Congrats! Someone has purchased from your site. So now what happens? While many people think the job of marketing is to get someone to buy from your site, the real goal of marketing is to bring them back to purchase from you again and again. The ultimate goal: create a sustainable pipeline of happy, healthy customers who purchase from you on a frequent basis ensuring a viable business model. After all, finding new customers is expensive and time–consuming. Bottom line, a one-and-done model isn’t going to cut it.
One way to decrease the amount of work on your marketing team after the initial sale is to create a post purchase series. A good post purchase series ensures your customers are keyed in to relevant content, opportunities to purchase, and other goings on within the organization. If you read the Lifecycle Marketing Deep Dive – Welcome Series piece, you’ll notice that the goal of a welcome series is to build rapport. The goal of a post purchase series is to continue building trust and creating more opportunities for a second purchase. When looking at a post purchase series, there are three musts to keep in mind.
Post Purchase Series Must
Must 1: Be Relevant & Segment
In this day and age, customers expect tailored, relevant messages. Use the data you already have on your customers—including onsite behavior, preference site data, and purchase data—to curate content to send to your customers based on their interests. If you’re sending every email to every person in your database, chances are your subscribers are feeling fatigued.
Part and parcel with staying relevant, you need to segment your customer base. Not every customer has the same interests or even threshold. For example, you may approach your big spenders with different options than someone who only purchases from the clearance section of the site.
Take a look at the data on your customers and create some buckets of content that will be relevant across wide swaths. This will not only help you retain more of your customers, but also allow your team to scale their efforts.
Must 2: Give Them a Reason to Buy More
This “must” could probably fall within the “be relevant” category; however, beyond just curating relevant content, it’s important that you’re finding ways to show your customers why it makes sense to purchase from you. Whether it’s a discount on the second purchase, free shipping, or even an opportunity to get VIP status…whatever it is your business offers to its customers, now’s the time to make that shine.
Must 3: Create a Three-Part Series (At a Minimum)
Make sure that you’re doing more than simply sending an order confirmation. Creating a three-part post purchase campaign allows you to reach out to new customers without being overbearing. When creating this series, it’s a good idea to come up with reasons to reach out beyond just “hey, buy this thing.” Borrowing from work you’ve done on your welcome series, what are the things that set you apart from your competitors? Why should someone buy from you in the first place and what perks do they get for continuing to buy from you? Tap into that information and create your series based on these highlights.
Post Purchase Series: The Beginning of a Beautiful Relationship
The first purchase is just the tip of the iceberg in unlocking customer potential. A well-timed, relevant post purchase series can be the difference between a customer who purchases from you once and never returns and a loyal, happy customer. If you’re interested in learning more about how we can help you create curated, relevant email series, such as the post purchase series, simply reach out.
