Segmentation is the art of dividing your email list into smaller, more focused groups based on specific criteria. It’s not just a handy tool; it’s the cornerstone of successful email marketing. By sending the right message to the right people at the right time, segmentation allows you to deliver more personalized and relevant content. This, in turn, leads to higher engagement rates, increased open and click-through rates, improved conversion rates, and ultimately, a boost in your ROI. Now, let’s dive into the exciting enhancements that will make your email marketing campaigns even more effective:

New Pre-Built Segment Templates

We understand that creating segments from scratch can be time-consuming. That’s why we’ve introduced a set of pre-built segment templates to simplify the process, with more to come in the future.

• Recently Subscribed: This segment includes contacts who have recently subscribed to your emails, specifically within the last 30 days.
• Engaged Subscribers (in the last 1, 3 or 6 months): Engage with your most active audience. This segment comprises contacts who have interacted with your emails or made at least one purchase, and have received emails from you within the specified period.
• Recent Buyers: Target those who have made a recent purchase. This segment consists of customers who have made a purchase within the last 30 days.
• Repeat Buyers: Encourage customer loyalty. This segment is composed of customers who have made at least two purchases in the last 6 months.
• Loyal Buyers: Reward your most devoted customers. This segment includes customers who have made at least five purchases in the last 12 months.
• Win-Back: Re-engage past customers. This segment focuses on customers who have previously purchased but haven’t made a purchase in the last 6 months.
• Lapsed Customers: Target dormant customers. This segment consists of customers who haven’t made a purchase in the last 9 months.
• Recent Openers: Stay top-of-mind with active contacts. This segment comprises contacts who have opened an email in the last 7 days.
• Big Spenders: Recognize and reward high-value customers. This segment includes customers who have completed $100 or more worth of orders in the last 12 months.

These segment templates offer a diverse range of targeting options to help you create tailored and effective email marketing campaigns for your specific audience needs.

Expanded Segmentation Conditions

Our segmentation capabilities have been supercharged with a plethora of new conditions. You can now create segments based on actions like entering or exiting automation, using coupon codes, selecting shipping methods, leaving reviews, residing in a particular city or postal code, and even actions like the last engagement, purchase, open, click, page view, or sending date.

Segment on Top of Your List

Want to apply a segment to your existing email list when sending a campaign? Now, you can! With the new update, you have the flexibility to layer segments on top of your lists, ensuring that your emails reach the most relevant recipients, every time.

Enhanced Options for Existing Segmentation Conditions

We’ve improved the flexibility and precision of existing segment conditions in several ways:

• Time-based segments: In addition to specifying a time period, you can now choose the “lifetime” option, allowing you to target subscribers based on their entire history with your brand.
• Custom field segments: You can now filter subscribers based on whether their custom fields are “blank” or “not blank,” giving you greater control over your segments.
• Date-based segments: You can set segments based on actions that occurred “on or after” and “on or before” specific dates, offering more refined targeting.

Discoverability Made Easier

Segments are now a separate menu item, making it simpler to navigate and create the perfect segment for your campaigns. This improvement ensures you can access the segmentation features quickly and efficiently.

With these new segmentation features, you have the power to send more personalized, relevant, and effective email campaigns. Whether you’re looking to re-engage lapsed customers, reward loyal buyers, or target specific geographic areas, our enhanced segmentation capabilities will help you achieve your email marketing goals with ease. Get started today and unlock the full potential of your email marketing strategy!

We are still not finished with segmentation, with a couple more improvements and additions coming by the end of the year. And if we haven’t yet included the feature you’re wishing for, let us know at feedback.mailpoet.com.

Automation is at the heart of creating seamless, personalized experiences for your audience. With our powerful Automation Editor, you’ve already been able to craft workflows that nurture and engage your contacts. But now, we’re taking your capabilities to the next level by providing you with in-depth insights into every step of those automations.

What Automation Analytics brings to the table

1. Visual Journey Mapping: Gain a holistic view of your automation’s performance with an intuitive visual representation. See the exact number of contacts at each step, understand completion rates between steps, and identify potential bottlenecks that might need your attention.

2. Email Performance Breakdown: Dive deep into the effectiveness of every email in your automation. Track open and click rates to gauge engagement, monitor the number of orders triggered by each email, and measure the revenue generated. Keep a close eye on unsubscribes to fine-tune your content and strategy.

