates you to start testing...
Alex N
Corporate Marketing Brand Manager at Rain Bird Corporation
Best Answers in: Guerrilla Marketing (1), Public Relations (1), Lead Generation (1), Branding (1), Using LinkedIn (1)
I'm curious about the permission issue when sending email to someone after they abandon a cart. Unless I've previously given explicit permission to a company, I wouldn't want to get an email about a cart I abandoned. I would hope a company would respect my privacy. I guess it depends on whether they are registered users with an ongoing relationship or first time buyers.
That said, it might be ok to email and inquire if they had some problem with the checkout process or had additional questions about their purchase that caused them to abandon. If the perception was helpful customer service rather than pushy salesman, it might be well received.
Cheers,
Alex Nathanson
I do not have a direct comparison to abandoning an e-commerce purchase, however I do work with up-selling or cross-selling to potential prospects. For one of my higher education clients offering an EMBA we have a series of triggered contact events via email to all individuals who have actively opted into our information stream. For example if they sign up for a recruitment event, we offer them opportunities to forward the progress of their potential application process. If they sign up and miss the event we actively reach out to them regarding more upcoming events in their area. We did this all initiating a custom built CRM tool that allows the clients to actively see the progress of applicants and enrollments to the minute, as well as providing a large database of individuals who have expressed interest who otherwise would have gone back out into the ether and needed to be re-engaged at a higher cost next year. Doing so allows us to significantly reduce costs in existing markets and open up communication to new markets with speed and projectable knowledge of how much we will need to spend to grow and sustain the program.
The key to success in email re-marketing is to provide a clear communication and try various approaches until you have a control that provides the best results. Most importantly you need to make sure that the product cost in terms of the sale will pay for the time and effort in producing your direct follow on program.
