#27. 4 Simple Ways To Turn Seasonal Shoppers Into Repeat Customers | Podcast

Vira: 0:16

Today we will be talking about the ways how to turn your first time buyers and people who haven’t purchased from you in a while into your regular customers and maybe like die hard fans.

Alissa: 0:53

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Email Einstein. Vira and Alissa here we are, two email marketers at an email marketing agency called Flowium. We are super passionate about email marketing and because we love what we do, we want to share our insights with you. Flowium is one of the fastest growing email marketing agencies in the world. We specialize in providing a premium full service e commerce email marketing experience for all of our clients. And our service is tailored specifically for your business and is designed to help increase your online retail revenue by 20 to 55.0%. We deliver the right message to the right person at the right moment and that’s what we’re all about here at Flowium. And we’re in the new year so we’re getting started, we’re ramping up and today’s episode is a very useful one. Extremely useful.

Vira: 1:47

Yeah, yeah. I’m super excited about this episode today because I’m sure a lot of you guys will be able to relate to what we will be talking about today. And 2020 has certainly been a unique year to say the least. But in spite of all of the challenges, we hope that you guys have experienced your best e-commerce season ever. I know that a lot of our clients have seen a big uptick in customers over the past few months and that’s natural. That’s something that happens usually around December, November, any however, a lot of those new customers, these are often the people who either never purchased from you before or these are the people who only come back to your store only like once per year around the holidays in search for a good deal. And since returning customers spent on average three times more than one off buyers, failing to turn those Black Friday Cyber Monday shoppers into your regulars can cost you a lot of missed revenue. So today we will be talking about the ways how to turn your first time buyers and people who haven’t purchased from you in a while into your regular customers. And maybe like die hard fans, not without a little work. I want to be very straightforward. Yeah, that’s for sure. But we do have some like tested strategies that worked really well for our clients and I’m sure they will be helpful to you too. But before we go there, one of my favorite parts of each and every episode, the Pro Tip of the Week. Alissa, I know you have prepared something, something fun, so hit us with your Pro Tip of the week.

Alissa: 3:46

This one I’m excited for. This is one of the pro tips that I’ve been most excited for recently. So our Pro Tip of the Week is to consider incorpor Creating a bounce Back flow. Now this is not something that we’ve actually talked about in detail on any of our episodes, but definitely a flow that is worth looking into. Klaviyo actually has a really, really great article on Bounce Back that explains a lot more like the logistics, how it works, it gives a case study in there, but without going into too much detail, that’s something that you can definitely look at later on. The idea of a bounce back flow is very similar to that of a bounce back coupon that you would typically receive in a brick and mortar stor when you make a purchase. So typically you would go into the store, you make a purchase, you buy, and then you get a coupon with an incredible offer that’s only valid during a very specific period of time and almost forces you back into the store to take advantage. So like Gap is a brand that I’ve seen do this very often where you’ll go in, you’ll shop, you’ll spend $100 or whatever it is, and then they’ll give you a bounce back coupon in the form of Gap Cash, which is like $50 off your next purchase and it’s only valid in like a month’s time for three days. So at that point you’re like, oh, I have to be here next month for three days so that I can take advantage of this coupon. Same idea with the bounce back flow with the email. However, it does work a little bit differently, obviously because we’re not in a brick and mortar store doing this. So once someone actually makes a purchase from your website, they’ll get a follow up email within about 10 minutes with a special offer on a product that either complements what they just purchased or on a best selling Item of your choice. This item is typically lower in value. The offer is usually good for about 60 minutes and it will also get added into their shipment with their original purchase. This is just such a great way to convert your potential one time customers into two time customers. And as Vira kind of mentioned already, once you pop, you can’t stop. AKA if someone buys from you twice, they’ll most likely come back for more. So this is like a really quick, innovative, fun way to incorporate a strategy that will convert your one time into two timers and then hopefully loyal customers or die hard fans over the course of time. So that’s our pro tip of the week.

