I clean my car with Coca Cola.
It works perfectly well.
I use it both for the outside as for the inside of my car.
The coke doesn’t even stick to the leader.
Don’t try this with normal coke. Not even Pepsi will work, it’ll get blunt. Instead, use Coca Cola with the Cherry Flavor for super results.
I know what you’re thinking…
Of course i don’t use a Coke to polish my car, i wash my car just like everyone else, with plain water.
But…
There’s a little bit more to this.
Coca Cola uses one secret formula.
Same with a professional car polisher, they’ll also use one magic ingredient.
Let me explain.
When you look at professional car polishers, they do the opposite of what most businesses do. They’ve found that one perfect thing that really works for them instead of running around like a headless chicken, trying one thing after another… they rely on a very simple and effective method: Use as few products and work steps as possible to get the best results.
But that’s not all…
Once they’ve set up the process and the results are good, it won’t be changed.
And this is exactly what you should be doing with your eCommerce business to sell on people. Because there is this one special, magic ingredient every ecommerce business needs that’ll make all the difference. And the reason most businesses don’t discover this, it’s because they’re looking for too many things.
You need to be like a professional car polisher. You need to find your super secret coca-cola-formula.
So, an easy place to start is an Abandonment Cart Campaign. And if you just focus on this instead of trying to do a dozen other things it’ll get you exactly what you want.
Sounds good?
Here’s how it goes:
You’ll setup two simple processes.
The first one, it’ll take you about 10 minutes.
When new! visitors add items to their shopping cart and for some reason are dawdling around, you’ll have to give them a good reason to proceed.
Here’s what you can do…
Give new visitors a Hail Mary offer. It’s a sweet deal, communicated through an exit-intent-popup that’ll only show up when a visitor tries to leave your checkout process with a full cart.
In most cases this can be a promotion code for a nice discount. Within the popup you’ll ask them to enter their email address to unlock the discount. After they’ve entered their email, a success popup shows up with the promotion code. You can add a timer to create some urgency here to make sure that they’ll finally hit that “order now” button.
That’s it.
Simple and effective.
If you don’t want to give away discounts right from the beginning… then measure the time between “cart add exit” and “checkout start” and choose a suitable time to show the popup or measure the time how long a visitor takes on average to go through the checkout. A few seconds, just before the given time is exceeded, you’ll show the popup.
Now that you’ve got this…
You’re ready for the second process?
It’s a 3-part abandoned cart email series and you can easily set up an automated flow for this process. Do the work once and if the results are good, don’t change it anymore. Just like the car polishers.
Let me break this down for you…
Email 1
The faster you can get customers to recover, the more likely you’ll get them to buy.
So, in this first email, you’ll just remind them. Show a product shot and a single call to action that leads them back to their cart. Make it a little entertaining and grab a headline to catch their attention so your email will stand out in their probably crowded inbox.
Send this email one or two hours after a cart is abandoned. You can add a discount or use the powerful loss aversion principle if you like but i’ll recommend to use these later on.
Please avoid phrases like:
You’ve accidentally left something in your cart.
Argh…
That’s not just super boring but it’ll sound needy too. And one thing you certainly not want, is to sound needy. Never. Instead, connect with customers on an emotional level to convince them.
Email 2
Follow up with a second email reminder after 24 hours. In this email you can add social proof in the form of customer testimonials, you can highlight a benefit or offer a guarantee to reduce risk. Social proof is always great because if used well, it’ll make it a no-brainer for your customers to buy.
Email 3
After 3-5 days, if that visitor still hasn’t become a customer, it’s time to follow up one last time. Yes, i know, customers who do not buy immediately are frustrating sometimes but you’ll want this additional revenue, right?
In this email you can add a discount code or free shipping. But make sure it’s easy for your customers to click and buy.
If you’ve segmented your customer base properly, you can give a VIP customer, that hasn’t been active for months, a different incentive than a customer who’s just making a normal purchase.
Stay with me now, because this is important…
Always, always collect data on how each one of these emails converts. If you’re concerned about overwhelming customers, just send out those first two emails and experiment with A/B tests.
Have fun with these two simple processes. They’re the most important and productive way to drive sales for your ecommerce biz and if implemented correctly it’ll catapult your ability and literally can skyrocket your profits overnight.
To your success!
-Diana
