As an agency that works with a lot of eCommerce clientele – we talk a lot about organic search traffic, search appearances and how they are the highest converting inbound channel of all time. While getting people to your store’s site and getting them to buy is quintessential to the survival and success of your eCommerce business – the margin of your success will largely relate to the average lifetime value of your customers. As seen in recent research by Bain & Co. increasing your customer retention by 5% can increase your revenue up to 95%.
While most people can tell what “average lifetime value” is at a glance, figuring out just how you can keep buyers coming back time and time again is a far greater challenge to tackle.
For today’s blog post we want to show you how you can use some very simple email marketing techniques and tricks to build a lasting relationship with your customers and build an audience of die-hard fans that will help your brand grow.
Say “Thank you!”
This may just be the single most basic point of advice that we can possibly give in this article – but it is one that will make a tremendous difference, and you would be surprised how many brands and eCommerce stores are guilty of this one.
I mean, to most people saying “Thank you” is almost reflexive, and when it comes to eCommerce Email Marketing and making those sales, it’s no different from in-person business. How do you start building an amazing relationship with a new customer or even someone passing by? Thank them for their time and business, whether they bought something or not. You would be surprised how many extra visitors you can turn to customers by simply saying “thanks for dropping by.”
The real meat on the bone here is the fact that when someone makes a purchase, they will always expect some sort of email confirming the transaction. As such – these transaction emails have an amazing open rate. You can leverage this knowledge and add a custom message to your receipts to thank the customer for their purchase.
You should get really creative and let these messages reflect a bit of your brand’s personality and flavor, whether in text or using something akin to Bonjoro to create a personal little thank you video to everyone that purchases!
Keep In Touch
Okay, so now we’ve thanked all of our new customers and we’ve mastered the art of adding flavor to our communications messages, now what? Well, the great thing about sending that thank you message is that it opens up the doors for more communication which your new customers are now desperately awaiting.
Well, they may not be desperately waiting to receive your next email (though some may be, who knows?) But, on the up-side they will now most likely have a largely positive association with any sort of email communication from you, and you should never let that sort of opportunity sail.
At this point you’re probably saying “Okay Nik, what do I need to do?” Are you? That’s the spirit!
The best thing you can do after opening up the doors to further communication with your customers, is to keep in touch! It’s that simple, really.
Here are some ideas for great basic communication emails that will keep your customers interested and engaged and your eCommerce Email Marketing campaign rolling in the numbers:
Notifications
Has their purchase been shipped? Are you having a mind-boggling sale of something you think they may like? Do you have business news to share? All of these emails are great emails to keep up your open rates and slowly wind up to yet another successful sales pitch to your clients.
How to’s and instructional content
Blog post or a small info-graphic with an informational email that will teach your clients something new. Topic? How they can use your product to do X or Y. Or if your product has a cool creation story, for example Organic Fair-Trade Coffee, you can spin a content piece aimed at educating the customer about the benefits of Organic Coffee and how they can contribute to the growing market, help lessen the industry’s impact on our ecological environment and aid in improving the living conditions of coffee farmers and their communities.
Existing blog content
Don’t be shy, if you’re proud of that content piece you shipped out last Sunday night, shoot it over to your new customers by email – after all, your customers are the ideal readers for your blog.
Make sure that no matter what form of content you share with your customers, you should keep their interests, problems and businesses in mind to really sell the experience and provide a lot of value to your communication, allowing you to reap the largest possible benefits from your eCommerce Email Marketing campaign efforts.
Get Feedback
Have you ever head of the Net Promoter Score? It’s actually a very simple concept:
“%Promoters – %Detractors = % Net Promoter Score.”
Okay, okay – let me make it very simple. The whole concept revolves around having your customers leave feedback on a scale of 1-10, an example request for feedback may look like “How likely are you to recommend your recent purchase of ______ to a friend?” This request would then include an option for them to leave a feedback rating on a scale of 1 to 10. Essentially, the bottom 1/3rd, that is the 1/10 to 3/10 range are Detractors – people that were not satisfied with their experience and could hurt your brand unless their dissatisfaction is addressed. Inversely, the top 1/3rd, that is the 7/10 to 10/10 rating range – are your promoters. So, let’s step back and look at that formula again. The percentile volume of promoters minus the percentile volume of detractors shows you that “X% of your client-base on average are Promoters.” Now, it’s obvious that you want X to be as high and close to 100% as is possible.
How do you get started with this nifty new KPI (Key Performance Indicator) and implement it as an integral part of your business strategy?
After giving your new customer a bit of time to get familiar with their new purchase, check-in with them and ask any given variant of “Hey, thank you again for your recent purchase of __________, how are you enjoying it?” As with almost all communication emails, this is where you have a lot of room to get creative and add a bit of personal or branded flavor to your dialogue. Another great option here is to ask them the good old question of “How likely are you to recommend our product to your friends and family?”
Now, dear friend, you are armed with 3 great new eCommerce Email Marketing strategies to get out there and build a phenomenal campaign aimed to turn buyers into raving fans who advocate for your brand and keep coming back to support you time and time again.
