Buyer retention issues — particularly proper now.
However how do you retain your present prospects and herald new ones and sustain with every part else concerned in working your corporation?
Enter automation. Automation helps you to:
- Hold your buyer knowledge up-to-date — no guide entry required
- Observe your prospects’ buy conduct and engagement
- Construct tiered loyalty packages and ship out particular gives
- Determine your prime prospects (and reward them accordingly!)
- Gather and act on buyer suggestions
- Create a greater, extra private buyer expertise
On this information, we’ll cowl 4 areas of your corporation which you can automate to extend repeat enterprise — plus 19 automation recipes you possibly can import and use immediately.
- Reward your finest prospects with loyalty packages
- Win again lapsed prospects
- Ship cross-sell and upsell campaigns
- Gather and act on buyer suggestions
You may obtain this infographic right here!
1. Reward your finest prospects with loyalty packages
Your finest prospects — that prime 20% of repeat consumers — are liable for a lot of your success. Loyalty packages are a good way to thank these prime prospects. They’re additionally wonderful for buyer acquisition and retention:
Extra buyer loyalty means extra repeat purchases and extra new prospects.
Constructing a loyalty program or rewards system from scratch may appear troublesome and time-consuming. Automation helps you to arrange a loyalty program that tracks your prospects’ engagement and buy conduct — after which rewards them accordingly.
You may even use automation and contact scoring to construct out a point-based or tiered loyalty program.
A tiered loyalty program is a kind of membership program the place prospects obtain totally different perks and advantages based mostly on their degree. Ranges (aka tiers) are normally decided by a metric just like the variety of purchases or amount of cash spent by a buyer. The upper the tier, the extra priceless (and unique) the rewards.
To succeed in the subsequent tier, loyalty program members must move a measurable milestone, like {dollars} spent or purchases made. With automation and lead scoring, you possibly can section loyalty program tiers based mostly on prospects’ point-based scores — after which ship the best rewards to the best prospects.
This automation helps you to section members of your buyer loyalty program into tiers based mostly on a point-based rating — after which ship them rewards and reductions accordingly. Get the Tiered Loyalty Program Automation Recipe right here.
If a buyer is already a member of your loyalty program, mechanically reward their buy with factors. If the client just isn’t a member of your loyalty program, ship them an e mail letting them know that they earned factors on their buy and welcoming them to join this system. Get the Loyalty Program: Add Factors After Buy Automation Recipe right here.
Buyer loyalty rewards and particular gives can embrace:
- A reduction share off their complete buy
- Free transport
- BOGO (purchase one, get one) promotion
- A free reward
- A greenback quantity off
- Membership right into a VIP program
- Contest entry
How will you decide which prospects are most engaged?
You should use automation to section prospects based mostly on virtually something, together with:
- Their common order worth
- The date of their first buy
- The overall greenback worth of their purchases
- What number of orders they’ve positioned
- Which objects they’ve bought
- How lengthy it’s been since their final order
- Which merchandise they seen greater than as soon as in your website
- What number of occasions they’ve visited your on-line retailer
- Their loyalty rewards program standing
- After they final interacted together with your e mail content material
Routinely preserve observe of a buyer’s first buy date with this automation. This helps you section your contacts and higher perceive your buyer lifecycle. Get the Retailer Buyer First Buy Date Automation Recipe right here.
When you section your prospects, use these tags to mechanically ship them particular gives. You may arrange automations to…
- Ship prospects a coupon after they make their first buy
- Add factors to a buyer’s loyalty program rating once they make a purchase order
- Invite new prospects to hitch your loyalty program
- Have fun a buyer milestone with a celebratory provide
- Thank them with a reduction code once they attain a sure variety of purchases
- Ship them a win-back e mail coupon in the event that they haven’t bought shortly
Flip first-time buyers into repeat prospects with this automation. Routinely reward first-time prospects with a particular low cost or coupon over e mail. Get the Ship E mail Coupon After First Buy Automation Recipe right here.
