Once your automotive eCommerce store is up and running, one of your first priorities should be to set up email autoresponder campaigns. Autoresponder campaigns allow you to maintain engagement and contact with your customers through a series of emails, and convert this engagement into sales.
Despite what the name may imply, autoresponder emails aren’t simply emails sent to anyone who sends a query or complaint to your business. They’re targeted to customers at different stages of the buying journey. Their purpose is to maintain contact with your customers at key moments.
Different types od autoresponder emails include:
- Welcome emails — for new subscribers to your newsletter or new additions to your membership program
- Thank you emails — sent after someone signs up for your newsletter or makes a purchase at your store
- Transactional emails — receipts, bills, order confirmations
- Activation emails — providing more information on how to use a product purchased
- Post-purchase emails — surveys to gauge customer satisfaction or emails to request customer product reviews
- Upsell or cross-sell emails — promoting products based on past purchases
- Date-triggered emails — for birthdays, anniversaries or subscription renewals
- Event countdown emails — for sales, competitions or other special promotions
- Re-engagement emails — for winning back customers who haven’t visited or engaged with your business in a while
Shopping cart abandonment emails — to entice or remind customers to complete their purchases
As you can see, autoresponder emails come in many shapes and sizes, and vary depending on when they’re sent and what they aim to accomplish.
Once you have determined your demographics and the auto-responder emails you’d like to send, it’s time to start crafting your emails. Here are some tips on how to create effective autoresponder content for your automotive eCommerce store.
Compose compelling subject lines
Crafting effective autoresponder campaigns begins with writing the perfect subject line. After all, competition is fierce and open rates are notoriously challenging. Once you’ve segmented and targeted your subscribers, craft compelling subject lines that will inspire them to click open on your emails.
For some types of autoresponder emails (such as welcome or thank you emails) this can be pretty self-explanatory and basic, but you can always get creative with it. Instead of writing “Thanks for subscribing” you could write “Welcome to the club!” to make it more engaging. Cross-promotional emails might require a little more creativity to convert customers. For example, “Love your seat covers? Complete the look!” or “This will go great with your trunk or hatchback organizer…”
Use the right tone in your email content
After the all-important subject line is written to perfection, you need to ensure the content of your email is also delivered the right way. Each email needs to be written in the appropriate tone for its purpose—and for your brand. Extend the style you used in your subject line and use a headline, a few sentences, or a short paragraph, as well as a clear call to action.
Stay true to your brand voice, but focus on the matter at hand. As we mentioned above, different autoresponder emails have different purposes—some are informational, some are promotional, others are requests. Keep this in mind when you’re crafting the content of your email and ensure the tone follows suit.
Promotional emails for sales, birthdays or events might work well with a more playful and experimental style than informative emails, which need to clearly communicate order confirmations, information about returns, or receipts. Competition emails fall somewhere in the middle; you might find that a more playful tone is effective in the headline and subject line, but then more straightforward copy is required later on to disclose the terms of the contest.
Design your emails for maximum impact
Similarly with the copy, your autoresponder email design should also be adjusted depending on the type of email you are sending. Order confirmation emails are best kept clean and simple in order to display important information clearly and quickly. But event-related emails such as for big sales or promotions are a cause for celebration, and so the email design should also reflect that excitement. Inspire this feeling in your readers with different, interesting visual elements.
Regardless of the type of autoresponder email you’re sending, a balance of text and images is key. Be mindful of using relevant images that make sense to the reader and what they’re interested in. Use personalization to ensure your content is engaging. For example, set autoresponder emails to be sent to a customer after a certain amount of time has passed since they purchased a product that will now likely need to be replaced, for safety reasons or because they’ve likely used it up. Include an image of the product they bought, along with a subject line like, “[Name], it’s time for a new [product]” or “Need a refill on [product]?” Speaking to them directly about a specific item they bought will be more effective at engaging them.
A/B test your emails to see what’s working
Not all shoppers will commit to buying straight away—some may browse your products for a while and then leave, others may get as To ensure your emails hit the mark, send different variations to different segments of your audience, otherwise known as A/B testing. This will give you an idea of what your audience responds positively to, and what they don’t, as you’ll see what’s opened and clicked on, and what’s ignored. You can then adjust your designs and copy accordingly.
Conclusion
This has been a basic introduction to autoresponder emails for automotive eCommerce stores. For more information on the types of autoresponder emails your automotive eCommerce business should be sending, and for help crafting them, please get in touch with us.