3. Revenue-Driven Insights: Uncover the direct impact of your automations on your bottom line. Explore the Orders section to dissect each purchase, learn who made it, what products were involved, which email spurred the action, and the overall revenue generated. These insights turn automation into a revenue-generating powerhouse.

4. Subscribers’ Journey Overview: Understand exactly where each subscriber stands in your automation. Track their progress, know their status, and get a real-time glimpse of their position in the journey. This level of visibility empowers you to make timely decisions to enhance their experience.

Why Automation Analytics?

Your success is our priority, and data-driven decision-making is the cornerstone of any successful marketing strategy. With Automation Analytics, you’ll unlock the ability to:

1. Identify high-performing and underperforming segments of your automation.
2. Fine-tune your emails based on real engagement metrics and revenue impact.
3. Optimize your customer journeys to boost completion rates and drive conversions.
4. Get a comprehensive overview of subscriber behavior, aiding in precision targeting.
5. Maximize your automation’s ROI and create more effective campaigns.

Thank you for choosing MailPoet as your partner in email marketing success. We’re excited to see how Automation Analytics transforms your strategies and delivers exceptional results. More Automation features coming up in autumn. Stay tuned and share your feedback at feedback.mailpoet.com.

To your automation success!

1. Abandoned Cart and Order Status Change Triggers: You can now kick-start automations when a customer abandons their cart or when there’s a change in order status. It’s a fantastic way to capture those lost opportunities and keep your customers in the loop.

2. Transactional Emails Made Easy: The order status change trigger can now send transactional emails without requiring marketing consent. The first “Send email” action immediately following the trigger automatically sends transactional email, while all the other emails in the campaign continue to require marketing consent. It’s a hassle-free way to keep your customers informed about their orders.

3. Powerful New Actions: We’ve supercharged our automation capabilities with a range of new actions. You can now effortlessly add or remove tags, lists, or edit subscriber custom fields. Want to send an admin notification or unsubscribe someone? There is an action for that.

4. New Automation Templates: We made “Abandoned cart reminder” and “Celebrating first-time buyers” templates available in the free plugin.

5. Filter Triggers Like a Pro: We know you love having control, which is why we’ve introduced the ability to filter triggers by the subscriber, WordPress user, customer, or order fields. Customization is the name of the game, and now you can tailor your automations with laser-like precision.

6. Run Automations Once per Subscriber: Now, it’s up to you to decide if your subscribers can receive the same automation only once or multiple times. Do you want to welcome new subscribers even if they resubscribe? No problem! Only a single abandoned cart per customer? Sure can do.

We can’t wait for you to explore these fantastic new features. There is more to come, with detailed automation analytics in mid-summer and more in autumn. Stay tuned and share your feedback at feedback.mailpoet.com.

Happy automating!

If you’re in the commerce game, we’ve introduced new options based on single order value, average order value, purchase date, and used payment method. Reward your new or regular big spenders with a discount coupon to incentivize more sales and increase lifetime value.

We know how important it is to track your subscriber acquisition sources. That’s why you can now target subscribers who signed up via a specific form. And as a bonus, you can now easily segment your subscribers based on their first name, last name, and email address (e.g., to reach out to Gmail subscribers).

But wait, there’s more! You can now duplicate existing segments! This means you won’t have to start from scratch whenever you want to create a similar segment. Simply duplicate an existing one, make a few tweaks, and voila! You’ve got a new segment ready to roll.

There is more in the pipeline for segmentation, which we’ll roll out in the next couple of months. Stay tuned! And, you guessed it, let us know what you think at feedback.mailpoet.com.

You’ll have the option to choose between two plans – Starter and Business. The Starter plan is perfect if you are just starting with email marketing or have smaller mailing lists, as it allows you to send with MailPoet Sending Service for up to 1,000 subscribers.

If you need more advanced features, the Business plan is the way to go. It unlocks all of MailPoet’s features, including priority customer support, detailed email and shopping analytics, email marketing automations, or purchasing and engagement-based customer segmentation and targeting, to create effective and personalized email campaigns that engage your customers and drive results.

Visit MailPoet on Woo.com to start for free and take your email marketing to the next level. And as always, let us know what you think at feedback.mailpoet.com.

For new users, we’ve included easy-to-follow instructions for setting up MailPoet and getting started with your first email campaign. Plus, we’ve highlighted our recommended features so you can take full advantage of everything MailPoet offers.

