Making the most of marketing automation by installing the MailChimp module on your PrestaShop store.

In recent years your customer’s needs have changed, and, as an etailer, one of your main challenges is sending your account holders targeted, qualitative marketing campaigns.

These changes in behavior lead to a need for one-to-one communication; but it is difficult to create a single message to target a wide range of people, knowing each person has their own specific needs. What’s the solution to send the right message to the right person at the right time? Marketing automation.

1. Marketing automation, win-win simplicity.

Who has never dreamt of finding an effortless way of satisfying long-distance clients while building a trusting relationship? That many company directors have sought to do so, explains the huge success of marketing automation. This technique means you can save precious manhours, focus on your core business, and at the same time also rapidly improve user experience.

Marketing automation is the ideal solution for an efficient one-to-one relationship, since it makes it possible to send automatic, targeted emails, triggered by specific actions by your contacts. Once each message is set up ahead of time, the only thing left for you to do is to monitor the results. Thanks to marketing automation you’ll be able to develop your business through more qualitative marketing campaigns!

2. MailChimp for PrestaShop

To develop your marketing automation campaigns, we recommend you install the free module “MailChimp for PrestaShop”. Currently used by over 15 million people, the MailChimp platform lets you create campaigns to grow your e-commerce activity. By installing the plug-in on your PrestaShop store you will be able to personalize email campaigns based on your customers’ purchasing behavior and thus increase your ROI.

3. Assessing your customer relationships

Marketing automation is an excellent way to build a trusting relationship with your targets and step by step, teach your account holders about your brand. Every day, our digital agency, NewQuest, based in Chambéry [in the French Alps] supports brands in managing and optimizing their relationships with their account holders. Below, we present the key steps to setting up a successful marketing automation strategy, building loyalty, fostering brand belonging and increasing your turnover.

• Contacting your new account holders to win their loyalty

A new user to an e-commerce site is naturally curious and seeking reassurance. When signing up to your list, the user expects to receive high added value content and reassuring information. Therefore, it is important to send a “welcome message” to educate, inform and reassure. A vital aspect of your strategy, the welcome email is the opportunity to make a good impression and get your account holder interested. By using MailChimp you can automatically generate this type of email, which has an opening rate close to 90%. To build on this first message, you can choose to send a series of integration emails called “Onboarding series”; the content includes valuable advice, additional information about your products or even reassuring information about your services. This series of emails help to educate your target and enable users to know your company better.

• Selling more

By connecting your PrestaShop store to MailChimp, you can generate more sales by leveraging your customers’ purchasing data. This means you can send automatic emails as soon as your customers buy certain items on your e-commerce platform.

MailChimp lets you insert a date block with product recommendations which will educate the customer and encourage repeat purchasing. Another possibility the tool offers is enabling you to generate automatic follow-up emails about the purchases. Let’s look at an example: you have an online store selling slimming products and you want to set up a strategy of automatic emails related to the stage the customer is at in their slimming program. The event schedule in MailChimp enables you to monitor the customer throughout the program:  referral schemes, special targeted offers, subscription renewal, satisfaction questionnaires… These follow up emails after a purchase have very good opening rates and, over and above generating more sales, help you build customer loyalty and contact customers at the time when they’re testing your product, the optimum moment for triggering great satisfaction and thus a second purchase.  

• Rewarding your best customers

A vital part of your email marketing strategy is rewarding your best customers by announcing exclusive sales and/or through special reduction vouchers. For example, you can segment your customers and send a 15€ reduction voucher only to those having placed more than 3 orders.

4. Increasing your ROI

Cart abandonment is still every online retailer’s nightmare. Internet users shop on the web because they want a quick, simple purchasing solution. Even when they like the products, it’s easy to compare, hesitate and, potentially, leave the products in the cart without a second thought. As a result, 67% of online shopping carts are abandoned before the customer completes the purchase. But did you realize that these abandoned carts can generate up to 12% in additional income?

MailChimp offers you the chance to set up automatic emails to remind users about the items they selected and encourage them to complete their purchase. You can design a series of emails triggered by these abandoned carts including links to your products, product recommendations based on their purchases and/or special offers.

It’s worth knowing that almost half (44,1%)of reminder emails are opened, over a tenth (11,6%) are clicked on and nearly a third (29,9%) of these clicks lead to a purchase on the e-commerce site.

In conclusion, marketing automation is a particularly efficient tool for promoting content, optimizing lead generation and assessing customer relationships.  The MailChimp marketing automation system has been designed to leave you broad freedom of action. As you have no doubt already realized, it is essential to clearly define your requirements upstream to select the trigger(s) most suited to fulfilling your final objectives and avoid losing focus. These emails will then be sent automatically when triggered by a date, an event or an action by the selected contact. Simple and efficient! There are a wide range of possibilities and more importantly, there is no extra cost on top of your usual [NewQuest] monthly subscription – so why do without it?

So, sharpen your pencil and write out your scenario keeping two objectives in mind, seducing and reassuring your customers. Marketing automation will help you building a trusting, lasting relationship with your account holders and keep their interest in a more innovative way than by simply using special offers at a time where everyone is using an Inbound Marketing strategy. Be creative and impress your community!

You’d like to use a marketing automation strategy for your company but need support? Contact us and we’ll be delighted to help you take this new step.