Why your most important holiday emails aren’t holiday emails

The biggest sales period of the ecommerce year is just around the corner.

(Just in case you hadn’t noticed the Christmas section popping up at your local Target)

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With up to 30% of total annual ecommerce sales happening during previous holiday periods, ecommerce sites can expect a nice big spike in traffic.

Which means your online store is about to be in front of more eyeballs than any other time of year.

And if your traffic increases, then you can expect your abandoned carts to increase too.

So while you’re busy planning out those holiday sales and campaigns, you’re failing to make the most of all of those potential customers ready to hand over their money.

In practice, your holiday marketing looks a little something like this:

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...And if you’ve ever dealt with a leaky hose before, you know the answer isn’t to turn the pressure up — or you’ll just increase the amount of water bursting out through the holes.

You need to plug the leaks (or get a new hose).

Why so leaky?

To put this into perspective, let’s take a look at the stages of a customer journey:

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Holiday emails and sales are usually aimed at the Awareness phase, while someone who adds an item to their cart is in the Consideration stage — they’re ready to buy, but they haven’t crossed the line to Customer yet.

(These people are what Copyhackers would refer to as Most Aware + High Intent to purchase).

Regardless of their intent, they might abandon their carts for a bunch of reasons:

  • They got distracted (oooh shiny notifications!)

  • The shipping is too expensive or takes too long

  • They couldn’t see the full cost upfront

  • They have questions that weren’t addressed

And with the average store losing 75% of sales to cart abandonment (they were so close you could smell the sale!), there’s a huuuuge opportunity to increase your revenue by having an automated follow up in place.

This is where an Abandoned Cart sequence swoops in to save the day.

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With higher open, click-through and conversion rates than other ecommerce emails, it’s not surprising that 28.3% of ecommerce revenue can be attributed to recovered abandoned carts.

Add in a multiple email abandoned cart sequence (which I recommend to all clients) and you’re looking at a further 70% bump in orders.

That’s great news at any time of year, but add in the holiday traffic spikes and it’s cause for celebration.

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Creating your abandoned cart sequence

This all sounds nice in theory, but how do you actually put together your abandoned cart sequence?

…Should you include a discount code?

…How many emails should you send?

…When should you send them?

…Should you have another donut?

(It depends, it depends, it depends, and yes).

If you’re struggling to figure it out, or don’t have time to spare, then it’s time to hire someone to do it for you.

ecommerceAmi Williamsonemails, ecommerce