Vira: 6:05

And that’s actually a really good one and I feel like it can be not just the pro tip, but the entire section on how to turn your holiday buyers into like your regular because it’s a big one. And I know you talked about the Gap, I know that Gap is doing that online promotion as well. So they are just upselling something like cheap, but probably their margins are really high on that product but the price is super low. So I remember they were doing like white T shirt for like five bucks or something. Yeah, yeah, just like to turn you something like super cheap just to turn you from that like one time purchaser status and returned customer. So that’s actually a big one. And yeah, and thank you Alissa for mentioning it because listen, as merchants and as marketers, we often fixate so much on that sales conversion, especially the first one. So much that sometimes we just forget about the importance of engaging with customers after they place that very first order. So we almost often abandon those people. And while making a sale might be your end point, in reality, especially in email marketing industry, it is just the beginning of your hopefully long term relationship with a customer. And here are some fun facts about the returned customers. It is 10 times more expensive to get a new customer than it is to sell something to your existing customer. I knew that the price of acquisition is high, I just didn’t realize that it is ten times more expensive. Yes, it’s crazy. And also here’s another fun fact. Existing customers are nine times more likely to convert and spend 500% more than new customers. So usually your returned customers, your order value is much, much higher. So now you probably understand why Amazon does everything in their power to convince you to buy that prime subscription and why Costco is making sure that you will buy their membership. So yeah, that’s just like so many things become obvious to you when you start working in this industry. Right? So because Attracting those new customers costs so much more than retaining the existing ones. You might want to invest in those like relationships and you want to nurture your relationship with your customer. And probably the easiest one and something that we, that we urge all of our customers to do is to create a post purchase flow. If you don’t have one yet. I just like read this quote from HubSpot. I think it was HubSpot, I’m not sure recently and it makes me laugh. So they said that the post purchase email flow is the Harry Potter of email marketing. Often neglected, given to barely any attention and forced to live under the staircase of e-commerce email marketing. I love this expression. Honestly, it’s just, it’s so accurate, right?

Alissa: 9:16

Yeah, I think we even do it internally sometimes too. Like browse abandonment, cart abandonment, exit intent, and then post purchase. We’re like, yeah, we’ll get to that. But it’s like, it’s a big one. It’s a really big one.

Vira: 9:27

And I don’t know about your customers, Alissa, but for my clients this is like one of the high earners, this flow. I was actually surprised when I first started like working with Flowium. I was surprised how much revenue the post purchase one generate. It’s insane. Yeah. And well, if you want to turn your holiday shoppers into return customers, do not ignore your post purchase flow. Maybe it’s a bit too late for you to. Obviously it’s too late for you to do the post purchase flow from the beginning, but maybe you can introduce those customers into later stages of the flow. Just like so you can still create some sort of relationship with them or just create a good post purchase flow for next year. It’s never too early to start preparing for Black Friday Cyber Monday. If you are in this industry or like just in general, post purchase flow is a great, great flow to have. And the best part is you set it up once and it works for you. So this is like your little employee that is doing the work while you are not doing anything. So like what, what’s to include in that post purchase flow? So I’ll just give you some ideas. You don’t have to implement all of them obviously, but this is just something that we are doing with our clients. So email number one as your order confirmation. So thank you for your order email. It’s not the end of your customer journey anymore. It’s just one of many, many little steps. And by the way, it doesn’t have to be boring. Why not making it fun? Why not nurture your customer through this email? The goal of this first email and the flow in general is to reinforce the buyer’s decision and let them know that hey, you made the right decision going with our brand. So like you want almost to help them to eliminate that buyer’s remorse, you know. And the very first order confirmation email allows you not only to thank your customers for their purchase but also maybe like answer some of their question and in a way introduce them to your brand and nurture those like relationships with them. I just found this really cool example. I found it a while ago. It’s from the brand called CD Baby. Honestly I don’t even know if they are still around because I mean who uses CDs anymore? But I really love this email. It was the first email of their post purchase sequence. I’ll just read it so your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow. A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing. Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and hush fell over the crowd. A single he put your CD into the finest gold lined box that money can buy. I just thought it was so funny and so like witty and so on point and on brand Be creative with this email. It doesn’t have to be like a boring thank you for your order email. You can get creative with this one. So it’s a good, good opportunity for you to introduce your brand to your new customer. Email number two it depends what do you want to say in that email. But often we are sending your customers to your FAQ page if you have one frequently asked questions because believe me, your customers will have a lot of questions about the product even before the product arrives. So in this email you can build excitement for the arrival, maybe answer some most frequent questions about the product and you can link that email to to your FAQ page just to make your customers and search engines very happy. You can talk about some popular questions in the email number two. Email number three you can talk about your social media if you have any. Maybe like a Facebook community or cool Instagram page or something. Introduce your customers to your social media in the next emails. You can do some relevant content about the products that you you will be upselling later in the flow. For example one of my clients, they are selling the different kind of teas so they are doing the shots and herbal teas and stuff like that. So we are doing the five detox tips like how to detoxify your body in natural way. And one of those tips is actually to use their Detox tea. And then in next emails, email number six and seven, we are cross selling that product that we briefly mentioned in previous email. Alissa, is that something that you are doing with your clients? The content?

