Follow-up emails for WooCommerce: What are they and how to use them

When it comes to finding financial success for your store, it’s not generally about using new and unfamiliar tools, but rather about better understanding the ones you already use.

This article discusses the power of follow-up emails as a highly effective tool for generating leads. We will clearly define follow-up emails and explore their relevance in the eCommerce industry. Additionally, we will explore strategies for optimizing these emails to boost sales and enhance customer relationships.

In this guide, we will share tips that are beneficial for any type of store, especially for those that use WooCommerce. We will also recommend plugins that can help you efficiently manage these features and maximize your store’s potential.

Now, let’s begin by explaining what exactly a follow-up is.

What’s a follow-up email?

In simple terms, “follow-up” refers to any communication that happens after an event. These communications can take place through different channels, but they are commonly used in email marketing.

We can categorize follow-up emails into two types: those that are typically sent to customers in response to their actions in the store (like confirming an order) and those that aim to boost sales instead.

In 2020, Adobe conducted a study that revealed the benefits of targeted follow-up emails in boosting sales. By incorporating email marketing into existing in-store marketing strategies, businesses had a 10% rise in their sales.

We’ll give you real-life examples of these tools later in the article, don’t worry!

What are follow-up emails for?

A follow-up email campaign has several uses. As mentioned before, some of these uses include maintaining effective communication with customers.

Keeping customers informed about the progress of their order, such as its shipping and delivery status, can greatly minimize complaints and the need for extensive customer service.

Typically, customers don’t want to feel like they’ve been left hanging after making a purchase, as it can damage the trust they have in your store.

Additionally, you can send post-purchase follow-up emails to reach out to your customers and establish a channel of communication. This can be beneficial in securing future purchases.

Remember: to boost your business traffic, it’s essential to focus on the customers that will keep coming back to your store. According to a study by Bain & Company, even a small 5% increase in this customer base can result in significant revenue growth of 25 to 95%.

In short, there are countless uses, depending on your store’s goals.

Why use follow-up emails in WooCommerce?

First, let’s address a common misconception: emails are not outdated. With the rise of instant messaging apps, it’s easy to assume that emails have lost their relevance. However, that is not the case.

It’s important to understand that emails are not only crucial but also incredibly powerful, especially in the world of eCommerce and sales.

According to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), investing in email marketing can result in one of the most profitable returns. With an impressive return on investment of 4,400%, every dollar you spend on this tool can generate a return of $44.

As you can see, it’s essential to send emails. But how and why should you specifically use follow-ups on WooCommerce?

Apart from the usual reasons, like maintaining customer communication, we can give you three main reasons.

Improve customer retention

Boosting customer loyalty should be a crucial aspect of your business, and this tool can help you achieve that.

Sending follow-up emails is a great way to boost customer loyalty and foster a lasting connection with your customers. By reaching out to customers after an order, you show that you value their business and increase the chances of repeated sales in the future.

When it comes to follow-ups, this post-purchase communication tool allows you to build a strong connection and keep customers interested in your brand.

After a customer completes a purchase in your WooCommerce store, it’s a good idea to send them a customized email to express your appreciation and confirm their order. This not only shows your gratitude, but also gives them peace of mind that their transaction went smoothly.

But follow-up emails aren’t just for saying thanks. They can also be used to provide support after a sale, give tips on how to make the most of those purchased products, and share relevant content. While WooCommerce offers standard templates, customizing these follow-ups is a good idea. A study by Epsilon found that 80% of customers are more drawn to stores that offer a personalized and memorable experience. This shows that you care about your customers and want them to get the most out of what they buy from you.

Moreover, you can use these emails to provide loyal customers with exclusive promotions, discounts, or special perks. This encourages additional purchases and also makes customers feel valued.

To effectively manage follow-up emails, it’s important to plan and divide customers based on their preferences and behaviors. This way, you can send customized messages that connect with your customers, increasing the chances of success.

Increase sales

There are many tools available to boost your sales, but they often demand significant time and financial resources. However, follow-up emails provide a cost-effective and potent means to increase sales and improve the performance of your eCommerce business.

