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Sendinblue Review (2020) – Complete Marketing Toolbox for eCommerce & More

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Sendinblue Review (2020) – Complete Marketing Toolbox for eCommerce & More

Running a business can be hard, but then it has always been that way. If you are in sales, it is all about footfall and conversion – how to get more people to view your goods, and thereafter get a higher percentage of those same people to buy something. Interest is good, sales are better!

Not so long ago, this would have meant the physical attendance of customers in a store. You could attract their attention with your shop display and signage, and location really mattered. Once in, you’d be able to turn on the charm and sell, then up-sell too.

Today, location is becoming irrelevant to more and more businesses. They have no set location or store, they just exist online. No amount of carefully arranged shop display or signage will help them attract interest, they need to rely on something else entirely. A means of bringing people inside their world and getting them to buy their products or services, without relying on personal charm but not simply leaving things to chance either.

With competition fiercer than anywhere else due to the lack of physical barriers to entry, how do you gain an advantage?

Enters Sendinblue

Is your business prepared for take-off? That’s the basis upon which Sendinblue sets out its own stall. You’ve already done the hard work, you’ve had an inspirational idea, you’ve done research into the marketplace, and have the drive and ambition to succeed. Yet this may not be enough. Every little edge counts, so take it.

Sendinblue, with its complete sales and marketing toolbox, can be one of such edges, helping you to engage, sell and grow. For Shopify website owners, there is even now a free email plugin designed specifically to make it as easy as possible to harness this power in conjunction with their online store operations. It supports in particular the following key features:

  • Contact sync
  • Attribute mapping (boolean attributes are supported) 
  • Single/Double Opt-in confirmation (works with Shopify default forms) 
  • Tracking (web site activity, abandoned cart events)

There are limited hours in a day, and running any business will put a heavy demand on your time. So let automation take (some) control. Remember, pilots don’t fly every mile of every flight, that’s for the autopilot system. Your business could run in a similar way, provided you’re leveraging the right tools.

Try Sendinblue Now

A Presence Isn’t Enough

Being online is no longer enough. Think of it this way, if you had a shop, you wouldn’t have a plain brick building, with no frontage, display or signs. You wouldn’t fail to advertise or let people know of your existence, and just sit there waiting for people to find you. That is a recipe for failure at best, disaster at worst.

The same is true about an online presence and e-commerce. You cannot simply hope that people will stumble across your store, or find you by chance. Even if one or two did, that is not going to support your business for very long. You need to be where your customers are, and they need to be drawn in and enticed into making those all-important purchases, as frequently as possible. So how do you do that?

Sendinblue can help you “be” wherever your customers are. They can help your name stay fresh and relevant in their minds, and also remind them from time to time that they really should visit your store again. You can build a real presence directly in their inbox, through email marketing. This may be either serving as a gentle reminder that you’re around, or a more positive outreaching campaign to both old and new clients alike. All this can be done through beautifully designed marketing emails. They can be personalized, targeted – be that by gender, geographic location or other dynamics, and then intelligently delivered, at the right time to the right demographic.

If your message is a little more urgent, or you want to be a little more direct, then Sendinblue has some pretty neat capabilities. More direct SMS message based marketing is available for those flash sales messages, latest daily promotions and targeted seasonal campaigns. SMS can also assist you in keeping your contacts up to date. Why retain the details of somebody who was only ever going to be a one-time buyer? All messages can not only be personalized for effectiveness, but the data from your campaigns can be tracked, monitored and analysed to ensure that each campaign is as effective as possible. Improvements can then be implemented in time for your next campaign. Remember that businesses that do not adapt, react and diversify, tend to fail.

When there is a need for full interaction, Sendinblue offers a fully implemented solution – a live chat box. Simple to install, you can be an actual presence for any customer leads in real time. The reason why you’d want this, well that’s easy. Customers are particularly difficult at times. If you do not give them their answer straight away, then they’ll go elsewhere for it. If they then get that answer elsewhere, then that is where they will spend their money. You should always want to be the provider of help and assistance as that can bring you loyalty, and of course loyalty brings rewards in the form of revenue. A chat box can help organize your workload and help you to prioritize what matters. Dealing with an urgent request there and then, is much better than using that same time to send cold-call emails. You have a real customer potentially ready to spend money, you just need to help them to do it.

