Email marketing and post-purchase customer outreach go hand in hand, making the duo a standard across industries. As a business, it takes a lot to make a customer purchase from you, and in most cases, they would need the product/service frequently in the future. Therefore, customer retention is among the top priorities for all businesses as it would ensure a healthy bottom line. In fact, repeat business is the primary source of income for most companies, making customer relationships and retention very important to their strategy.
Over 81% of businesses trust emails as their primary tool for customer retention. But when you are using emails to retain customers, you need to build the right strategy and a stack of Mailchimp or Klaviyo email templates. I have curated a list of post-purchase email ideas that will help you keep customers coming back without having you spend too much time. Let’s get started:
#1 Product Education
If your product falls into a new category or if you provide a SaaS solution/service, it is necessary that you educate your customers. Many times, when they cannot use your product as intended, they would feel frustrated and stop using it altogether. This is one of the common reasons behind people losing interest in a brand apart from not making a repeat purchase. Thus, it is necessary in such cases to provide them with product knowledge, proper repositories, and training material. Like in the below example, you can send an email containing links to resources for customers who just made a purchase from you:
#2 Share Recommendations
Since you have already made a sale and the customer has used one of your products recently, it makes complete sense to share product recommendations. This is among the most used strategies for eCommerce stores and D2C brands as it helps build a steady stream of revenue after the first conversion. It is advisable not to share more than three product recommendations in your emails at a time. In the below example, you can see how a single product is recommended in a post-purchase email, thereby giving it full visibility:
#3 Run Contests
Another great way to win customers over and again is to run contests as it gamifies their engagement with your brand. This can be easier if you are selling physical products, as even a social media picture-sharing contest can bring you considerable traction. Allowing people to be happy about associating with your brand is a nice way of ensuring that they remember you when making their next purchase. Have a look at the below example from Chrome Industries:
#4 Upselling And Cross-Selling
When it comes to customer retention, upselling and cross-selling are two classical strategies that you must follow. As an email marketer, it is necessary that you build automation workflows that revolve around post-purchase selling opportunities. You will also need to build a repository of Klaviyo email templates or the ones compatible with your ESP. Have a look at this email from ASICS and see if it can inspire your next upselling email:
#5 Loyalty Rewards
If your customer has multiple purchases from you, it would be a great idea to offer them loyalty programs over emails. Remember, communications over emails are not only entertained well but expected as a majority of people love receiving deals from their favorite brands. Incentivizing past purchases through loyalty rewards is a strategy that works for almost every industry, and here’s a fine example from ZoesKitchen as they lure their customers in repeating the purchase with their loyalty rewards program:
#6 Exclusive Product Access
Very few smart businesses have mastered the art of wrapping their brands with the idea of being “exclusive.” The good thing is, even if your brand isn’t entirely focused on being exclusive, you can still leverage it for email marketing purposes. Providing your frequent buyers with early access to your new products through emails is a great way to make your customers feel valued and special, even without offering any discount. In the below email, you can see how even robes and slippers are marketed at a much higher preposition with the help of early access:
#7 Say Thank You
Last but not least, being thankful and grateful towards your customers and as an email marketer with years of experience, it works like a charm. A simple email thanking the customer for their purchase minus the fluff is a great thing to do if you aren’t able to use any of the above-mentioned ideas for the time being. It is preferable that you keep the thank you message as the standalone agenda for the email, but you can also include other product recommendations like in the below example:
Wrap Up
One of the defining factors of success in any industry is how you take up post-purchase interactions and foster lasting relationships. This will, of course, require you to invest time and effort into building a 360-degree customer database and a strong understanding of your buyer persona. These seven post-purchase email ideas are widely used by all industries, and they are a must for your email strategy if you want to retain your customers. Undoubtedly, you won’t be able to retain every single customer, but it will surely help you make the most out of your sales and build a recurring revenue stream.
Author: Kevin George is the head of marketing at Email Uplers, which specializes in crafting Professional Email Templates, PSD to Email conversion, and Mailchimp Templates. Kevin loves gadgets, bikes & jazz, and he breathes email marketing. He enjoys sharing his insights and thoughts on email marketing best practices on email marketing blog.