As mentioned before, this approach allows you to stay connected with customers, generate interest, and promote additional purchases.

Sending follow-up emails is a powerful way to build trust and loyalty with your customers. That’s why almost every tool designed for this purpose includes follow-ups. Take loyalty clubs as an example: they rely heavily on email communication to stay connected with their members.

There are countless ways to improve customer engagement, such as sending thank-you messages after a purchase. This shows appreciation, assures customers about product quality, and provides after-sales support. By doing this, customers feel valued and brand image improves. Additionally, it helps reduce the need for customer service contacts regarding questions and concerns.

To grasp how this tool can boost your sales, it’s important to understand when these emails are sent. As we mentioned before, follow-up emails are triggered by customer actions or events. To improve your sales, identify which events are causing obstacles and create emails that address them. We’ll give you some specific examples later on.

Gather feedback

It’s crucial to recognize the significance of these communications as a valuable tool for collecting information and feedback from customers in an eCommerce setting.

Don’t forget: knowledge is power, especially in the marketing world. This approach can help you understand what your customers want, what they like, and what challenges your sales the most.

You have the option to use surveys or questionnaires to gather feedback from customers about their shopping experiences and opinions. These can include specific questions about products, website usability, or customer service. Analyzing this feedback will help you identify what you’re doing well and where you can make improvements. By optimizing your offering, you can ensure a more satisfying experience for your customers.

Moreover, sending a WooCommerce follow-up email provides the perfect chance to kindly request a review or rating for a product. This is closely connected to the previous point, as reviews hold a significant influence in boosting sales.

It’s important to keep in mind that, as per statistics from BrightLocal, 91% of customers like to read reviews before buying something, and 82% view them as trustworthy as a personal recommendation.

How to implement follow-up emails in WooCommerce?

Before we dive into the specific plugins that can improve this functionality, let’s first understand how much WooCommerce can actually do in this area.

For this, you can navigate to WooCommerce > Settings > Emails. There, you will find a list of pre-existing emails generated by the platform based on customer actions on the website:

As you can see, most of these are related to the progress of the customer’s order and are email notifications designed to keep them informed about the estimated delivery time of their products.

Due to this, the majority of these communications typically happen after checkout. However, there are also a few that are connected to the registration process.

Despite their simplicity, these emails can be customized according to your preferences. To make changes to certain values, simply click on “Manage” located to the side. However, if you wish to modify the template itself, you will need to directly access the theme folder:

Let’s start with the basics: now that we have identified the default WooCommerce emails, we can decide which plugins are suitable to improve these email notifications and introduce new ones that will boost your sales.

What WooCommerce plugins can I use to manage follow-up emails?

There are many plugins available that allow you to reach out to customers based on the features they bring to your store. However, for this guide, we will focus on three specific plugins. We’ll list them below and explain how to use them in the next section.

• WooCommerce Email Templates: This plugin allows you to personalize the look of the automated emails that are sent from your store. It helps improve their impact and clarity, giving your store a more professional look.
• WooCommerce Coupon Email System: With this plugin, you can easily set up an email and rewards system that aligns with your customers’ actions. This way, you can motivate and reward those customers who bring in the most profit for your business.
• WooCommerce Recover Abandoned Cart: This plugin tackles a common problem for online stores, abandoned carts. By sending targeted emails, you can effectively fight this issue and significantly boost your sales.

There are definitely other choices for using this feature on your website, but we selected these three because they are simple to set up and offer great potential for success.

Let’s quickly examine them in detail.

Tutorial: How to use the EMAIL TEMPLATES plugin to create follow-up emails

The way this plugin works is really easy to understand. Actually, you can use the plugin to make your own templates and personalize them, and then you can assign them to all the regular WooCommerce emails.

Additionally, this plugin offers the ability to customize the emails generated by the plugins we will discuss later. It ensures a smooth integration and allows for easy customization.

Alright, let’s go through the process of creating new templates and assigning them to different emails.

To start, once you’ve installed and activated WooCommerce Email Templates, simply navigate to the side menu and select “Email Templates”:

Here you can access all the templates created. All you have to do to create a new template is click on “Add Email Template” at the top:

On this page, you will find a range of customization options. You can upload a logo, modify the email colors, adjust the text size, add custom links, and more.