We know tracking engagement is essential, so you’ll also see engagement metrics from recent campaigns. In addition, you’ll be able to see how subscribers interact with your content and any changes in the number of subscribers on your lists.

And finally, we’ve included links to additional email marketing resources and articles so you can continue learning and growing your skills.

We’re confident that our new Home page will improve your email marketing experience. So check it out yourself and let us know what you think at feedback.mailpoet.com.

Firstly, our built-in CAPTCHA now comes with an audio fallback to provide an alternative way for visually impaired users to complete the verification process without relying on visual cues.

Secondly, MailPoet uses your site’s language in emails (in <html lang=""> ) instead of always using English, so screen readers can set proper language to better understand your emails’ content.

Lastly, the close button on popup signup forms is now focusable. You can now easily dismiss the popup when navigating the website using a keyboard.

We hope these improvements will make MailPoet more accessible and user-friendly. As always, please don’t hesitate to share your feedback at feedback.mailpoet.com.

Firstly, you can now design your subscription confirmation emails with the drag & drop email editor you’re already using for other emails.

You can enable the new confirmation emails for your site in MailPoet > Settings > Sign-Up Confirmation > Enable visual subscription confirmation emails (enabled by default for new installations).

Secondly, you can now easily hide a specific list from the Manage Subscription page. Just head to the list edit page, and uncheck the Show this list on the “Manage Subscription” page checkbox.

We hope you find these useful. We continue to work on improvements like these, and we appreciate the feedback you share with us at feedback.mailpoet.com. Thank you!

We spent a good chunk of this year working on a new way of running sophisticated email marketing automations. We launched Automations in beta last month and while we plan to introduce awesome new features soon, you can already leverage Automations to build drip campaigns, tag users, or add them to lists. You can get started right from the MailPoet menu in your WordPress dashboard.

In the next couple of months, we’ll launch new ecommerce-focused triggers, actions, and detailed analytics to help you power up your store’s marketing. There will be much more to come in 2023, and we’ll share more details in future updates. For now, here is a sneak peek:

Our goal is to make Automations as helpful for your business as possible. So try it out and let us know what you think via the “Give feedback” button on any Automations page (make sure you’ve enabled the “Load 3rd-party libraries” setting.) We’d love to hear about any bugs you may encounter, suggestions you have for improvements, and the top features you’d like us to introduce next.

Last, happy holidays, and see you next year!

Email marketing is one of the most important marketing channels for a WooCommerce business. It plays a vital role at various stages of the customer lifecycle, including new user acquisition (welcome emails), user engagement (seasonal sales), and customer re-engagement (such as customer-specific discounts, referral discounts, etc).

Here’s a rundown of what you can expect from this article:

1. For each email marketing tip, I’ve highlighted its background, benefits, and importance, and at which stage of the customer lifecycle you should be using it. This will help you make the most out of each tip.
2. For our readers who are new to WooCommerce email marketing, I’ve included a primer on eCommerce customer lifecycles and segmentation.

To our seasoned readers who are familiar with the customer lifecycles, you can skip the next two sections and jump straight to the tips.

For folks who are new to our site, or to WooCommerce email marketing, let’s dive right in.

Table of contents

• eCommerce Customer Lifecycles: TOFU, MOFU & BOFU
• WooCommerce Email Marketing Segmentation
• WooCommerce Email Marketing Strategies to Improve Conversions
  • 1) Incentivised Lead Generation “Welcome” Emails
    • 1.1 Welcome Email with Discount Coupon
    • 1.2 Welcome Email with Latest Offers
  • 2) eCommerce Engagement Emails
    • 2.1 Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) Emails
    • 2.2 Abandoned Cart Emails
    • 2.3 Product/Category Viewed Emails
    • 2.4 Promotional & Seasonal Sale Emails
  • 3) Post-Purchase eCommerce Engagement Emails
    • 3.1 Transactional Emails
    • 3.2 First-Purchase Emails
    • 3.3 Feedback/ NPS Survey Emails
    • 3.4 Upsell Emails
    • 3.5 Product Replenishment Emails
    • 3.6 Referral Emails
    • 3.7 Re-Engaging Old Customers
• Wrapping Up
  • WooCommerce Email Marketing Strategies grouped by Customer Segment
• Recommended Reading

eCommerce customer lifecycles: TOFU, MOFU & BOFU

There are three stages in the journey of a customer on your eCommerce website – TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU. Collectively, these three stages form the customer lifecycle, which looks like an inverted pyramid.

