Your customer made it all the way through your funnel. Your marketing team converted a potential customer to a paying customer. It’s time to…
Your customer made it all the way through your funnel. Your marketing team converted a potential customer to a paying customer. It’s time to pat yourself on the back!
But it’s also time to shift your strategy for this new customer to customer retention and post-purchase marketing.
What are you currently doing to cross-sell, upsell, and retain customers who recently purchased from your business? You should have a sequence of automated post-purchase emails ready to be triggered when your customer hits buy now.
The post-purchase experience is often overlooked by marketers but it’s a crucial time where new customers can be turned into lifelong customers.
Current customers are extremely valuable. Harvard Business Review states that acquiring new customers is 5x to 25x the cost of retaining an existing customer. Additionally, you have already spent money to convince them to make their purchase. Not to mention a current customer spends 33% more than a new customer!
A multi-faceted post-purchase email campaign can drive many positive outcomes for a business:
The time between purchase and delivery is an excellent time to educate the customer about the product. The customer has spent time researching the product, picking it out, and is now waiting for its arrival.
Sending a series of emails during this period allows you to continue teaching your customer about your product and helps you preempt commonly asked questions.
Providing a top-notch customer service experience separates your brand from competitors and will help build customer loyalty.
Confirmation emails and shipping confirmations are at the center of the post-purchase experience.
The confirmation email is an essential part of establishing trust with a new customer and should be sent to customers as soon as possible. The email should confirm the order was processed, provide shipment tracking information, link to their receipt, and list customer service contact information.
A lot of businesses will simply provide a link to the shipping carrier’s website in their order confirmation email. Then the customer follows the link to get additional shipping information. This option is functional but doesn’t provide customers with a great customer experience. To improve the customer experience, we suggest investing in shipment tracking software. When selecting a shipment tracking software, make sure it integrates with the shipping carriers you use and has the option to send customizable shipping notifications.
Timely and well-designed confirmation and shipping updates will give those who recently purchased peace of mind. The best thing about this form of post-purchase email marketing is that once it’s set up it works for you!
According to a study by Narvar, post-purchase emails have a click-through rate of 3x that of standard marketing emails. That means customers are very likely to engage with your brand during the time between purchase and delivery.
Businesses can capitalize on this period of opportunity by sending cross-sell emails. Attempts to cross-sell should contain personalized product recommendations for the customer based on their recent purchase. Personalized recommendations can be sent as a stand-alone email or they can be included with a shipping notification.
Another option to drive future purchases is the use of replenishment emails. This is a useful tactic for businesses with products that need to be replaced routinely. For example, if you sell shampoo and your average customer uses a bottle per month, then a monthly replenishment reminder could boost repeat purchases.
Last but not least, offer the new customer a limited time discount on their next purchase. This can quickly get them to complete another order. This officially makes them a repeat customer and establishes a pattern in the customer’s mind.
Customer reviews provide your business with social proof that can be leveraged to convert potential customers into buyers. When 93% of customers read business reviews and 72% won’t buy until they’ve read a review, the advantages of having a continuous flow of reviews is obvious.
So how do you gather these reviews? We suggest using post-purchase emails (more specifically post-delivery emails) to ask for product reviews. And the numbers back it up! Up to 80% of reviews originate from follow-up emails urging shoppers to review their purchases.
Your team could set up the product review request email to trigger X days after purchase. However, if there is a shipping delay, the customer may not have received the product at the time of the email.
Review request emails should make it hassle-free for the customer to leave their feedback. Do not assume customers know how to leave a review on an external site (ex. Facebook, Google, etc.). Instead include a link to the desired place to enter the review within the email.To share a link for customers to write a review on Facebook, simply go to your page and click on the review tab. Sharing that URL will allow users to write a review for your business.
For example, the URL for Carbon Digital is https://www.facebook.com/carbondigitalus/reviews. You can learn how to easily create a link for users to leave a review on Google here.
Don’t neglect post-purchase email marketing! Use the time between purchase and delivery to your advantage. During this time, customers are dying to hear from you (so they will actually open your emails). So keep them updated and slip in some personalized product recommendations.
That doesn’t mean it’s the only window of opportunity. Businesses should also send emails post-delivery.
Post-purchase email marketing isn’t always about selling, although it’s nice to send an email that results in X sales. Post-purchase is also a great time to gather feedback, ask for reviews, or help your customer get the most out of your product through education.
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