Once you’ve finished creating your desired templates, simply connect each one to the corresponding email generated by WooCommerce.

For this, you can simply go to YITH > Email Templates, where you will find all the email types you can assign each template to:

That’s all! In just a few minutes, you can send customized emails directly from WooCommerce and enjoy the advantages that come with this feature.

Tutorial: How to use the COUPON EMAIL SYSTEM plugin to create follow-up emails

A follow-up is when you send an email after something happens — that’s exactly what this plugin does. Coupon Email System allows you to reward your customers based on the actions they take on your site by offering them customizable coupons.

Once again, this tool is incredibly easy to use. Let’s see how to use it!

Once you have successfully installed and activated WooCommerce Coupon Email System, all you need to do is navigate to YITH > Coupon Email System:

With this plugin, you can easily set up follow-up messages that are triggered by specific actions taken by your customers:

• After registering on the site
• After making their first purchase
• After a specific number of orders placed
• After spending a certain value
• After buying a specific product
• On their birthday
• After a specific number of days since their last purchase

These options can easily be used in several marketing strategies to boost sales and maximize the value of each customer.

Tutorial: How to use the RECOVER ABANDONED CART plugin to create follow-up emails

The third plugin we recommend is connected to a widespread issue. According to the Baymard Institute’s findings in 2021, almost 70% of shopping carts are left abandoned without completing a purchase.

That percentage is quite striking when you think 7 out of 10 customers do not finish their orders. Clearly, reducing this number can greatly boost sales.

This plugin solves the problem by automatically sending follow-up emails after a cart is abandoned. And you can easily customize the time frame between each email.

To achieve this, just install and activate WooCommerce Recover Abandoned Cart, then go to YITH > Abandoned Cart:

In this section, you’ll find a handy dashboard that shows you the status of abandoned carts on your site. You can also easily edit the emails’ options and content.

Specifically, you can go to YITH > Abandoned Cart > Email Template:

In this section, you can easily create different email templates and set the desired time interval for their automatic sending.

Other useful plugins

To keep things short, we’ve only mentioned three plugins here. However, there are plenty more out there that are dedicated to making email marketing their top priority.

For example, if you’re thinking about creating a newsletter for your store, it’s worth keeping in mind WooCommerce Mailchimp. It’s one of the most effective tools out there that can help you with this.

Conclusion

Email communications are all but obsolete. You can build and launch email campaigns within minutes by establishing an effective follow-up plan. You can benefit in plenty of ways, such as collecting information, retrieving abandoned carts, and boosting sales.

That’s why you should select the plugin that perfectly matches your store, take a few moments to set it up, and begin enjoying the rewards of your efforts right away.

FAQ

What types of content should I include in my follow-up emails?

The content of your follow-ups varies based on your goal. Including discounts can boost your sales, but sometimes a straightforward email with information is enough to achieve results.

How can I test the effectiveness of my follow-up emails?

There are tools available like the YITH WooCommerce Recover Abandoned Cart plugin, that provide an internal dashboard for you to check the results yourself. This applies to newsletter systems as well. Typically, you can view the results on your store or ask customers for feedback.

Are follow-up emails only useful for increasing sales, or are there other benefits?

They also help you keep customers coming back and collect useful data for your business.

What are the best practices to use for follow-up emails?

Trial and error are necessary when it comes to follow-ups. It’s important to avoid sending too many post-purchase emails to prevent being marked as spam. Offering personalized emails is a great way to enhance your professionalism and achieve better results.

What is the best moment to send a follow-up email after a purchase?

Customers can trigger different actions based on their behavior. These triggers include cart abandonment, a certain period since their last purchase, or when a product is sold or offered for sale. The timing depends on the specific strategy implemented.

How can I make sure my follow-up emails comply with privacy laws and anti-spam regulations?

To ensure compliance with regulations, there are a few simple tricks you can employ. First, make sure you obtain explicit consent from your customers. Additionally, include your contact information to improve transparency. Lastly, don’t forget to offer an opt-out option to give your customers control.