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E-Mail Marketing

Use E-Mail to Turn Site Visitors Into Buyers

By Paul Soltoff, ClickZ, May 17, 2004

E-mail always offers new ways to generate and retain customers. Today, a nifty idea that can help turn Web site visitors into buyers. This technique works best for a site that sells numerous products, but it can be implemented on sites with any number of items for sale.

The assumption is your email list is permission-based, and the addresses were obtained properly under CAN-SPAM guidelines. You have my address on file. I visit your sports memorabilia site, and, because you cookied me, you can keep track of which pages I visit and which products I've investigated.

Sites abandonment is extremely high, a big problem for online e-tailers. Perhaps people abandon your site after browsing because of navigation issues, pricing, product selection, and other factors. In many cases, it has nothing to do with your site. Depending on how well the site's designed, most people leave for other reasons. I might leave your site, and plan to return for reasons such as:

I was called into a meeting.
I was interrupted by a phone call.
I had to take the dog out immediately.
The baby started crying.
My teenage son had to be taken to a tennis match.
I lost my dial-up connection.
My ISP went down.

Visitors leave sites for many reasons beyond the sites' control. But something can be done to get those visitors back!

Thanks to the cookie, you know before I left I was looking at a Mickey Mantle autographed baseball, a Phil Simms autographed football jersey, and a Hulk Hogan wrestling poster. Most site visitors would be receptive to a follow-up email such as:

Dear Paul:

Thanks for visiting mysportssite.com yesterday. It was good to see you on our site again.

I noticed you left after spending only a short time on the site. Maybe you were interrupted and couldn't continue browsing.

Let me take this opportunity to give you links to the pages you were looking at, in case you want to come back. They are:

Mickey Mantle autographed baseball:
http://www.mysportssite.com/products/12903.html

Phil Simms autographed football jersey:
www.mysportssite.com/products/13849.html

Hulk Hogan poster:
www.mysportssite.com/products/18594.html
Should you decide to purchase any of these products this week, I'll take an additional 10% off the price. To take advantage by using the following discount code at checkout: 180384. It's effective until Sunday, April 22, at midnight.

Finally, if you'd like to learn more about unadvertised specials and new collectibles, sign up for our newsletter at: www.mysportssite.com/news.html.

Thanks again for visiting. We hope to be of service to you.

Sincerely,

Name
Title
E-mail address

Set up an automated process to send out email a day after someone visits, based on pages viewed. You can customize parts of the email (e.g., a slightly different messages for new and repeat visitors) and test various promotions, such as a discount versus free shipping.

If 1,000 people browse your site and 980 leave without buying, this is a good way to get them to return.

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Biography

Paul Soltoff

Paul Soltoff is the chief executive officer of SendTec, Inc., a direct marketing services company specializing in customer acquisition. SendTec combines extensive direct response experience with proprietary technologies to produce scalable results. Principal services include performance-based online marketing, offline direct response marketing and direct response television. SendTec represents advertising agencies and advertisers such as RealNetworks, AARP, Monster.com, AAA, Punch Software, MyPoints, Grey Worldwide, Cosmetíque Cosmetics, Columbia House, and Euro-Pro. Prior to starting SendTec, Paul was a founder and EVP of Saatchi and Saatchi's DRTV division in New York and has over 25 years of advertising, media and direct marketing experience.