Alissa: 14:11

The post is such a great strategy and I think this is why Vira, for you and for some of my clients as well, the post purchase flow is one of the higher generating flows for revenue because you’re cross selling or upselling other products that it’s very highly likely that they would be interested in. So they’ve obviously made a purchase, they’ve received it, they like what they see, they like what they got, and now you’re providing them that additional, additional content that’s really gonna kind of take what you’re trying to cross sell or upsell to the next level. So you’re, you’re showing them that there’s a problem. You’re, you’re showing them that you have a solution and then you’re selling them that solution. So it’s virtually impossible for someone to say no as long as it’s a relevant offer.

Vira: 14:50

And the best part is because you are doing the relevant content, it doesn’t feel like you are trying to sell something all the time because people don’t like the, those aggressive sales emails. So think about the value that you can bring to your customers. And I’m sure Alissa, you have more examples about that like cross sell upsell stuff because we will cover it later in the podcast as well. But yeah, that’s, that’s actually a big one guys. So this is your chance to convert your one time holiday buyers into regular or returned customers. And believe me, a lot of those people, they will convert even before you give them some kind of offer or even before you will cross sell upsell just because they will start building the relationship with your brand. And that’s super, super important. Another big one is the request for the feedback. But here be really, really cautious with the timing. The timing could be tricky because it’s determined by your shipping times. And ideally your feedback emails should be sent a few days after your customers have received their purchase. And it can be tricky, especially when you have both like international customers and like us or Canada or whatever, local customers. So be careful not to send this emails before the customer actually have received their orders. And Alissa, I think you had the issue like this with one of your clients because of their holiday delays, right?

Alissa: 16:19

Yeah, yeah, yeah. USPS really, really messed up how quickly people were receiving things and so they were getting this feedback email and our client was pretty upset. He was getting horrific emails back. I mean people can be brutal. Your customers can be brutal. So just make sure you avoid that brutality and just be very, very careful about timing because it’s better to send that request for feedback way, way later than it is too soon.

Vira: 16:46

Yeah, for sure, for sure. And other examples of emails that you can include into this sequence can be replenishment email. So like refill, sort of like refill your order email. But here timing is crucial as well. So don’t be like too, too aggressive. Maybe like for one product it can be good to send it like two weeks from when the product would normally run out. But for other products maybe you’ll need more time because it’s an international brand and it requires more time to, I don’t know, like to put together or to send or whatever. However, if you take, if you have a lot of international customers, the delay might need to be even like longer. So be careful with this one. But this is a good one as well. We’ve done it a lot of times for our supplement brands, for cosmetic brands that we are working with. That’s a, that’s a big one. And of course another big one, and we will talk about it in details, is to invite your customers into your loyalty programs. And if you have the loyalty or rewards program in place, post purchase flow is your time is your place to shine or your time to shine. So there is no better way to incentivize the engagement than hey, thank you for your purchase. You’ve earned gazillion points with your purchase. How do you want to, how do you want to spend them? So this is just the rough ideas. Obviously you’ll have to adjust it to your brand. But this is something that again you set it up once and it works for you. So do it. And if you have any questions about it, just send us a message and we’ll be happy to assist you with this one.