Routinely reward repeat prospects on their fifth (or tenth, or a centesimal) buy by monitoring their complete purchases and triggering an automation once they attain a sure quantity. Get the Reward Prospects on Repeat Buy Automation Recipe right here.
When a contact clicks on a hyperlink, makes a purchase order, visits a product web page, or replies to an e mail, mechanically provides factors to their contact rating. When their contact rating reaches a sure degree, reward them with a coupon and reset their rating — then begin the automation yet again. Get the Coupon E mail for Buyer Engagement Automation Recipe right here.
This automation helps you have a good time prospects on a particular date, like their birthday or the anniversary of them signing up with you. Ship your prospects coupons, rewards, or simply glad birthday needs. Get the Birthday and Anniversary Coupon E mail Automaton Recipe right here.
2. Win again lapsed prospects
E mail advertising skilled Val Geisler calls lapsed prospects, “zombie prospects”: “They’re on the market, on the lookout for an answer to their issues. They used to work together together with your model, however have stopped.”
You could be tempted to write down these zombie prospects off as a misplaced trigger or not well worth the effort. With advertising automation, you possibly can observe when your prospects final bought from you — and use that data to mechanically enter them right into a win-back e mail marketing campaign.
A win-back e mail marketing campaign is a collection of focused, customized emails you ship to prospects who haven’t engaged together with your content material or bought from you for some time.
The aim of win-back campaigns (aka re-engagement campaigns) is to get your contacts to work together together with your e mail content material and purchase out of your on-line retailer once more.
Methods to automate your win-back campaigns
Along with saving you cash, automating your reactivation emails saves you time. You don’t must manually observe when your contacts final bought from you or clicked in your emails — automation can do this for you!
With engagement monitoring, you possibly can section prospects based mostly on the final time they engaged together with your content material or visited your on-line retailer. You may also observe a buyer’s final buy date with buy monitoring.
This two-part automation tags your prospects once they interact, keep lively, or grow to be inactive — so you possibly can observe their engagement at scale. Get Half 1: Engagement Tagging Automation Recipe right here.
The second half of the engagement tagging automation recipe tracks your prospects’ engagement together with your content material or retailer in order that they are often tagged accordingly. Get Half 2: Engagement Tagging Automation Recipe right here.
While you use engagement and buy monitoring, you possibly can set off win-back e mail automations when a buyer hits a sure level of disengagement — like 6 months since their final buy, or 3 months since they clicked via certainly one of your emails to your website.
Right here’s an instance of the way to schedule a win-back e mail marketing campaign for buyer retention:
- Ship your first e mail about 3 months after your buyer’s final interplay. Observe their engagement with the e-mail. Do they open the e-mail, click on a hyperlink, or (hopefully) make a purchase order?
- Ship your follow-up emails in a drip marketing campaign that’s unfold equally between your first and final e mail — that’s normally an e mail each 1-2 months
- Ship your final e mail when lapsed prospects have traditionally grow to be utterly disengaged. If that time is at 9 months of inactivity, you could have 6 months out of your first e mail to win them again. As soon as they move the cut-off level, take away them out of your e mail record.
If a contact hasn’t engaged together with your content material or on-line retailer shortly, this automation mechanically enters them right into a re-engagement e mail marketing campaign — so you possibly can win-back disengaged prospects. Get the Ship a Re-engagement Marketing campaign After Inactivity Automation Recipe right here.
To present your lapsed prospects the very best expertise doable — and provide the finest likelihood of successful them again — Val Geisler has the following tips:
- Let your prospects select which e mail lists they opt-into
- Heat them up earlier than you ask them to purchase from you once more. Ship them content material like:
- Worth provides
- Updates
- Newsletters
- Hold it concise. Lengthy-form content material is nice for present, engaged prospects — however lapsed prospects most likely received’t learn it.
- Ask for suggestions. In the event that they’re newly lapsed, there’s nonetheless an opportunity to deliver them again — however provided that you discuss to them. Suggestions requests might be key: In the event that they reply, they’re nonetheless . (Extra on the way to automate suggestions requests in part 4!)
