Buyer retention issues — particularly proper now.
However how do you retain your current prospects and herald new ones and sustain with the whole lot else concerned in operating your corporation?
Enter automation. Automation allows you to:
- Hold your buyer knowledge up-to-date — no guide entry required
- Observe your prospects’ buy conduct and engagement
- Construct tiered loyalty applications and ship out particular presents
- Establish your high prospects (and reward them accordingly!)
- Acquire and act on buyer suggestions
- Create a greater, extra private buyer expertise
On this information, we’ll cowl 4 areas of your corporation you could automate to extend repeat enterprise — plus 19 automation recipes you may import and use straight away.
- Reward your greatest prospects with loyalty applications
- Win again lapsed prospects
- Ship cross-sell and upsell campaigns
- Acquire and act on buyer suggestions
You’ll be able to obtain this infographic right here!
1. Reward your greatest prospects with loyalty applications
Your greatest prospects — that high 20% of repeat consumers — are liable for a lot of your success. Loyalty applications are an effective way to thank these high 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 allows you to arrange a loyalty program that tracks your prospects’ engagement and buy conduct — after which rewards them accordingly.
You’ll be able to 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 often decided by a metric just like the variety of purchases or amount of cash spent by a buyer. The upper the tier, the extra useful (and unique) the rewards.
To succeed in the following tier, loyalty program members must go a measurable milestone, like {dollars} spent or purchases made. With automation and lead scoring, you may section loyalty program tiers based mostly on prospects’ point-based scores — after which ship the precise rewards to the precise prospects.
This automation allows 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 shopper is just not a member of your loyalty program, ship them an electronic 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 presents can embody:
- A reduction proportion off their whole buy
- Free delivery
- BOGO (purchase one, get one) promotion
- A free present
- A greenback quantity off
- Membership right into a VIP program
- Contest entry
How are you going to 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 entire greenback worth of their purchases
- What number of orders they’ve positioned
- Which gadgets they’ve bought
- How lengthy it’s been since their final order
- Which merchandise they considered 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 along with your electronic mail content material
Mechanically hold monitor 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 presents. You’ll be able to arrange automations to…
- Ship prospects a coupon after they make their first buy
- Add factors to a buyer’s loyalty program rating after they make a purchase order
- Invite new prospects to hitch your loyalty program
- Rejoice a buyer milestone with a celebratory provide
- Thank them with a reduction code after they attain a sure variety of purchases
- Ship them a win-back electronic mail coupon in the event that they haven’t bought shortly
Flip first-time customers into repeat prospects with this automation. Mechanically reward first-time prospects with a particular low cost or coupon over electronic mail. Get the Ship Electronic mail Coupon After First Buy Automation Recipe right here.
Mechanically reward repeat prospects on their fifth (or tenth, or one hundredth) buy by monitoring their whole purchases and triggering an automation after they attain a sure quantity. Get the Reward Clients 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 electronic 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 Electronic mail for Buyer Engagement Automation Recipe right here.
This automation helps you have a good time prospects on a selected date, like their birthday or the anniversary of them signing up with you. Ship your prospects coupons, rewards, or simply completely happy birthday needs. Get the Birthday and Anniversary Coupon Electronic mail Automaton Recipe right here.
2. Win again lapsed prospects
Electronic mail advertising skilled Val Geisler calls lapsed prospects, “zombie prospects”: “They’re on the market, in search of an answer to their issues. They used to work together along with your model, however have stopped.”
You may be tempted to jot down these zombie prospects off as a misplaced trigger or not definitely worth the effort. With advertising automation, you may monitor when your prospects final bought from you — and use that data to mechanically enter them right into a win-back electronic mail marketing campaign.
A win-back electronic mail marketing campaign is a collection of focused, personalised emails you ship to prospects who haven’t engaged along with your content material or bought from you for some time.
The purpose of win-back campaigns (aka re-engagement campaigns) is to get your contacts to work together along with your electronic mail content material and purchase out of your on-line retailer once more.
How one can automate your win-back campaigns
Along with saving you cash, automating your reactivation emails saves you time. You don’t must manually monitor when your contacts final bought from you or clicked in your emails — automation can try this for you!
With engagement monitoring, you may section prospects based mostly on the final time they engaged along with your content material or visited your on-line retailer. You too can monitor a buyer’s final buy date with buy monitoring.
This two-part automation tags your prospects after they have interaction, keep lively, or grow to be inactive — so you may monitor 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 along with your content material or retailer in order that they are often tagged accordingly. Get Half 2: Engagement Tagging Automation Recipe right here.
Once you use engagement and buy monitoring, you may set off win-back electronic mail automations when a buyer hits a sure level of disengagement — like 6 months since their final buy, or 3 months since they clicked by way of one among your emails to your website.
Right here’s an instance of methods to schedule a win-back electronic mail marketing campaign for buyer retention:
- Ship your first electronic 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 electronic mail — that’s often an electronic mail each 1-2 months
- Ship your final electronic mail when lapsed prospects have traditionally grow to be fully disengaged. If that time is at 9 months of inactivity, you’ve gotten 6 months out of your first electronic mail to win them again. As soon as they go the cut-off level, take away them out of your electronic mail record.
If a contact hasn’t engaged along with your content material or on-line retailer shortly, this automation mechanically enters them right into a re-engagement electronic mail marketing campaign — so you may win-back disengaged prospects. Get the Ship a Re-engagement Marketing campaign After Inactivity Automation Recipe right here.