Source: https://www.webascender.com/wp-content/uploads/Tofu-mofu-bofu.png

Top of the funnel (TOFU)

People who are unaware of your brand/product/service are considered to be at the top of the funnel.  This includes those visiting your online store for the first time.

As a marketer, you’ll need to use incentivized lead generation techniques to win the email address of these unknown visitors. Your newsletter signup form must convey why the visitor should share their email address with you. 

A common incentive used to convert a visitor to a lead, is a discount code. If the visitor signs up for your eCommerce store’s newsletter, they will receive a welcome email containing the discount code.

Once you generate a lead from a website visitor, it becomes easier to convert that lead into a paying customer.

Middle of the funnel (MOFU)

People who have expressed interest in your store, but have not made a purchase, are said to be at the MOFU stage. People at this stage of the funnel are the most likely to convert (i.e. make a purchase). We’ll discuss several engagement email marketing strategies later in this article.

Bottom of the funnel (BOFU)

People who have made at least one purchase from your eCommerce site are said to be in the BOFU stage.

With eCommerce, the game does not end when you’ve sold a product. The packaging, shipping, delivery, and the quality of the product itself, adds up to the entire shopping experience. Only if a customer is happy with the purchase, do they then become a loyal customer.

Loyal customers are likely to make repeat purchases and refer new people to your eCommerce site. Undoubtedly, your loyal customers are your most profitable and important segment, and we’ll discuss various post-purchase retention strategies for this segment.

WooCommerce email marketing segmentation

Segmentation is an integral part of email marketing (or eCommerce) in general. 

Also known as customer segments, audience definition/lists, or email list, a segment is essentially a list of people who match certain criteria. Marketeers use segments to target people with personalized communication, via channels such as email marketing, push notifications, and more.

Common segments in eCommerce include:

1. Window shoppers: People who have visited your site more than once, or have spent more than 60-90 seconds on your site.
2. Leads: People who have subscribed to your store’s newsletter, but have not made a purchase. 
3. Cart abandoners: People who have added a product to their cart, but did not make a purchase.
4. Abandoned purchases: People who have started the checkout process, but did not complete the purchase. This could be a variety of reasons including a poor checkout flow experience or insufficient payment methods.
5. Loyal users: People who are happy with your WooCommerce store and are likely to purchase again and/or refer new customers.
6. Big spenders: People who have contributed to a significant portion of your eCommerce store’s revenue. These users have the highest customer lifetime value (LTV) and are likely to make purchases in the future.
7. Bargain hunters: People who shop exclusively during sales and use coupon codes in most of their purchases.

And the list goes on. The degree of precision used in defining a segment plays a vital role in the performance of that segment. To learn more, check out our beginner’s guide on email marketing segmentation and how to set it up using MailPoet.

WooCommerce email marketing strategies to improve conversions

Now that you’ve had a primer on customer segments and lifecycles, let’s discuss some of the most useful WooCommerce email marketing strategies that you can use in each stage of the customer journey.

1) Incentivised lead generation “Welcome” emails

Welcome emails are one of the most popular forms of lead generation at the TOFU stage. At this stage, the goal is to win the visitors’ email. 

1.1 Welcome email with discount coupon

One of the best ways to incentivize visitors to sign up for your newsletter is to offer a discount code in the signup form. A 5-10% discount in exchange for an email address is a pretty good reason for a visitor to sign up for your newsletter.

In the screenshot above, Made.com, a premium furniture/lifestyle brand displayed the signup form (also known as lead generation box) as a slide-in from the bottom left corner, after I spent ~20 seconds on the product page.

The incentive – Made will give me a 10 GBP discount if I sign up for their newsletter.

That’s the welcome email from Made.com containing the discount code, along with their popular products.

Similarly, OnePlus displayed the newsletter signup form as a pop-up, as soon as I landed on the website. The incentive – 20% discount on accessories if I sign up for their newsletter.

You can use various techniques to present the signup form – such as a slide-in or as a pop-up – after the visitor has spent more than 30 seconds on your site. 

You can also use advanced lead generation software such as OptinMonster, and show a newsletter subscription box to the user just as they are about to close the browser tab/window. 