A Little More

These are just the basics. Sendinblue, which just started with email marketing, now offers much more. They can help with e-commerce sales and sync any contacts. They offer an email plugin and attribute mapping, together with tracking for website activity and any abandoned carts etc. How does all of this help your business?

Customer relationship management or CRM is key. Get it right and you’ll offer the best service for each client and therefore benefit in the best possible way from each interaction. Customer experience is critical. Making the visit easy, enjoyable and hassle free is a must. The easier the journey from finding the site to checking out is, the more likely they are to make it. Putting hurdles in their path will mean that some, indeed a high percentage, will abandon the experience. Is there anything worse in e-commerce than abandoned carts? Somebody has indicated a willingness to buy a product or service from you, but at the last minute, has changed their mind, or simply couldn’t do it. Conversion of interest into purchase is key, and reducing abandoned carts is a major factor in success.

CRM through Sendinblue is easy. Get all details centralised and orderly, allowing you to review them as needed. Lists are great, but organised lists are even better! You can record details such as the step in the conversion funnel, or other characteristics to help you grow an efficient database of client information and stay on track as a business.

Time is a precious commodity, so save it through marketing automation and invest it elsewhere, Sendinblue supports all the basic and more complex sequences you may think of and will not miss a beat for you.

Deliverability

Transactional emails which you can rely on are also a must. Whether you opt for API, SMTP Relay, E-Commerce plugins or marketing automation, you’ll be certain to reach the right inbox, get noticed and increase interaction and activity, all the time learning from each and every effort to improve your overall performance. The tools are there to help you, and you too can help yourself and your business by simply using them.

Segmentation

People are different and therefore customers are different. What is relevant to one, is not to another. You can waste a lot of time and lose potential revenue through sending the wrong messages to your customers. This is where the contact segmentation element works.

You can ensure that your marketing messages are better targeted to those that will respond to them most – be that declared interests, previous history or other factors such as socio-economic demographics. Not only will this help with initial interactions, it will also build better long-term relationships. Your clients will receive only things that matter to them, and that will in turn make them realise your professionalism and reliability. Poorly targeted messaging is a turn-off to customers. They only want to hear about things that matter them, not to others. Your communications will improve and as a result so will your conversion rate!

Stay A While

Visiting somewhere is okay, but being enticed or convinced to stay is the true goal. To a business, it is all about conversion. Yes, you need people to come and have a look, but if they leave without any purchases, is their visit really beneficial?

Sendinblue helps turn more visitors into actual customers, and where does every visit start, well the landing page of course. First impressions count and so your landing page is critical. Put a customer off, and they’ll be off elsewhere! Instead, build a bespoke, individualised page, customised with the most impactful design. Consider your goal, select the right page and thereafter customize it to suit. It is all straightforward and you can build the site to take each customer through a seamless journey, from the landing page to the checkout. No hiccups, no difficulty, all aimed at maximizing your conversions.

Build up your list

Along the way, you can build up your contacts, all in a GDPR compliant manner. You can collect and harvest all of the relevant information you need up front in a way that doesn’t put the customers off. Information is powerful, and you’ll be powering up your future email and messaging campaigns, as well as building a detailed database of converted clients.

Sendinblue also provides everything you need to run a targeted advertising campaign on Facebook. You can build your perfect ad and direct it towards the most relevant audiences, based on your client demographics. Simply set the parameters of your ad and see how it actually performs – all through an easy-to-use system.

As well as potential new clients, you can retarget an audience that has visited your site in the past, had a look, maybe bought something. Your advertising budget is easily controlled, and the results are there for you to monitor. It is effective and almost effortless.

Let your business take off

Wanting to see your business bloom is only natural. But like a beautiful flower garden, it requires attention, effort and expertise. If there is any way in which you can minimise effort whilst maximising returns, then it should always be considered. Your choices matter and will make a difference. However, with so many tools available, some of them more helpful than others, what makes Sendinblue a must?

With over 100 million targeted emails sent daily from 80,000 users in more than 160 countries, their numbers already speak volume. The whole suite is designed to boost your business by helping you leverage the most effective marketing practices, while easily integrating with your existing infrastructure. Oh, and one more thing, it is completely free to get started, with unlimited contacts and a generous daily email allowance!

If you’re just starting out on your entrepreneurial journey, this may well be the time when your finances are most stretched, and you’ll need as much lift as you can to take off. It is time to put your venture into orbit!

Try Sendinblue Now

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