Alissa: 18:29

Yeah, yeah, this is a really good one. It’s the Harry Potter analogy is so true.

Vira: 18:35

I know, right? It’s so cool.

Alissa: 18:36

So number two, and this is kind of going back to one of the emails that Vira had mentioned, within the post purchase flow is cross selling complementary products. So this is kind of our second tool or trick on how to turn your one time customers into second time, third time, fourth time forever customers. So obviously we’ve talked about segmentation a ton in our past episodes. I mean virtually every single one. So it’s not really surprising that segmentation does Play a role in how you keep your one timers coming back for more. When you’re cultivating a loyal customer base, it’s really important that they get the full experience of your brand. And really there isn’t a better way for them to have that full experience than to own or experience all of the products that you sell. If the customer made a one time purchase, now more than ever is the time to cross sell a product that perfectly complements the one that they originally purchased. So an example of this is like one of the clients that I actually work with directly, they sell personal protection equipment. So in the form of gas masks, hazmat suits, mask, filters, that kind of thing. These masks and the items that they sell are by no means inexpensive. It’s actually very expensive product because it’s so high quality. However, in order for someone to have the full experience with that brand, there are tons of components of their personal protective equipment, their PPE that they would need to own in order to have the, the full kit and again, the full experience. A gas mask. Buying a gas mask is really just the beginning in this new year for this client. Our biggest focus is actually ensuring that all of the customers that we have as subscribers are owners of the complete set. And also not just the complete set for themselves, but also for their families and loved ones too, because they sell children’s masks, baby protective gear, pet protective gear. There’s tons of stuff on there that’s really good.

Vira: 20:27

Pet protective gear?

Alissa: 20:29

Yeah.

Vira: 20:29

Is that a thing?

Alissa: 20:30

Yeah, yeah. So there’s like a. Gosh, I don’t know what it’s called, but there’s like a, it’s like a little box or like a little bag or cubicle where you can put your small pets into it and it protects them from any lethal gas for up to, I think it’s like 12 hours or something like that. So if like we were to have a nuclear war, for example, your dog would be safe, which is nice, right? That’s what, that’s the tearjerker in most to these crazy world movies is. No, not the dog. So the dog is protected. So because that’s a main goal for us, for this client, as we progress through this year, we obviously need to find a way to accomplish that. What we’re looking at doing is either automating this or doing it campaign style. The automation can be kind of tricky. So for the sake of simplicity, for this episode, we’ll just go down the campaign route and kind of explain how that would look. So typically the way you would start is you would create a segment based on what item the customer has purchased. So in this case, let’s go with an adult gas mask and how many times they made a purchase with the brand, which is once over all time. Because again, you’re focusing on these one time purchasers. You would then create your campaign that pitches the complimentary item. So in this case, for example, it would be a mask filter or a Hazmat suit. And the mask filter basically gets attached to the mask and the filter is really one of these things that you can buy over and over and over again and you technically can’t have enough of it. So this would be a really good, good one to use to kind of get people to continue purchasing. Because when you’re talking about preparedness or home preparedness, the likelihood is that people will want to stock up more on these filters in any case. And then what you would do is you would send that campaign that pitches the complimentary item to the segment that you created, which is a segment on including people who have purchased an adult gas mask once and it’s their only purchase that they’ve ever made with the brand. And the thing that you really want to focus on is making sure that the content you create is based on the fact that this person has made only one purchase with your brand and that this product fits perfectly with their original purchase. So you want to sell it, but not sell it, if that makes sense. And it’s like Vira mentioned, like, people don’t really like to know that they’re being sold to, but what you want to do is you want to provide the right content that makes them feel like, hey, I’m not being sold to. I’m just being told, like, I can get way more value out of the product that I purchased by purchasing this other item. And a way to play it super, super safe with this whole concept is you can also create a segment of people that have purchased, for example, a Hazmat suit or a mask filter in the past and exclude them from this campaign in the case that someone opted in multiple times with different emails. So just this is like a safety net to make sure that you’re really only sending this email out to someone who’s only purchased once and they’ve only purchased an adult gas mask so.