You can now make pop-up forms in MailPoet, or directly integrate MailPoet with your existing email opt-in plugin. MailPoet directly integrates with most of the popular free and premium email marketing plugins including Gravity Forms and OptinMonster.

If you’re not sure where to start, MailPoet offers pre-built welcome email templates that you can use to kickstart your WooCommerce email marketing journey. 

1.2 Welcome email with latest offers

If you do not want to offer a discount code to your new visitors, you can use the latest offers/FOMO (fear of missing out) technique to generate leads. Examples include: “Be the first to know our latest offers” or “Don’t miss out on our next sale” emails.

Admittedly, these won’t perform as well as a discount-oriented welcome email, but nonetheless, it’s a good technique to generate leads.

In the screenshot above, Nike displays a “Latest news/offers” lead generation box right when I was about to close the browser tab. 

Here’s the welcome email I received from Nike.

2) eCommerce engagement emails

The following WooCommerce email marketing strategies are used to engage visitors in the Middle of the Funnel (MOFU) stage. Eligible customer segments include Window Shoppers, Leads, Cart Abandoners, and more.

2.1 Fear of missing out (FOMO) emails

When a visitor signs up for your newsletter in exchange for a coupon code but does not make a purchase, it’s time to engage that visitor with a FOMO email. 

Consider the welcome email from OnePlus that contained a 20% off coupon. If I don’t use the coupon before it expires, OnePlus could send me a reminder email that reads something like: “Your 20% off coupon expires in 3 days!”

Such emails remind the visitor of why they signed up in the first place and encourages them to make a purchase.

2.1.1 Flash sale emails

Other examples of FOMO emails include Flash Sales and Stock Clearance sales.

For instance, take a look at the email from Comply (a premium ear tips manufacturer) that includes two incentives:

1. A time-sensitive offer that lasts for only 6 hours, inciting FOMO.
2. A buy-one-get-one-free offer inciting, to some extent, the loss aversion bias.

The reader’s mind goes – If I purchase one in the next six hours (or by January 24 if they read the footer) then I’d get half off on the second tip. If you regularly use ear tips and own more than one pair of earphones, this would be a good deal for you. 

2.1.2 Stock clearance sale emails

Stock clearance emails work great for bargain hunters and often result in conversions.

This stock clearance sale email from Nike offers 30% off on select products. It also mentions that the products are available in “limited quantity”, which incites FOMO in the reader’s mind. The two elements – discount and limited quantity – together incentivizes the user to make a purchase, or at the very least, click the Shop button.

2.2 Abandoned cart emails

7 out of 10 eCommerce users end up abandoning their cart, leading to $18 billion in lost revenue each year. The email open rate for abandoned cart emails is 43.21% in 2019, with a conversion rate of 18%.

To put it in perspective, if you had 1000 visitors to your eCommerce site, 777 of them would abandon their cart. If you targeted the cart abandoners with abandoned cart emails, 355 of them would open the email, out of which, 63 of them would complete the purchase.

In other words, a simple abandoned cart email would increase your conversion rate by 6.3% – which is huge in eCommerce!

Here’s an example of an abandoned cart email from a leading eCommerce site in India.

If you have the email address of a visitor who has abandoned their cart, you can send them an abandonment cart email, gently reminding them to finish their purchase. You can also use FOMO techniques such as “limited quantities available”.

Furthermore, for users with a high cart value, you can send them an additional discount coupon, further incentivizing them to complete the purchase.

MailPoet has the ability to send automatic abandoned cart emails in WooCommerce, which you can implement in just a few clicks. To make the most out of your WooCommerce email marketing efforts, make sure to read our best practices guide on cart abandonment emails.

2.3 Product/category viewed emails

Emails personalized to the product/category viewed are specific to people in the MOFU stage and are based on their site activity (also known as site behavior) and are typically used to move visitors further down the marketing funnel.

For instance, if a user has spent more than 15 minutes on your site, having viewed a particular brand’s product or a specific category, you could send them an engagement email with an incentive. The incentive can vary depending on the cart value:

• If the ticket size (or cart value) is high but the margin is low, incentives could include free shipping or a limited stock message that induces FOMO.
• If the ticket size and/or margin is high, then the incentive could include a discount coupon.

Having received the email, the visitor might be motivated to continue their search and maybe make a purchase.

