Written by Mari Oksanen - Jun 13, 2017
You can never get the conversion rate to 100%. However, it can be improved through various methods. If a customer has already abandoned the shopping cart despite all attempts, it’s good to try just once more to get them to buy the items in their cart. MageMail shared that with these messages their customers recovered 15% on average and at best 35% of abandoned shopping carts. Here are some valuable tips!
Basics about shopping cart reminder messages
As research by the Baymard Institute indicates, there can be many reasons for shopping cart abandonment. There are some reasons that need to be fixed in the store and consumers who have abandoned their purchases for these reasons won’t be gotten back by emails. But there are also many reasons that can be addressed with an email. Perhaps the easiest example is when an online store crashes or has technical problems that interrupts shopping.
MageMail studied the emails that worked best when merchants wanted to get their customers back to buy. The results showed that the customers with the best performing emails got at least 10% of consumers to return to complete their orders. Magento was the ecommerce platform being used by the merchants. Below are some tips that I collected from these messages.
How do I create a reminder email that works?
CREATE A SERIES OF MESSAGES
According to MageMail, it’s good to create series of reminders. The effectiveness clearly drops after the first message, but purchases can still be regained with even the third message, if the messages are the right kind. See more detailed information from their article.
The first message usually captures those consumers who are fully ready to buy, but stopped shopping because of issues like website problems. The second and third message must clearly point the consumer towards the purchase by reminding them of the products and giving them the motivation to complete their order.
MAKE THE MESSAGES SIMPLE
Regardless of the message content, keep the text short. Consumers don’t have time or interest in reading long messages. In MageMail’s analysis, the reminders were very simple and there wasn’t much text. The short texts appealed to emotions and also offered help and the online store’s contact information.
USE BIG, ENTICING PHOTOS OF THE ABANDONED PRODUCTS
A photo really works in reminders. If the product is in any way visual and can be presented visually, use a photo in the reminder and make it big.
OFFER FREE DELIVERY
As is apparent from the Baymard Institute study, the majority of abandoned shopping carts are attributed to extra charges being too high, which includes delivery charges. So, try offering a coupon code in the reminder that gives the consumer free delivery if they complete their purchase by a specific date.
OFFER A DISCOUNT
One reason for shopping cart abandonment is that the final price is higher than what the consumer expected. This problem can be tackled by offering a discount code in the reminder that is time-specific. In MageMail’s analysis, most of the best performing reminders included a discount and 96% of the companies studied used it as an aid. If you send a series of reminders, it’s worth offering a discount only in the second or third message. According to MageMail’s analysis, it doesn’t have an impact in the first message, but it dramatically increases in effectiveness in later messages.
ADD A ‘CALL TO ACTION’ BUTTON
Make sure that there’s a ‘call to action’ button in the message which directs the consumer to act in the way you want, i.e. to return to your store to complete the purchase.
MAKE SURE THE MESSAGE SUBJECT ENTICES THEM TO OPEN IT
The content of a message is of little significance if it’s never seen. So, focus on the subject line and think about what would get your customer to open the message. For example, mentioning a discount code may be crucial for certain customers.
PLAN THE TIMING BASED ON YOUR CUSTOMERS AND PRODUCTS
The time delay a reminder should be sent depends on your customers and product. It’s good to test what delay suits your own online store. According to MageMail, the first message is the most effective when it’s sent an hour after the shopping cart abandonment. If the first reminder is sent more than 24 hours after the shopping cart abandonment, it’s quite ineffective.
What if I don’t have time to invest in shopping cart reminders?
If you can’t invest in reminders right now, a good alternative is 
, which is an additional service of our payment service. With Sales Rescue, on average 7.17% and at best 29% of abandoned purchases have been recovered.
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