Vira: 23:17

Oh, that’s super smart.

Alissa: 23:19

Yeah, it’s a really straightforward, simplistic way of retargeting your one timers. But it’s so effective at engaging with them on a personal level. Like so, so, so effective. You’re basically talking to them as if you were there during their first purchase and you know everything about them and you understand everything about their life and getting on that level with your customers. Again, super, super effective, very simplistic way to go about it. We do this pretty regularly but it works and it works really well. So definitely something to consider when it comes to trying to convert those one time customers is just cross selling a product that really makes sense and compl well what their original purchase was.

Vira: 24:26

Yeah, it’s all about the relevance and personalization in a way as well. Something that we talk about all the time but yet it’s so important.

Alissa: 24:36

The relevance factor. That’s why that’s where it’s all at.

Vira: 24:40

So the third sort of like recommendation slash strategy that we recommend to do is promote a customer loyalty program if you have one. And if you don’t have one one why you still don’t have one, you should get one asap. So if you have a loyalty program or rewards program in place post purchase this period, post purchase time is your time to shine. Here are some some cool numbers that I found on the web and yes I do love those numbers so much. We are email marketing geeks. It is what it is. So as many as 84% of customers say that they are more apt to stick with the brand if the brand offers some sort of like loyalty program. 84% and inviting your customers to join your loyalty program both give them the reason to come back. And in a way it creates some like excitement around your brand. And there is no doubt that loyalty programs do bring a lot of revenue. According to Forrester, customers who take part in loyalty programs spend on average $42 more in a three month span than those people who don’t participate in loyalty programs. And I mean this is a very convincing number. And you can, you can get this new shopper started right away by maybe awarding some points at the beginning or giving them some credits or cash back or whatever currency your program uses for, for completing those like basic tasks like opening account or maybe filling out their profile or making their first purchase or stuff like that. Some of my favorite loyalty programs that I personally use all the time is Sephora. Actually fun fact that I don’t know about Sephora is that Sephora’s Beauty Insider rewards program is one of the biggest programs in the US as of 2019. And again this is like an outdated number numbers. I’m sure right now in 2021 these numbers are even higher. As of 2019 the program had more than 17 million loyal members. So yeah, 17 million girls and boys who were earning the points with Sephora. And members make up as much as 80% of Sephora’s annual sales. So even though it’s like 17 million of people, it’s like 80% of all of their sales. Because as we mentioned before, people who are your loyal fans, they do spend more. And basically how it works, customers earn rewards for each purchases based on like a very simple traditional point system. But then the best part, that you can choose how you can spend your reward points. You can either get the miniature of the, of the product, maybe you can get the discount, the gift card. And because Sephora is expensive, this works really well for them because in a way they make you spend more. So in the future you can sort of spend less. And they are super, super good with their email reminders. So all the time you’re receiving like an email statement with, hey, in this funds, you earned XYZ points. How do you want to spend them? Or hey, you have an enough points to purchase this. I don’t know, like a pet dragon or whatever. They have all kinds of crazy stuff. So I, I love Sephora. I am, even though I’m not a makeup person, but they are emails and they are program, rewards program. Oh my God. I do have like a gazillion points with them, probably. And Starbucks, I talked about them a lot. But even though it’s a brick and mortar brand, mostly they do have an online store, but mostly they are brick and mortar. They do have an excellent rewards program that works both online and offline. And they are running this program through their rewards app. And they were actually one of the first brands in the states who developed the entire app for the rewards. And the good thing about it is that you need to, as a customer, you need to apply load money to your app, basically so you can spend it in Starbucks. And this gives them a lot of information about you as a customer, about your habits, about like your favorite drinks and stuff like that. And then they can customize their offers in the app for you specifically. So this app is just as convenient and important for them as it is for you. Because for Starbucks, this is mostly the data hub, basically. So that’s, That’s a good one. Yeah. Do you use any, like, rewards programs yourself, Alissa, with any brands?