To present your lapsed prospects one of the best expertise attainable — and provide the greatest probability of successful them again — Val Geisler has the following pointers:
- Let your prospects select which electronic 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 current, engaged prospects — however lapsed prospects in all probability gained’t learn it.
- Ask for suggestions. In the event that they’re newly lapsed, there’s nonetheless an opportunity to convey 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 methods to automate suggestions requests in part 4!)
3. Ship personalised cross-sell and upsell campaigns
You should use automation to upsell and cross-sell to your current 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 aid you convey in additional income from current prospects.
What’s the distinction between cross-selling and upselling?
- Cross-selling means selling further merchandise to an current buyer after they’ve made a purchase order. For instance, as soon as a buyer buys a pair of sneakers, you ship them a follow-up electronic mail displaying an identical purse.
- Upselling is the sale of add-ons, dearer gadgets, and upgrades. The purpose of upselling is to steer a buyer to spend extra. A buyer buys a pair of sneakers and will get proven add-on merchandise like shoe care kits or colourful shoelace equipment.
Cross-sell and upsell electronic mail campaigns could be a highly effective technique to generate repeat enterprise. In accordance with a research carried out by ActiveCampaign, 28% of 546 respondents stated that emails from a enterprise most incessantly encourage them to buy once more:
Electronic mail advertising was most definitely to encourage individuals 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 indicate customers the merchandise that they’re most definitely to purchase.
Automation allows you to monitor your prospects’ interactions along with your website and merchandise, then section them accordingly. Should you promote on an ecommerce platform, you may 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 electronic mail marketing campaign based mostly on the product they purchased. Incentivize the upsell with low cost codes and free delivery. Get the Accent Upsell After Buy Automation Recipe right here.
You too can use tags to mechanically set off upsell and cross-sell electronic 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 monitor 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 comply with up with a cross-sell electronic mail marketing campaign based mostly on the product they bought. Get the Ecommerce Cross-Promote Electronic mail Automation Recipe right here.
With dynamic content material, you should use tagging and conditional content material to ship every buyer precisely what they wish to see — the product, improve, or function that they’ll’t stay with out.
Should you combine a Shopify retailer with ActiveCampaign, you may spotlight your merchandise with product blocks. Product blocks allow you to pull product pictures and particulars out of your ecommerce retailer instantly into campaigns and automations:
Add product blocks to your cross-sell and upsell electronic mail campaigns to indicate prospects the merchandise they need most.
Once you mix product blocks with product curiosity tagging, you may ship dynamic, focused cross-sell and upsell campaigns that flip extra customers 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 may present prospects the merchandise that you understand they’re curious about. Get the Shopify: Product Curiosity Observe-up Emails Automation Recipe right here.
4. Acquire and act on buyer suggestions
68% of consumers who churn achieve this as a result of they don’t suppose 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.
Once you ask for suggestions out of your prospects, you may determine why first-time prospects aren’t coming again for extra, then repair these gaps to lift your retention charges. You too can 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 more likely to hearken to different prospects than to take your phrase for one thing:
- In accordance with Nielsen, 92% of customers say that they’re extra more likely 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 allows you to monitor buyer pursuits, exercise, and interactions, then use that data to ask the precise prospects for suggestions on the proper time.
Your most engaged prospects are a superb place to begin; they’re the most definitely to answer if you ask them for suggestions.
Past direct suggestions, you may have a look at marketing campaign metrics to A/B check issues like win-back topic traces and preheaders to see which emails had been opened essentially the most. That means, you may iterate to create higher re-engagement topic traces because the marketing campaign grows.
Once you monitor your prospects’ engagement with contact and lead scoring, you may mechanically electronic 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 electronic mail asking for suggestions — then mechanically ship them a thanks electronic mail in the event that they fill out your suggestions kind. (Manners matter.) Get the Electronic mail Extremely Engaged Clients for Suggestions Automation Recipe right here.
Should you don’t use contact scoring, you may nonetheless determine and attain out to your most devoted prospects by tagging them as “energy customers.” For SaaS (Software program-as-a-Service) firms, energy customers are contacts who spend each day in your product or use its most superior options.
These persons are an incredible supply of buyer tales, opinions, 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 each day? 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 useful 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 need suggestions on the client expertise or a selected merchandise, you may automate that, too — when a buyer makes a purchase order, enter them into an automation that can comply with up with them every week later (so that you don’t have to recollect to do it manually).
When a buyer makes a purchase order, mechanically comply with 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 an effective way to study extra concerning the buyer expertise and present your prospects you care. However how do your prospects know that their suggestions made a distinction?
Should you use NPS (Web Promoter Rating) surveys to gather buyer suggestions, you may map these scores into your prospects’ contact information, then set off electronic mail campaigns or process assignments based mostly on the rating. If a buyer provides you a low rating, you should use 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 along with your assist workforce.
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 detrimental or optimistic — helps construct buyer loyalty and enhance the probabilities of repeat enterprise.
Automation helps notify your workforce when they should act and comply with 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 electronic mail thanking them for his or her suggestions, then assign a workforce member a process to comply with up with a personalised response.
When a contact submits your suggestions kind, mechanically thank them for his or her suggestions and assign a workforce member a process to comply with up with a personalised response. After a while has handed, mechanically ship another follow-up electronic mail to ask in the event that they want anything. Get the Suggestions Kind Submission Observe-up Automation Recipe right here.
