July 5, 2023
Shopify: Unlock the Benefits of CRM For Ecommerce
According to research, acquiring a new customer can cost five to seven times more than retaining an old one. Knowing this possess the question: can your ecommerce business really afford to lose potential repeat customers?
Understanding the platforms behind the most successful ecommerce business and how they can be used to create a seamless and high-performing marketing service for customers is essential if you would like to achieve success in your ecommerce.
If you read our last Shopify blog post, you will know just how passionate CSP Commerce is about leveraging Shopify as a means to unify marketing channels across aspects of the sales funnel. Previously, we looked into the relationship between the hosted ecommerce platform and its relationship with the email marketing automation platform Klaviyo, and how the two work together.
This time, we will be exploring how you can leverage CRM (customer relationship management) and email marketing through your Shopify website, and the benefits it can bring.
So let’s begin by recapping what CRM means for ecommerce business and why it’s so important to unlock more revenues and build loyalty with customers.
What is a CRM for ecommerce?
Customer Relationship Management, or CRM, is a system that stores information and data which can be used to closely analyse customer behaviour (both past, current and prospect) at each stage of the sales lifecycle. This is crucial, especially in the constantly evolving world of ecommerce, where there is an expectation of an exceptional, personalised and flawless customer experience and continued development in sales processes.
Why is CRM important in ecommerce?
CRM plays a significant role in ecommerce as it allows businesses to turn a one-time customer into a loyal, long-term one. Using the insight from a CRM, you can review and change the way you interact with buyers to provide a custom, bespoke service to suit their individual needs. When done right, this increases the conversion rate, gets your transactions and boosts that all-important revenue stream.
What are the benefits of using Shopify and a CRM?
As a hosted website platform, Shopify has grown phenomenally, now powering over 4.4 million live websites. It describes itself as a complete commerce platform that lets you start, grow, and manage a business.
Shopify has become one of the world’s most popular ecommerce platforms due to its user-friendly interface, 24/7 support and the fact that it has over 8,000 apps for unique customisation, including tools such as ChannelGrabber [channelgrabber.com] order management software. It also offers safe and secure payments, whether this is through its own gateway or alternatives like Stripe, which is an absolute necessity in today’s modern world.
As an ecommerce business owner, you will know just how important it is to nurture relationships with your customers, whether they are brand new or have been shopping with you for years. A great benefit of Shopify is that it can be integrated with many different Customer Relationship Management systems. By integrating the two seamlessly, you can create personalised landing pages and offers (which have a much higher success rate), as well as provide them with more engaging, relevant content.
For example, using CRM tools you can learn more about your target audience, how they are expected to interact with your content and at which part of the sales funnel they sit. Using this valuable information, you can direct your marketing efforts based on your findings, as someone who is at the discovery stage will need different information than that at conversion or retention levels.
Also, you will be able to use key metrics from your CRM to create offers for different criteria. For instance, if someone is a repeat purchaser or has been buying from you over a certain length of time you can segment, identify and reward them on via your database.
We recommend a CRM with your Shopify Store because:
- It helps you to stay organised – for example, with the point at which each customer is along the sales journey.
- You can keep track of valuable information and not just basic details like name and email address. There is also an opportunity to collect more specific data such as your customer’s birthdays, buying habits and interests.
- With CRM, businesses can improve customer relationships and make them feel much more understood and valued. This not only helps to nurture the leads but also improves retention and increases their lifetime value.
- Having a reliable CRM integrated in your Shopify website also has benefits to your company internally. It can improve efficiency and productivity, create stronger working relationships and reduce reliance on employees for admin tasks – which reduces the time, stress and cost of completing them manually!
- Everything is available in one place, meaning you can manage your data from one simple and easy place.
- Most importantly, a CRM can aid in boosting your revenue as understanding customers better and having detailed analytical data about the performance on products can only lead to higher conversions and a better return on investment.
By utilising Shopify’s learnings about customers, you can get indispensable insight into their behaviour and intent which is crucial when planning marketing activity and strategies. Channels like content, email and social media can then be used to communicate in the way that each customer wants and gives you the opportunity to upsell products, reward your most loyal customers but most of all, you make marketing relevant to each and every customer (because after all, who doesn’t want to feel special?).
Connecting with Klaviyo
Klaviyo, which is one of the world’s biggest email marketing platforms, has a handy built-in CDP and CRM functionality which can be easily integrated with your Shopify store.
To connect Klaviyo and Shopify, follow these simple steps:
- Log in to your Klaviyo account.
- Go to the “Account” tab and select “Integrations.”
- Click on the “Add Integration” button and choose “Shopify” from the list.
- You will be prompted to install the Klaviyo app from the Shopify App Store.
- Click on the “Install App” button and follow the instructions to authorise Klaviyo to access your Shopify store.
- Once installed, return to Klaviyo and navigate to the “Integrations” tab.
- Find the Shopify integration and click on “Connect.”
- You will be prompted to enter your Shopify store URL and API key.
- In your Shopify admin, go to “Apps” and find the Klaviyo app.
- Click on the app and copy the API key.
- Paste the API key into the corresponding field in Klaviyo and click “Connect to Shopify.”