Alissa: 29:17

I use Starbucks. I don’t ever load any money onto it because if I load money onto it, gosh, I would be broke. But I do have my card on there. Actually, while you’re talking about Starbucks, I’m like, huh? I Wonder how many Starbucks points I actually have. So I was just looking at it, but the other loyalty program that I actually use. Oh my gosh, I. This is. I have to shamelessly talk about this is Chick Fil A. I love Chick Fil A so much. It’s like been a horrific pregnancy craving of mine, but I don’t even care. So I actually downloaded the app a really long time ago when I used to work at a brick and mortar store in the mall. We had a Chick Fil A in that mall. And I used to order Chick Fil A all the time through the app because they would deliver it to our store directly. They would walk it over. And so I deleted the app because I was like, I need to stop buying Chick Fil A. Like, I just need to stop. So we actually just moved house. My husband and I, we have a Chick Fil A that’s literally five minutes away from us. And so the other day we show up to Chick Fil A and I was like, the drive through line is crazy. This is not going to happen. Like, we’re just going to do the curbside pickup. To do curbside pickup, you have to order on the app. So I was like, it’s fine. I’ll redownload the app, whatever it is. So I downloaded the app and I had so many points. I got both of our food for free. Like, totally for free. I could not believe it. I was in shock. So we go probably like once every week, if not once every two weeks, which again, shameless, but whatever. And so now I’m like, I have to keep the app. I’m only ever going to order through the app so I can get all the points. Because we can, over time get food for free. We do the same thing for Chipotle. Now we’re not huge on Chipotle these days, but when you rack up enough points and you get a free entree, it’s like, yes, it’s the most. You feel accomplished. You know, it’s really full.

Vira: 31:04

I do feel accomplished. Every time time I’m paying for something with my rewards. I was like collecting the points for this freaking $20 Starbucks cup. And I probably spent like 300 or $400 on coffee that I didn’t even want just to get that cup for free.

Alissa: 31:22

Exactly.

Vira: 31:22

It was like, I could have bought you that freaking cup. Yeah, but it’s just. It just shows you how powerful those reward programs can. Can be. And hey, if you don’t do discounts, because we work with a lot of brands who just they, they don’t do discounts. They, they don’t. That’s fine too. The shoe brand Toms, they don’t give customers any discounts either. But they have this loyalty program where you can actually do some sort of like charity for every purchase. So they reward every purchase with some sort of of non monetary incentives of creating change through different initiatives. So they have like different initiatives. For example, when you’re buying the pair of shoes, TOMS gives the pair of shoes to kids in needs, right. Or if you’re buying their glasses they will give some sort of help to people who need them who have the issues with like vision or when you’re buying their backpack they are giving saving money for like schooling for kids or stuff like that or one week of clean water or stuff like that. So you are basically even though you’re not getting like discounts or anything, you can still use your non monetary rewards and incentives of creating change through like different initiatives. And you can basically like pick what initiatives you will go with. And guys, we, we talked a lot about the brick and mortar exist examples here. But in email marketing there are so many ways you can use this, you can use this reward programs and two programs that we would like to recommend right off the bat and these are the programs that integrate nicely with Klaviyo are Swell and Smile. And if you go to episode number 22 we actually talked a lot about different tools and we talked a lot about loyalty. Loyalty and rewards programs. They are in detail. So if you are in search of a good strategy for rewards and loyalty go to episode number 22. So this was the third sort of strategy. Just promote a customer. Loyalty programs.

Alissa: 33:30

Yeah. And the fourth and I love that one by the way. Like the loyalty programs. Now I’m laughing because I’m like wow, I am a loyalty program sucker. Maybe not necessarily for e commerce brands but I’m just thinking like I’m like looking through all the apps in my phone and I’m like I have so many of these stupid store apps and it’s because of the loyalty programs like.

