...
5 min read

Win back strategy for eCommerce email automations

Written by Andriy Boychuk
5 min read
Table of Contents

    Did you know that 80% of your customers will not buy from you again?

    In today’s time and age of online shopping, one of the most important agendas on any company’s sleeve is retaining customers. Getting new customers to your website is a top priority, right next to it is retaining the ones who have already purchased from you.

    In this blog post, I would like to talk about winning back your existing customers. Now, What do I mean by that? In retail, a significant issue is that 80 to 90% of the time people who buy from you once, will not buy from you again. How do you convert those one-time buyers to your regular buyers?

    What is harder?

    Retaining your past customers can be a hard task but you know what’s harder? Constantly trying to get new customers on board. It’s not just hard, it’s also heavy on your pockets. So avoid those holes in your pockets and follow my very basic strategy to retain old customers.

    Second-time buyers are important because it’s easy to convert second-time buyers into third and fourth-time buyers. But converting first-time buyers into second-time buyers is twice as hard.

    Now, there are a couple of ways you can get around to make people buy from you again, that includes one-time offers on checkout, special discount codes, loyalty programs, perks, and so on and so forth.

    Should you build a loyalty program for your business? Read this article to learn more about the challenges, solutions, and results of loyalty programs. 

    But since we are an email marketing specialized company, I’ll show you a strategy that involves sending them a few emails to get to their second purchase with you.

    The Win-Back Strategy

    As your customer places their first order with you, the first thing you do is send them a confirmation email. That email is followed by transactional emails. This goes on all the way till your order with the customer is complete. After that, they might never hear from you and eventually never come back for another purchase.

    Pro Tip: You can send them a follow-up email asking for feedback. This builds trust and your customers might end up purchasing from you again. It’s a great way of hopping back into their memory. Feedbacks are not only important for you as a business but also gives your customers a feeling of being valued.

    To get your customers to buy from you once again, come up with a number, this is the number of days after which your follow-up email will go out to them. This number depends on your industry. If you are in an industry that sells on a very frequent basis, like the food industry this number could be something like 15 to 30 days.

    On the other hand, if you are in the apparel industry and sell shoes, your delay period can be around 60 to 90 days. This is a reasonable amount of delay the customer can put between their purchases. You need to be smart with this number.

    For instance, I buy my magic cereals online. I get a follow-up email reminding me to get my new cereal pack every 7 days because they know the magic cereal lasts for 7 days and that’s the right time to get me into buying from them again.

    In this delay period, only around 10% of your buyers will automatically come back for a second purchase but the rest of the 90% are out there not thinking about you. This too depends on your industry and niche. Some industries and brands find a very small percentage of 2x buyers. How do you take your buyers on board for a second purchase?

    The answer is simple. We do that in a matter of 4 emails. Let’s call this a Win-Back drip sequence.

    Win Back Drip Sequence

    Email #1 – Intro + Discount

    In this email, you remind them of their purchase with you. You tell them you miss them and then offer a valid discount to prompt them for another purchase. The discount could be anything from 10 to 20%.

    Although the discount is optional, but if you do decide to add it to your email, don’t forget to include urgency with it.

    For instance, I offered my customers a discount that expired in 48 hours. This creates a sense of urgency in them and prompts them to make the buying decision faster.

    Email #2 – The Last Chance to Get the Discount

    In this email, if your customer still hasn’t purchased from you, you send them another email within your urgency period reminding them of the discount that is going to expire soon.

    Email #3 – Higher Discount

    If they still haven’t bought from you, you increase the discount. At this point, your customer might have already decided to buy from you, a further reduction is going to be a win-win situation for both of you.

    This is basically called the discount ladder. You offer a discount on your products if that doesn’t work you increase your discount. Please remember to include urgency here as well. These are all going to be limited-time offers.

    Email #4 – Last Chance to Avail the Higher Discount

    This is the last email in the sequence where you inform them of the last chance to avail further discount. You can be creative with this flow and put as many emails as you want but you don’t want to spam or bombard your customers with emails or force them to unsub from your list.

    This simple strategy has worked for many before you. It can totally for you to convert your one-time buyers into two-time buyers and so on and so forth. You do have to work hard around this idea. Get creative with your product and your offering so you can land that purchase.

    Remember, your second-time buyers are much more likely to be your third-time buyers because the trust has been developed and they remember you better.

    Talk email strategy with an expert
    Request free email marketing audit from our experts!