In a prior blog post, which you can read here, my colleague shared ideas on acquisition and how to generate an initial sale from those new subscribers. There’s little debate that list growth plays a pivotal role in the success of ecommerce businesses. However; sadly, most retailers have more subscribers on their lists that have never bought than those that have. How can you make adjustments to generate more buyers and sell more to the customers you already have?

Subscribers and customers have high expectations from their favorite retailers. It’s 2016...subscribers expect all channels to be in sync. Onsite, email, in-store activity, social, display, and especially mobile should be aligned so there isn’t a breakdown or confusion in communication. If a subscriber expresses interest in a particular product in-store or through social media, that preference should be displayed in digital marketing campaigns online and in email, too.

In a 2015 Harris Poll, 67% of customers said they value product recommendations while they are shopping online. Because a majority of customers see value in personalization – and we’re seeing click and conversion rates increase along with it – why not feature them in your marketing messages? Think about the automated campaigns you have in place – welcome series, shopping cart abandonment, online browse, loyalty, transactional, birthday, and many more – there are opportunities for personalization in all of them.

A common challenge most retailers have is the time to create and deploy the messages. One email could take anywhere from a few hours to a number of days, depending on the complexity. Instead of manually selecting the products to display for each send, automate the process by using the customer’s purchase, abandonment, and browse behavior to determine what should be displayed for each subscriber. We see that 1/3 of the top 1000 online retailers send more than 20 emails per week. Many of those sends are triggered or automated. Follow in their footsteps and get more emails out the door without using more of your time.