Vira: 33:50

You know, right.

Alissa: 33:52

It’s so encouraging to spend money.

Vira: 33:55

I’m literally right now going through the apps. So I have H and M, I have Zara, I have different. Like I have McDonald’s. Oh gosh.

Alissa: 34:05

You do? McDonald’s has one?

Vira: 34:07

Starbucks. Starbucks. I have, of course I have Starbucks. Too many apps. Too many reward program apps on my thing.

Alissa: 34:19

But again it’s like you said, it’s just additional proof that shows it works because even us who are in this business, we understand what these loyalty programs do, we get sucked in and how they work.

Vira: 34:31

Yeah, I know.

Alissa: 34:33

It works, it works, it works, it works. So our fourth and final strategy on how to turn your one time customers into loyal customers is to ramp up your content marketing. And this is a big one. It’s pretty generic. You can kind of take this in any direction that you want. But one of the things that I found personally makes our clients most successful in the email marketing world is having the ability to provide or add value to their customers aside from the actual products they sell. And sadly, this is actually something that we see a lot of brands miss the mark on, which is sad. But it’s also not surprising because when a company’s profits start to go sour just across the board, not even in e-commerce, what’s usually the first department that gets flushed? It’s always the marketing department, which is usually the worst department to flush when your sales are going bad. It’s such a crucial mistake that so many people make. Putting all this effort into creating a beautiful website with an amazing product, an incredible customer service department, beautiful packaging, it just doesn’t cut it anymore. That’s not enough for you to be successful and make it to the top when it comes to your competitors. What you need to do is you need to add the value again, aside from the product that you’re providing. Anyone can have a great product and anyone can hire someone to design a great website, but it takes a very special kind of someone to take the time to actually understand their customer, what they’re missing, what problems they have in their lives and how they can provide additional value. And this is where your content seriously comes into play. Business owners and even the clients that we work with, they tend to overlook their blogs, their articles, and their YouTube videos. You know, you have some clients that hop on board with us and they’re like, oh, we have a blog section of the website, but it hasn’t been updated since 2003.

Vira: 36:19

So accurate.

Alissa: 36:21

That just doesn’t cut it. And in the beginning we get it. Like, it’s really exciting to start creating this content for these different mediums. Ooh, I’m gonna write a blog post about this. Cause I’m so excited about my brand time. Obviously you get bogged down. There’s a lot that you have to keep up with in the E commerce world, but also with your product, making sure that you’re hiring people as your business grows, et cetera. So it is hard to maintain. We get it. But guess what? If was easy everyone would do it and everyone would be successful in it. So it’s clearly worth doing. Aside from the promotional emails, the emails that we see do best for our clients are the ones that provide some form of educational content or even an entertainment factor to their subscribers. And in this time of year, January specifically, even leading into February, March, sometimes that’s all you have to lean on. As an e-commerce brand, people are hungover from spending during the holidays, so the only thing that you can really do is give them relevant content that they, you don’t need to pay for. So make sure that you’re reviving your blog page, getting some engaging YouTube videos on your channel that even go through, like DIYs of how to use your product better, or like an unboxing video from a customer that’s added to your YouTube channel or whatever it is. Send out a downloadable content guide that will connect with your audience. Anything that is relevant to your product, anything that is relevant to your audience. The struggles that they go through, the pains that they go through, the problems that they have. Make sure that you really hunker down and focus on ramping that content because your customers will ultimately thank you and your revenue later on in the year will also thank you too. And again, this is one that like, it’s so hard because sometimes I want to step out of my email marketing role and be like, hey, listen, I’ll write your blog post for you. Because you just need them to our clients. Because it’s just, it kills me. You see stuff that’s from like 2010 and you’re like, this is so irrelevant. The information on this is beyond irrelevant. But they don’t have anything else. They don’t have anyone on staff that’s willing to write. And so, so we’re stuck, we’re limited with the kind of content that we can provide to their customers and so their campaigns start to suck. Which is the most blunt way to put it.

