A lot of email marketing is about getting subscribers and getting them to purchase.
It’s a basic aspect of business that if you want to grow you need new customers.
Yeah, I’ve heard all the numbers that it’s less expensive to market to existing customers than new customers, but you need new customers.
But I do come back to that idea of marketing to existing customers. It’s legitimate to think that if you can increase your average order and order frequency that you’ll grow your business and potentially grow it a lot.
Because if you figure out how to increase average order and order frequency with current customers then every new customer will be more valuable and you can spend more to acquire them and it goes on and on.
So today we’re going to focus on a few ways you can market to your existing customers after they purchase.
And the main focus is email.
1. Share Your Purchase On Social Media
You’ll often see businesses, retailers or whatever asking website visitors to share things on social media.
For example, on a product page on an ecommerce site you might see a Facebook icon encouraging a visitor to share the item on Facebook.
I don’t know…why would the person share it if they haven’t even purchased it yet? Maybe the icon could say something like, “Ask your friends what they think and if you should buy this item” or something like that.
I do think that asking someone that’s just purchased an item to share it on social media is a good idea. Usually when someone has just purchased something they’re feeling good. They’re excited and they want to do something like share the good news on social media.
So in your order confirmation email add social sharing buttons and give the person something to do that benefits you instead of just having them see the confirmation email and archiving it and moving on with their lives.
2. Referral Promotions
This was a cool campaign. It came after a purchase that Sarah made. It asked her to refer a friend to the brand and there was an offer attached. That’s a pretty cool idea and a way to have new customers help you grow the business.
And you can really do this with any customer even if they’ve been with you for a while. Right after a purchase is a good time for something like this because, again, the person is probably excited about what they just purchased. They’re feeling good and they’ll likely say something good about you to their friends.
3. Review Requests
Don’t send this one right away. Know how long it normally takes for your customer to get their item or set it up for a certain number of days after the tracking info says it’s been delivered.
Then ask the person to review the item.
Etsy does a good job with this type of email. I bought Sarah some birthday gifts on Etsy about a month ago and Etsy sent out emails asking me to review the items about 5-7 days after I got the items. It was good timing for me to do the review – right after I got the items when my senses were kicked in and admiring the items.
4. Upsell Item Promotions
If you’re really good at your merchandising then you’ll know what items would go well with items that people are purchasing. I used to work at a shoe company and the call center employees would get in the habit of asking anyone that bought a pair of white athletic shoes if they wanted sneaker wipes so they could clean the smudges that would likely occur.
Often the employees only had to ask. They didn’t even have to do any selling. The upsell offer made sense and people would often buy without even thinking about it.
You can ask for upsells right when the person is purchasing an item, but you can also followup after the purchase. They might not have thought they wanted the additional item right away, but after some time now they see the value and a little reminder can get them to purchase.
Hunting season is coming up and let’s say I buy a new a screw-in shelf for the treestand, but I pass on the screw-in cupholder. I start using the shelf and it works great. Then I get an email suggesting the cupholder. I’ll probably purchase it based on my good experience with the first product.
5. Discount On Next Purchase
Kohl’s does a good job of this and so does Old Navy. I’ve always been kind of on the fence about it as a promotional strategy, but it must work.
After you buy something they’ll send an offer with a discount on the next purchase. I usually feel like why didn’t they just give me $10 off or whatever on the order I just purchased, but I still find myself shopping around for a way to spend the new money.
That’s how it feels anyway and it seems to work well. So you can keep your customers engaged and make this offer. You could get really into it by digging into the data on when customers often purchase a second time. If that times comes and goes the customer might need a little nudge to purchase and an offer could make them purchase.
6. Content Marketing
Finally, I’m a fan of content marketing. You don’t always have to be selling something to your customers. Instead, you can offer them something valuable in the form of information. It will continue to build a relationship and earn trust and that all leads to loyalty. That can lead to more purchases from that customer, but also more potential referrals.
What’s content marketing?
Take a simple approach…identify the questions your target customer has in relation to their job or to their life and answer those questions. You can do it with a blog post, guide, video, infographic or a number of things.
Create the content and share it in a regular newsletter to your customers.
By answering their questions you’ll be helping them and providing value and building trust.
Conclusion
It’s good to focus on what you can do with email to get new customers. But it’s also important to focus on what you can do right after the sale. It’s not a time to let up. In fact, if you do it right you can increase your average order and order frequency. You can build more loyalty and referral potential and it can all lead to a business that is ready to grow faster. So try a few of the tips above and get started.