3. Ship customized cross-sell and upsell campaigns
You should use automation to upsell and cross-sell to your present prospects based mostly on their purchases and pursuits. Focused upsell and cross-sell campaigns encourage your prospects to purchase further merchandise or improve their membership — and make it easier to deliver in additional income from present prospects.
What’s the distinction between cross-selling and upselling?
- Cross-selling means selling further merchandise to an present buyer after they’ve made a purchase order. For instance, as soon as a buyer buys a pair of footwear, you ship them a follow-up e mail displaying an identical purse.
- Upselling is the sale of add-ons, dearer objects, and upgrades. The aim of upselling is to steer a buyer to spend extra. A buyer buys a pair of footwear and will get proven add-on merchandise like shoe care kits or colourful shoelace equipment.
Cross-sell and upsell e mail campaigns generally is a highly effective approach to generate repeat enterprise. In keeping with a examine performed by ActiveCampaign, 28% of 546 respondents stated that emails from a enterprise most incessantly encourage them to buy once more:
E mail advertising was most certainly to encourage folks to buy from a model once more.
Present prospects the merchandise that they’ll love
Essentially the most profitable cross-sell and upsell campaigns use personalization to point out buyers the merchandise that they’re most certainly to purchase.
Automation helps you to observe your prospects’ interactions together with your website and merchandise, then section them accordingly. When you promote on an ecommerce platform, you possibly can combine your ecommerce retailer with advertising automation to make use of buyer buy and product curiosity knowledge in your cross-sell and upsell campaigns.
When a buyer makes a purchase order in your ecommerce retailer, mechanically ship them an upsell e mail marketing campaign based mostly on the product they purchased. Incentivize the upsell with low cost codes and free transport. Get the Accent Upsell After Buy Automation Recipe right here.
You may also use tags to mechanically set off upsell and cross-sell e mail campaigns based mostly on:
- Particular product curiosity
- Variety of occasions bought
- Repeat product buy
- First-time product buy
- Variety of occasions visiting a product web page
This automation makes use of website monitoring to mechanically observe your contacts’ curiosity in a sure product — then ship focused messaging based mostly on that curiosity. Get the Product Curiosity Tagging Automation Recipe right here.
When a buyer makes a purchase order, mechanically observe up with a cross-sell e mail marketing campaign based mostly on the product they bought. Get the Ecommerce Cross-Promote E mail Automation Recipe right here.
With dynamic content material, you should utilize tagging and conditional content material to ship every buyer precisely what they need to see — the product, improve, or function that they will’t reside with out.
When you combine a Shopify retailer with ActiveCampaign, you possibly can spotlight your merchandise with product blocks. Product blocks allow you to pull product photos and particulars out of your ecommerce retailer instantly into campaigns and automations:
Add product blocks to your cross-sell and upsell e mail campaigns to point out prospects the merchandise they need most.
While you mix product blocks with product curiosity tagging, you possibly can ship dynamic, focused cross-sell and upsell campaigns that flip extra buyers into repeat prospects.
When a buyer reveals curiosity in a product, mechanically ship a collection of focused follow-up emails with a reduction code to encourage them to make a purchase order. This automation makes use of product blocks to import your Shopify product listings into your emails, so you possibly can present prospects the merchandise that you realize they’re all for. Get the Shopify: Product Curiosity Observe-up Emails Automation Recipe right here.
4. Gather and act on buyer suggestions
68% of shoppers who churn accomplish that as a result of they don’t assume you care about them. However you do care about your prospects — and utilizing automation to gather and act on buyer suggestions can assist you show it.
While you ask for suggestions out of your prospects, you possibly can determine why first-time prospects aren’t coming again for extra, then repair these gaps to lift your retention charges. You may also discover out why your loyal prospects love your corporation — then use their phrases to market and promote to prospects with comparable ache factors.
