I’m excited today to bring you a little sneak peek of some of the content that is shared in the SIP Magazine – an exclusive monthly magazine for Lounge Members. In last month’s issue I talked about 6 different places to find revenue you already have in your business, that you’re just not tapping into. If you’re a long time listener of the podcast, this might sound familiar, because I did a similar episode about the money hiding in your back-end operations. But… what we’re going to cover today is more about your marketing strategy and where you’re allocating your efforts.
Because when it comes to growing your eCommerce business, while the majority of stores out there and clients I work with do need more traffic, that’s not the only way to grow.
So today, I’m going to share 3 specific places where revenue is waiting for you – from customers you already have – and give you a super actionable email marketing strategy you can use to re-activate them.
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First-Time Buyers Who Haven’t Come Back
Getting that first purchase from someone is generally the most difficult because it requires building trust not only as a company but that the product you sell is going to be the right one for them. But if you don’t have a strategy for turning that first purchase into a second one, you’re constantly working to replace customers instead of increasing the value of the ones you already have.
That’s why every few months you should make a conscious effort to turn first-time buyers into repeat ones. The easiest way to do this? With a targeted email marketing campaign.
How to Do It:
Pull a segment of customers who made their first purchase in the last 3-6 months, you could go further out if you have a longer repeat buying cycle, and haven’t been back since.
Create a 3-part email campaign around a bestseller, or with unique product recommendations.
If you have a larger than average size email list and want to break this out into groups so you can be specific about the product you recommend based on what they bought in the past, you can. This works best if you have at least 1000 people per group, or if you sell wildly different product categories where you need to separate them. Otherwise, it’s usually not worth the extra effort.
You can test an incentive like free shipping, or a free gift but it might not be necessary. Often relevance and/or just showing up in their inbox can be enough.
Make sure you really take the time to sell the product. In most cases, you want your emails to focus on the click and let your website do the selling, but I recommend you test out going a bit more in-depth in the email itself.
If they’ve been on your list, already received your regular emails and that hasn’t resulted in a sale, that likely means they need a little bit more handholding before they’re ready to take action. So don’t be afraid to make these emails a bit more long-form, make them feel more personal, and focus on overcoming objections, answering frequently asked questions, and really selling the benefits of this product in the emails directly.
Best Sellers With No Post-Purchase Follow Up
Your best-selling products generate the highest volume of customers, which makes them one of the easiest places to increase repeat purchases.
A customer who just purchased is often the most qualified person to buy again, especially when you can help them get better results from their purchase or introduce them to a complementary product.
If you don’t already have an automated post-purchase email strategy, now is the perfect time to get that set up.
How to Do It:
Start by identifying your top 3-5 bestselling products or categories. Then review your post-purchase automations. A general post-purchase flow is great, but a product and/or category specific one is even better.
You don’t have to have a product specific one for everything you sell, but it can be really powerful for a handful of your top selling items.
Create an automated post-purchase flow that helps customers get more value from their purchase while introducing logical next-step products.
And example flow might look like:
Email #1: product education, usage tips, care instructions, FAQs, or inspiration.
Email #2: A related product recommendation based on what they purchased
Email #3: A review request once they’ve had enough time to use the product they bought
Depending on what you sell, the price of your product, how long it takes people to use, how complementary your assortment is, etc. you might want to give it a little bit more time before you pitch them another product, so you can swap emails 2 and 3
Lapsed Wholesale Accounts
As our friend Kristin Fisher always says, your wholesale customers are a lot like your end consumers, they’re just working on a different schedule.
That means, just because a wholesale account hasn’t ordered from you in awhile, it doesn’t mean they’re no longer interested in what you sell. It could be because buying priorities shifted, budgets got tight, or maybe you just weren’t top of mind when they were placing their last buy.
That’s why it’s just as important to stay in regular contact with your wholesale accounts as is it with your retail customers. And if you’re listening to this in real time, it’s especially important right now as Q4 buying season is here.
How to Do It:
Review your wholesale accounts to identify who has been active in the last 12-18 months, but hasn’t ordered in the last 6. Reach out personally to check in and let them know what’s new.
Share your latest collection, updated line sheets, best sellers, products that have been performing well for your retailers lately. If you’re participating in any upcoming markets, make sure you mention that too so they know they can easily reconnect with you.
Keep the message short and sweet. The goal is to simply restart the conversation and see if there is still an opportunity to work together.
Your Next Steps
As we know, none of these strategies work unless you do, so I recommend you pick one of these to focus on and implement it quickly. Once you put that into action, you can come back and try another one.
I also want to level set your expectations here, especially if you have a small list. This isn’t necessarily going to revolutionize your business overnight or bring in a huge influx of sales. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth your time. Every customer you re-activate through this process could be someone that turns into a more reliable repeat customer whose value increases over time.
Be mindful of how much time you spend putting these mini-campaigns together. The larger your list, the more likely they are to generate a good chunk of revenue, so the more time you can spend on them – but honestly, even then, I would focus on progress over perfection.
And if there is any part of you that feels weird, icky, or wants to hesitate reaching out to these customers specifically, especially with the wholesale strategy since that’s more one-to-one contact remember… being shy doesn’t pay the bills.
Time Stamps
00:00 Sneak Peek and Setup
01:55 Revenue From First Buyers
02:52 Three Email Reactivation Plan
06:00 Sell More After Purchase
06:43 Build Post Purchase Flow
09:11 Reengage Wholesale Accounts
11:11 Next Steps and Mindset
12:34 SIP Magazine and Wrap Up
