What is marketing automation?

Marketing automation refers to software, tools and extensions that are designed for businesses to use to conduct more effective marketing across various different channels, such as email, social media, SMS and websites. As the name suggests, these tools allow businesses to automate repetitive tasks, such as sending out abandoned shopping cart emails and coupons to existing customers.

How can marketing automation be used?

Marketing automation isn’t just about sending out your average sales email to customers, it’s a lot more intuitive than that. Marketing automation allows eCommerce business owners to connect with the right customers, at the right time, through the right channel. Below we’ve explained five ways marketing automation can be used to enhance your business.

1. Recover abandoned shopping carts

Did you know that 70% of online store visitors who add products to their shopping carts leave websites without completing their purchase? Marketing automation can help to prevent this. By providing follow-up reminders in the form of emails and remarketing ads, marketing automation can prompt customers to return and complete their purchase; thus increasing sales and promoting good customer service at the same time.

2. Keep in touch with customers

Marketing automation is a great way to keep in touch with customers awaiting their deliveries. Along with sending out automatic updates via email or SMS, marketing automation tools can also be used to send out useful and relevant content. For example, tutorials and ‘how to’ videos, which show customers how to get the most out of the product they’ve ordered. By providing customers with this material, Magento merchants stand a higher chance of customers being satisfied with their purchase.

3. Get feedback

The best way to find out if your eCommerce business is meeting customers’ needs is to ask them. Using marketing automation tools, you will be able to send our customer surveys via email, shortly after customers should have received their orders. Keep the feedback form short and easy to complete and more customers will be willing to do it. Customer feedback can be extremely valuable when it comes to making important business decisions.

4. Upsell and cross sell

Marketing automation will help you to identify opportunities to increase the value of your orders, such as with upselling and cross selling. Transactional emails such as purchase confirmations can be used to upsell customers higher spec products or cross sell them complimentary products. Make it easy for customers to upgrade their purchase or add additional items and you stand a good chance of being able to make more money from their sale.

5. Re-connect with past customers

One of the great things about marketing automation tools is that they have you to monitor and segment your customer data. This means you will have the opportunity to identify and communicate with previous customers, who may not have visited your Magento store in a while. With marketing automation, you will be able to send out emails featuring special offers or discounts with the aim of enticing them back to your business.

Video source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtyFPsjYQMI

Marketing automation modules for Magento

If you are looking for a way to add Magento marketing automation in to your eCommerce store, check out our top Magento extension recommendations below.

• Bronto Extension for Magento – This marketing automation extension for Magento is designed to help merchants increase their revenue with minimal effort. It takes data such as customer names, phone numbers, emails, abandoned shopping carts, wish lists and purchase history and makes it work for you. The extension is free to download and comes with a wide range of valuable features.
• Licentia Email & SMS Marketing Automation – This free marketing automation module for Magento has been created to launch targeted messages based on customers’ behaviour, reduce shopping cart abandonment and create effective re-engagement campaigns. It is user friendly and allows you to monitor and use customer data to your advantage.

For more information about Magento marketing automation or any other Magento marketing and SEO tools, get in touch with Magento eCommerce Agency today.

 

Image credits: Images from SumAll and Images from SumAll