I'm still guilty of it and I'm sure many others still are too. You may even be guilty of it. The "it" I'm referring to is cart abandonment.There are countless ways to avoid this happening, some of which I have covered in the past. It still happens, but hopefully it's happening less than it did previously.

I may have mentioned before that nearly 70% of all consumers abandon their carts at one point or another during the checkout process. Seventy percent! That's a huge number that will totally hurt your bottom line. Cart abandonment is an on going battle so I come to you again to try to turn the tide and give you a few pointers on how to sway the battle in your favor. This time I'll talk about drip campaigns and how they can help your company.

Drip Campaigns

What are drip campaigns? Drip campaigning, or drip marketing, is essentially a marketing tactic in which a company sends out emails over a period of time to prospective consumers. For obvious reasons, this will only work if you have captured their email address. If they signed up for your newsletter, then kudos! You can use their email that way. If not, then you won't be able to reach them.

Fear not, however. The majority of your consumers will likely have already been captured by you. If you find that there aren't enough people signing up for your newsletter, then that may require more research on your part. In the meantime, utilizing a drip campaign to reach out to potential consumers is a sure fire way to go.

Why Are They Called "Drip" Campaigns?

The answer to this question is actually gold. Think about any time your faucet ever dripped. It wasn't a leak, just a slow and constant drip. At first, you think to ignore it; you know it's there but it's fine. Eventually, you get to the point where you do something about it. Not that it's annoying, but you know it's time to take care of it. Drip campaigns work in the same vein. Over a period of time selected by you (a single drip campaign is not perpetual), emails are dripped to a customer every few days, say 2-3 days, during the campaign. If all goes well, you will have a fully converted customer by the end of the campaign and the dripping faucet will be no more.

Why Do You Need Them?

Drip campaigns are probably the best way to convert prospective customers into return customers. Once they sign up for the newsletter, you're introducing yourself to them. Throughout the campaign, you're letting the potential customer get to know you until the point where they feel comfortable enough to take the chance on you.

While word of mouth, link building, and search engine optimization (SEO) are a great way to be found on the internet, these tactics will do little to nothing in terms of convincing consumers to become a customer. That requires more effort on your part. However, once they have found you, the hard part is over.

The other answer to this question is, as mentioned, over half of all website visitors abandon their carts. You don't want to miss out on such a huge demographic, so to ignore any way possible to retain them is just madness. Drip campaigns are important particularly for cart abandonment because there are so many reasons why people abandon their carts.

The reasons can range anywhere from being unsure about the price or just plain old getting distracted and forgetting. How many times has any of us been shopping while in the middle of something, maybe waiting for something or something, and then when it's time to go, we forget about the cart? It happens all the time. This would be a golden opportunity for you. Sending a reminder to the consumer about their cart if they really did forget about it is perfect.

The campaign would be useful for assuaging a consumer's fears as well. Sometimes, they're just gun shy about trusting a company that they are new to trying. Drip campaigns are good for pinpointing the reason why consumers might abandon their carts.

Things to Know

Essentially, at the beginning of the campaign, you're going to want to try to gauge the consumer. Try to figure out why they abandoned the cart in the first place. Introduce yourself, eliminate their fears, remind them you're there, that sort of spiel. You'll want to eliminate offering them a discount right off the bat. It's like you're dating--don't give it all away up front!

Additionally, there are potential violations when emailing customers and potential consumers. To avoid a hefty fine visit this site to find out how to avoid violations when sending out these emails.

And lastly, a drip campaign is not necessarily for every company. Unfortunately, if you're a brand new business, your key focus should be building a consumer base, link building, SEO for your site, and things of that nature. For new businesses starting out, you may not have all the information that will be needed for a successful campaign. You need a high volume of traffic in order to gather enough data. Conversely, if you're not a new business, and people are not opting in, a drip campaign might not be for you either. Unfortunately, you may not have the information necessary either.

Conclusion

Cart abandonment is a battlefield. Whether it's because people forget or they simply don't want to pay the full cost, you'll have to find out the source and end it. A drip campaign will definitely help you along the way no matter the journey. It is bound to work for anyone who has consumers signing up. So again, if that's not happening with you, find out why and nip it. Then you can proceed with a campaign for cart abandonment. Also, these are not the only kind of campaigns to do. There are a multitude of other campaigns to do. This campaign is simply the start of a beautiful friendship.