- Klaviyo will verify the connection, and once successful, you can start using Klaviyo to automate email marketing and customer segmentation based on your Shopify data.
Remember to adjust any settings or permissions based on your specific needs and preferences during the integration process.
If you would like some support on this integration CSP Commerce is available to help you – simply email us at: info@cloudsellerpro.com
What type of data should you capture for ecommerce CRM success?
There are many useful pieces of information and metrics that you should capture within your CRM if you want to achieve marketing success. Shopify has a handy built-in data capture functionality for extracting crucial data, which saves time, money and resources. The platform goes beyond simply gathering emails and addresses but can also gather other useful data like date of birth, product performance and cart abandoners. Using this, you can further drive conversions by offering offers and discounts on customer’s birthdays, on products which are selling well and on any items they have left behind.
What functionality does Shopify have to capture customer relationship data?
Another great feature of Shopify is that you can create engaging email newsletters from within the platform quickly and easily. It allows you to send email communication to customers who have signed up your mailing list, whether this is to update them on the hottest products, latest additions to lines or what you would recommend based on their past purchases.
Popups can also be set up through Shopify which enable you to capture mailing list sign ups and offer discounts, which is ideal for exit intent forms where you want to convince customers to stay on the website rather than navigate away.
You can start creating emails by:
- Go to the Shopify email app here.
- Add the app, then it will ask you to log in if you aren’t already, then click install.
- Visit settings and authenticate your email domain.
- Change your sender email address to avoid Shopify defaulting it to store@shopifyemail.com. If your site is hosted on the platform, it will change this for you automatically.
- From the admin area, go to marketing, create campaign and then select Shopify email.
- You will then be able to select a template from the huge selection available.
- Select the customer segment you wish to send to – this could be split by the amount customers have spent, the area they live in, if they have engaged with past email and many other useful segment filters.
- Create a subject line and preview text. The catchier these are, the more likely they are to convert. A handy tool to use is Send Check It, which gives you a score and tips to help you improve.
- You will then be able to add branding, content, images, products, links and anything else you think is relevant.
*Please note that you will have to have a Shopify online store, have the sales channel activated, be on a paid plan and have a payment provider set up to be able to use this feature. You will then be charged based on any emails above the 10,000 free on your plan.
It is also important to think about best practices when planning your email marketing strategy, in particular, GDPR regulations and double opt-in signup forms. Although Shopify does have its own email marketing feature, we would still advise using it in unison with Klaviyo as this platform offers more in depth insights and learnings, as well as a wider range of automations, flows and A/B testing.
How can you use your CRM to increase repeat purchases and grow revenue?
As mentioned earlier, nurturing your customers so that they return and repeat purchases is one of the most important things you can do as a business. According to research, there is a 60-70% chance of selling to an existing customer. So what retention metrics should you monitor with Shopify and how can you ensure buyers come back for more?
Some key things to track are:
- Customer retention rate – the percentage of customers who return after a certain timeframe.
- Customer churn – the percentage of customers that stop buying your products or services after a certain period.
- Customer lifetime value (CLV) – the average revenue generated from a customer since their first purchase.
- Time between purchases – how long between orders can help you to understand when they will next place an order.
You can then reward those who are loyal to the brand whether this is by offering exclusive discounts, points that can be redeemed on their next order or even completely free products. This segment will also be likely to submit a review which will further help conversion rates and push others along the sales funnel
Get in touch with our team today to discuss anything covered in this blog by emailing info@cloudsellerpro.com or filling out the contact form on our website.
If you’d like to learn more about our Shopify services, which include website audits, re-platforming and complete rebuilds, or our content marketing services as well as the highly effective email marketing campaigns and automation that we can run for your business through Klaviyo.
Learning From Industry Leaders: Current Body, a Manchester Health Brand
Combining Laurence Newman’s expertise in medical devices and Andrew Showman experience in ecommerce CurrentBody was established in 2009. Setting up in Manchester, the duo embarked on a mission to offer cutting-edge technology typically found in physio rooms including EMS (Electrical Muscle Stimulation) devices. By 2012, as the market awareness and understanding of the EMS products matured so did the demand for the devices. The same year CurrentBody became an official stockist of L’Oreal.
In recent years, CurrentBody needed an ecommerce platform that could support its growth and be adapted to its evolving needs. Opting for Shopify Plus, the ecommerce platform was able to offer a streamlined purchasing process that resulted in a better customer experience and customer relationship management. By deciding to use Klaviyo as its CRM, the combined tech stack enabled an enhanced personalisation of customer purchasing journeys by adopting SMS and email marketing. Deploying marketing communications across email, text and online, CurrenBody was able to reduce the number of abandoned baskets on its website.
Klaviyo’s pre-built flows and segmentation functionality were particularly valuable, automating the customer journey and delivering a richly-personalized buying experience that led to increased purchases.
The ability to set up automated emails and SMS messages for customers with abandoned carts proved highly effective in re-engaging users. Remarkably high click-through rates on SMS messages sent to subscribers who had abandoned their baskets demonstrated the success of this approach.
Together, Klaviyo and Shopify make it incredibly simple to enhance the customer experience beyond the website and recapture sales that might have otherwise been lost.