Good buyer suggestions and testimonials might be highly effective instruments in your advertising. Potential prospects are far more prone to hearken to different prospects than to take your phrase for one thing:
- In keeping with Nielsen, 92% of shoppers say that they’re extra prone to belief private suggestions over adverts
- Millennials are 115% extra influenced by phrase of mouth than conventional promoting
However how do you get suggestions from prospects? Which prospects do you ask?
Automation helps you to observe buyer pursuits, exercise, and interactions, then use that data to ask the best prospects for suggestions on the proper time.
Your most engaged prospects are place to begin; they’re the most certainly to answer whenever you ask them for suggestions.
Past direct suggestions, you possibly can have a look at marketing campaign metrics to A/B take a look at issues like win-back topic traces and preheaders to see which emails have been opened essentially the most. That means, you possibly can iterate to create higher re-engagement topic traces because the marketing campaign grows.
While you observe your prospects’ engagement with contact and lead scoring, you possibly can mechanically e mail them to ask for suggestions as soon as they attain a sure degree of engagement. This additionally lets your prospects know that their opinion issues to you, which reinforces their loyalty. Win-win.
When a buyer reaches a set degree of engagement, mechanically ship them an e mail asking for suggestions — then mechanically ship them a thanks e mail in the event that they fill out your suggestions kind. (Manners matter.) Get the E mail Extremely Engaged Prospects for Suggestions Automation Recipe right here.
When you don’t use contact scoring, you possibly can nonetheless establish and attain out to your most devoted prospects by tagging them as “energy customers.” For SaaS (Software program-as-a-Service) corporations, energy customers are contacts who spend on daily basis in your product or use its most superior options.
These persons are a terrific supply of buyer tales, evaluations, and suggestions.
When a buyer is tagged as a “energy consumer,” mechanically attain out to request suggestions. Get the Suggestions Survey from Energy Customers Automation Recipe right here.
What about customers who don’t love your product or use it on daily basis? Attain out to inactive customers to study why they don’t use your product. What options do they want? What are their largest ache factors?
Sending a suggestions survey to inactive prospects can assist cut back churn, re-engage lapsed prospects, and provide you with priceless details about the place your product has room for enchancment.
When a buyer is tagged as “inactive,” mechanically attain out with a request for suggestions. Get the Buyer Survey for Inactive Customers Automation Recipe right here.
If you would like suggestions on the customer expertise or a particular merchandise, you possibly can automate that, too — when a buyer makes a purchase order, enter them into an automation that may observe up with them per week later (so that you don’t have to recollect to do it manually).
When a buyer makes a purchase order, mechanically observe up with a request for suggestions. Get the Collect Suggestions After Buy Automation Recipe right here.
How to reply to (and act on) buyer suggestions
Asking for and receiving suggestions is a good way to study extra in regards to the buyer expertise and present your prospects you care. However how do your prospects know that their suggestions made a distinction?
When you use NPS (Internet Promoter Rating) surveys to gather buyer suggestions, you possibly can map these scores into your prospects’ contact information, then set off e mail campaigns or activity assignments based mostly on the rating. If a buyer provides you a low rating, you should utilize automation to inform their designated account supervisor, provide them a reduction code on their subsequent buy, and even invite them to e-book a name together with your help crew.
Canned responses to suggestions can work in a pinch, however having an actual individual attain out to your contacts to study extra about their expertise — whether or not adverse or optimistic — helps construct buyer loyalty and improve the probabilities of repeat enterprise.
Automation helps notify your crew when they should act and observe up on buyer suggestions. That is the place automation and a private contact go hand-in-hand: When a contact submits your suggestions kind, use automation to ship them an e mail thanking them for his or her suggestions, then assign a crew member a activity to observe up with a customized response.
When a contact submits your suggestions kind, mechanically thank them for his or her suggestions and assign a crew member a activity to observe up with a customized response. After a while has handed, mechanically ship another follow-up e mail to ask in the event that they want the rest. Get the Suggestions Type Submission Observe-up Automation Recipe right here.