For example, in the screenshot above, Amazon sends an automated email recommending laptops, based on my browsing behavior. They’ve made sure to highlight the discounts on each laptop, which motivates me to continue my search, and hopefully make a purchase.

2.4 Promotional & seasonal sale emails

Promotional emails sent during festive seasons such as Easter are known to boost your annual revenues. They can be used across the entire customer funnel – including TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU.

Segmenting users based on their past website behavior and/or purchases can yield better email open rates and conversions. You can also add additional incentives such as free shipping above a certain minimum cart value, discount coupon on specific categories, etc., to improve your conversion rate.

In the screenshot above, Crello (a graphic design platform) sends an Easter sale email with a 50% discount coupon and a limited time offer – two pretty good incentives to upgrade for a user.

You can use MailPoet’s ready-made promotional email templates and/or the drag-and-drop email builder, to personalize your WooCommerce promotional emails.

3) Post-purchase eCommerce engagement emails

Post-purchase emails are vital to your WooCommerce email marketing efforts and are applicable at the Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU) stage. 

The following section explores basic post-purchase emails such as transactional, first-purchase, feedback and upsell emails. 

I’m also going to cover some slightly more advanced email marketing tactics (such as retention and reactivation), that are used to win back dormant users or win new customers.

3.1 Transactional emails

Transactional emails keep your customers up to date on the status of their order, including   updates on shipping, delivery, order delays (if any), and payment/refund issues. 

Following is a list of the typical post-purchase emails that most eCommerce companies should implement:

1. New Order – Notifies the customer that their order has been successfully placed.
2. Cancelled Order – Notifies the customer that their order has been cancelled and that any refunds will be processed shortly. 
3. Order On-Hold – Notifies the customer when the order status is changed to “On-Hold”. You (the WooCommerce store admin) can change the order status to “On-Hold” when you experience setbacks such as delivery delays, inventory issues.
4. Order Processing – Notifies the customer when the order status is changed to “Order Processing”. You can send this email once the order has been shipped.
5. Order Completed – Notifies the customer when an order has been successfully completed.
6. Order Refunded – Notifies the customer when an order is refunded, typically sent after an order cancellation.
7. Customer Invoice – Sent to the customer containing order information.

MailPoet has the ability to customize the default WooCommerce email templates, giving you the ability to match the design of your transactional emails to that of your brand. In the screenshot above, we are using MailPoet to customize the Completed order email template in WooCommerce.

3.2 First-purchase emails

This is one of the very first emails that you send to a new customer after they have made their first purchase. The objective can be brand reinforcement or to drive additional sales. 

In the screenshot above, Zulily, a kids fashion eCommerce store sends a combined thank you & referral email right after the first purchase. Zulily incentivizes you to refer your friends in exchange for store credit.

Here are a few common types of first-purchase emails:

1. “Thank you for shopping with us” emails reinforce your brand in your customer’s mind
2. “You may also like” product recommendation emails can drive additional revenue
3. “Refer a friend and earn” can also win you new customers.

We’ve discussed each of these types of email – at length – in the following sections.

You can use MailPoet to send automated first purchase emails in WooCommerce. And if you’d like to read more about best practices for this type of WooCommerce follow-up email, check out our dedicated guide.

3.3 Feedback / NPS survey emails

A good eCommerce store will always listen to their customers. One of the ways to do that is by gathering feedback. Once an order is successfully delivered, you could send a Shopping Experience and/or Product Quality Feedback email to your customers, coupled with a discount coupon as an incentive.

You could also include an Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey to gauge your customer satisfaction rating:

• People who respond with an NPS score of 9 or above can be added to your list of loyal customers. 
• For people responding negatively, it would be in your best interest to understand what went wrong, and prevent it from happening to future customers.

For instance, in the screenshot above, Rapha, a sportswear/lifestyle brand, sends a survey email to its customers, incentivised with a 20% discount coupon on their next order.

WordPress form plugins such as Gravity Forms and WPForms offer NPS add-ons, using which you can directly send NPS survey emails to your customers via MailPoet.

3.4 Upsell emails

Upsell emails are based on product recommendations. For instance, if you buy a razor from Harry’s (a shaving/grooming brand), they send you an upsell email featuring their shaving gel and moisturizer. 

Automatic product recommendation engines (such as Dynamic Yields) can be technically difficult to set up and/or prohibitively expensive for small eCommerce businesses. 

