Workflow ecommerce: 7 critical automated emails your clients need

Researchers predict that ecommerce will generate $1 trillion in 2022 in the US alone (Insider Intelligence). Other markets continue to grow as well.

People are shopping online, but with increased competition, it can be difficult to get them to shop at your clients’ online stores and to return for future purchases.

If that’s the case you’re seeing with the white-label ecommerce websites you’ve built for clients, it’s time to think about the emails they’re sending to leads, prospects, and customers. Email plays a big role in enticing users to make a purchase and become loyal long-term customers. There are many different kinds of emails you can send, each with a different purpose.

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If sending multiple emails to each lead and customer sounds too time consuming, add automation to the workflow your ecommerce clients use. Here are seven critical emails you can add to the workflow—automatically.

1. Automate welcome emails for ecommerce clients

The most important email you can send is a welcome email. This note should go out when a new prospect or customer signs up for an account.

Why are welcome emails so important? They’re, well, welcoming. They are also a valuable opportunity to provide an incentive, like a discount code or coupon. That encourages new customers to buy.

Welcome emails need to go out the minute someone signs up, so of course you need to automate them. After all, someone could be creating a new account at 1 am when your client is fast asleep. If you don’t automate this email, the customer could be waiting hours for key information.

This can be a deal-breaker, especially if customers are signing up to get a free trial, a coupon code, or some other reward.

2. A workflow for ecommerce requires automated confirmation emails

Let’s imagine that new customer gets their 10-percent-off discount code in their welcome email. They’re eager to spend it, so they head back to the site and place their first order.

That’s great news for your client. It’s not great news for a manual email workflow. Now the customer wants confirmation your client received the order.

Once again, you should automate this type of email. First, this email automation saves your client the work of responding to every order placed at the online store. This is critical to scale.

Next, the customer wants confirmation instantly. Online transactions can and do go wrong. A customer who doesn’t get an automated confirmation email may put the order through again or reach out to the customer service team unnecessarily.

This increases work at your client’s end, as they need to sort out duplicate orders. The customer might end up paying multiple times for the same order. Your client may have to issue refunds if a customer places an order more than once.

A simple automated email can solve these problems.

3. Send shipping details automatically

A shipping notice is another excellent email to have in a workflow for ecommerce. Again, your client might feel overwhelmed if they need to notify every customer manually.
Instead, opt for automated shipping notices and confirmations in an ecommerce workflow. This saves your client the work. At the same time, it ensures the customer gets the information they want and need sooner.

4. Reduce cart abandonment with reminder emails

It’s no secret that ecommerce is a tough business. After all, nearly 70 percent of online shopping carts are abandoned (Today).

The good news is an automated email can help reduce the rate of cart abandonment. If the user is logged in to their account, you can send them a reminder email about their cart.

Email reminders can recapture 10 percent or more of those abandoned carts (Business Insider). Why is that? Often, the shopper just got distracted before completing the purchase. Maybe they didn’t have their credit card information with them. A phone call or text message might have interrupted them. “I’ll finish it later,” they say, as they leave their cart. 

An automated workflow for ecommerce works wonders here. Imagine if your client needed to track each abandoned shopping cart and wait a set amount of time. Then they could send the reminder email manually. They’d be doing this all day long.

With automation, a reminder email can automatically go out to the user if they dont check out after a certain amount of time.

5. Automate stock notifications

Shortages and out-of-stock notifications have been more common in the past few years. Adding a "back in stock" notification improves the customer experience.

What is a stock notification? Suppose your client sells bicycles. Unfortunately, they’ve been having a hard time getting bikes in stock. When they do get stock, the bikes tend to sell out fast.

If a user has been eyeing a particular bike, they can opt in to receive an email update when new stock arrives.

Automation is your client’s best friend here too. Whenever they add new stock, they can update the website to list the product as “in stock” again. The workflow then sends out emails to everyone who has signed up for notifications.

6. Don’t forget post-sale follow-up emails

The little things matter in sales. Saying “thank you” goes a long way toward earning a customer’s trust and loyalty. That’s the number-one reason for your clients to send post-sale emails.

You can ease the burden by automating these emails as well. They can be as simple as a thank-you email that’s sent out a few hours after the sale.

They might also include incentives, such as a discount code, to reward the customer. If the client has a points program, the email might offer an update on their account.

The post-sale follow-up email series can also include another email asking for feedback later on.

7. Win back customers with re-engagement emails

Sometimes, people make accounts but don’t buy anything. They add products to carts but never finish the purchases. Many first-time customers become one-time customers.

These customers are no longer engaging with your client. You can send them what’s known as a re-engagement or “winback” email. These emails get the customer excited about the brand and ready to buy again.

Often, these messages include an incentive, such as a gift or discount. This can entice the customer to re-engage with the brand.

Sometimes, even an email highlighting new products or features can do the trick. 

Improving workflow and ecommerce together

Selling white-label ecommerce websites and using marketing automation to automate emails can allow you to help your clients succeed online. By doing so, you can enable them to reach more customers, increase sales, and enhance loyalty.

Add these seven critical emails to your clients’ email workflows and see the difference.