Vira: 38:31

And another mistake. Yeah. That people are doing, and that’s something I’ve noticed, is that they are trying to be everywhere.

Alissa: 38:38

Right.

Vira: 38:38

They are trying to be on YouTube, TikTok, I don’t know, like national television, blog. They’re trying to be everywhere at once. And yes, it might be a good strategy if you do have a lot of staff who’s willing to do it regularly. But if not, just go where your customers are. If you are selling supplements to like 70 years old people, I’m not sure if TikTok is the platform to talk to them through, maybe go to, I don’t know, like Facebook. Yeah, it’s sad. But Facebook is the platform for old people now. It’s just. And I’m still there, I’m still very much there. So I agree with you, Alissa. It’s just, it’s all about the being like systematic and posting something. It doesn’t have to be anything like extraordinary. You don’t have to do the PhD dissertation for each and every of your blog posts. It can be something as simple as, I don’t know, like sharing customer story. Right? It’s huge one. It’s huge one. And it is very much overlooked.

Alissa: 39:36

Yeah, for sure. And even, even with a customer story like one that I know, that works really well for a lot of your clients. Here is that before and after idea of sharing the customer story. But you have direct images so it’s using a lot of user generated content where you’re showing the before and after. Before someone had the product and now after they have the product. That stuff goes so far like it’s small things, small, small changes. You don’t need to write 5,000 pages worth of a blog post.

Vira: 40:01

Agree.

Alissa: 40:02

Just small little bits of content. They go so far.

Vira: 40:06

Customers love it. And search engines love it too. Even like putting together the FAQ section that we talked about. It’s not just for your customers to find the useful information. It is mostly for SEO. Believe it. SEO. Not CEO. For SEO. Believe it or not, for the search engine optimization and the blogs as well. If you want to be on top of this search engine, you’ve got to put some work, you’ve got to create some content. Something even simple. But you’ve got to do it.

Alissa: 40:37

Yeah. Couldn’t be more true. So there you have it. Your four ways to turn your one time customers into loyal customers. Thank you guys so much for joining us today. Make sure you don’t forget to subscribe and share this podcast with your friends. We actually got a really nice heartfelt email last week from a listener. It made us really excited. It was really cool to hear from her and she shared kind of her story, her e-commerce story with us and how helpful a lot of the stuff that we’ve talked about has been recently for her. So just make sure you share with your friends because you never know who it’s going to help. There may be a tidbit of information that we provide that either you or your friend is like, whoa, never thought about that before. And especially if they’re in the e commerce world, it could definitely help. Also make sure that if you have any questions at all that you’d like us to feature on our podcast episodes, go ahead and send them in at flowium.com/ask, we are more than happy to answer any questions you may have, take on any suggestions that you may have about how to make this podcast even better, and also if there are any specific topics that you want us to feature on any future episodes, just let us know. We are all ears. We are very open to hearing from all of you. And yeah, it makes us happy to hear from our listeners. So don’t feel afraid or nervous to reach out.

Vira: 41:56

And definitely come back next week. Because next week we will be talking about the ways to make her customers customers fall in love with your brand in February. And specifically we’ll be talking about the campaigns and what to say in those campaigns, what campaigns to send, what content to create in that campaigns. It is a good one. It is a fun one, yet very, very important. And we’ll be Talking about the St. Valentine’s Day as well, which is a big one for a lot of us in this industry. So come back. By the way, Alissa, I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I heard that a lot of men mispronounce the scent Valentines. They said sent Valentimes like time, you know, Valentime’s Day. And I tested it with a lot of my friends and believe it or not, a lot of my male friends, they do say sent Valentime’s. Like am. It’s so weird.

Alissa: 42:48

Yeah, I remember we used to call it that when we were in like elementary school.

Vira: 42:55

Well, people still doing that. So come back next week. We’ll do our research Saint Valentine’s versus Saint Valentime’s and we’ll reveal the result of the research. So come back next week for sure. Thanks for listening, you guys.

Alissa: 43:16

Thank you guys for listening. We’ll see you next week.

Vira: 43:19

Bye.