If you use WooCommerce to run your eCommerce store, then you could easily send product recommendation emails using MailPoet. Simply use MailPoet’s built-in email type “Purchased In This Category” to send automatic upsell emails in WooCommerce.

3.5 Product replenishment emails

Product replenishment emails are a classic example of re-engagement emails, sent by eCommerce companies to their customers who have purchased a consumable product (such as edibles, bath/body care, pet food, baby necessities, etc.), and are about to run out of said product. 

In order to send effective product replenishment emails, you’ll first need to study the repeat purchase behavior of your BOFU customers.

The goal is to get on the top of the customer’s mind right around the time when they’re about to run out of the product. This makes timing a crucial part of product replenishment emails:

• If you send an email too early, i.e. before the product has been half consumed, then you might bug the user, causing them to unsubscribe.
• If you send it too late, i.e. after the product is over, then the consumer might have already ordered another one or even switched to a different brand.
• The timing should be such that the email is sent when the consumer is just about to run out of the product.

For instance, if you sell gourmet spices that last for about 45 days under normal consumption patterns, then you might want to send the replenishment email on the 35th day.

You can use MailPoet’s built-in “Purchased This Product” email type to send automatic product replenishment emails in WooCommerce.

3.6 Referral emails

Referral emails are reserved for your most loyal customers at the BOFU stage. When done right, referral marketing can win you new customers, while retaining/delighting existing ones.

What makes it especially attractive, is the fact that the people referred by your loyal customers are most likely to make a purchase from your eCommerce store, as they already have the trust and quality factors verified from their friend.

There are various referral marketing strategies that you can use for your store, the most common one being a monetary reward. 

Take a look at the email from Zoomin – an online photo delivery service. I order from Zoomin throughout the year and hence fit the profile of a loyal customer at the BOFU stage. Zoomin sends a referral email wherein I can win cash based on the number of users I refer.

ReferralCandy ($49/mo) and Referral System for WooCommerce ($29/year) are two well-known referral management services for WooCommerce.

3.7 Re-engaging old customers

There’s an entire section of marketing called “remarketing” that is dedicated to re-engaging your past customers – i.e. people who have purchased from you in the past, and have now become inactive or have unsubscribed from your service. 

However, since remarketing is out of scope for this article, we’ve included some in-depth guides in our recommended reading section. For now, to get a general idea of the topic, let’s take a look at some examples of re-engagement / remarketing emails from SaaS/digital product companies. These companies generally offer a discounted price to try and convert inactive or free/trial user customers to paying ones.

I had signed up for The New Yorker newsletter, and a couple weeks ago, but hadn’t really visited their website much. Take a look at the re-engagement email they sent me that offers a 12-week subscription at $1/week. It’s a good deal, and reinforces the freedom from commitment by using the phrase “Cancel anytime.” 

Similarly, this is an email from Grammarly, trying to get me to upgrade to their paid annual subscription, the incentive being a limited-time 50% discount.

Wrapping up

WooCommerce is an excellent tool for setting up a new eCommerce store. The email marketing tips discussed in this article can be used as a good starting point for getting new customers, engaging existing ones, and improving the overall conversion rate for your eCommerce site.

WooCommerce email marketing strategies grouped by customer segment

Not all strategies discussed above might work for you. While there are certain strategies that you must implement, the others can be taken up as you learn about your customer behavior.

Here’s a handy table of all the WooCommerce email marketing tips discussed in the article:

While plugins like MailPoet can handle transactional WooCommerce emails at scale, you might want to invest in an audience engagement tool such as CleverTap or Mixpanel to get the most out of your customer data. 

These tools will help you the right segment, analyze customer behavior, and send targeted messages to the right user at the right time. 

While email is the dominant medium to get transactions, channels like push notifications and in-app messages are vital for an eCommerce app.

Recommended reading

Here are some recommended reading articles to get the most out of your WooCommerce email marketing efforts:

1. A Complete Guide to Email for WooCommerce
2. 10 Excellent Free and Premium WordPress Email Marketing Plugins – MailPoet
3. 50 eCommerce Segmentation Recipes You Can Start Using Today – Dynamic Yield
4. Ecommerce Retargeting 101: How to Drive Sales with Paid Ads – Veeqo 
5. Retention Marketing: How 5 top eCommerce brands are crushing it – Barilliance
6. Ecommerce Retention Marketing – Metrilo