You’ve been crazy busy, haven’t you? We get it – between Black Friday, Cyber Week and pretty much the entire month of December, you’re slammed.
There’s a bright spot to all of this. You’re making sales. Lots of sales.
So how are you going to use this momentum to your advantage after the holidays?
We have a simple idea – create reward emails.
Stick with us, because a reward email doesn’t have to be based on a point system.
In this article we’re going to cover reward emails end-to-end.
We’ll share trends and stats about customer retention and lifetime value.
This will help you see just how important reward emails can be.
Then you’ll see real-life examples of reward campaigns converting at over 20%.
And finally, we’ll show you how to create these campaigns in Remarkety.
Here’s the breakdown.
– Trends around online shopping and customer retention
– Real examples of reward emails that grow retention
– How to create intelligent reward emails that bring customers back
Online Shopping Trends And Customer Retention Stats
Over half of yearly revenue for most eCommerce shops comes in right around now.
It’s probably safe to say a good chunk of these orders are probably from first-time shoppers.
You want them to come for the deals and stay for your amazing products.
Most customers won’t shop with you again, though.
Really, really good companies see 25% to 40% of customers placing repeat orders.
That means most customers that buy with you during November and December will never buy from you again.
If one-and-done shoppers can be turned into repeat customers, there is a big opportunity.
Value of a One-And-Done Shopper VS Repeat Customers
We actually ran a study on 5,000 eCommerce shops using Remarkety with at least 100 orders.
We found the average lifetime value of a customer with one order is $137.62.
Here’s the kicker.
The average lifetime value of a customer with more than one order is $333.90.
Here are some other numbers around how big this opportunity actually is.
In this article on Econsultancy, it was reported that increasing customer retention rates by 5% can increase profits by 25% to 95%.
In the same article, another couple of stats are reported.
The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60 to 70% while the probability of selling a new prospect is 5 to 20%.
Now let’s take a few steps back and think about this from a different angle.
Imagine you reduced the number of one-and-done’s by 10% or even 20%.
This means you can spend a heck of a lot more on acquiring new customers.
Better retention means higher customer lifetime value.
Thus, there are more available marketing dollars for customer acquisition.
Or building a vault equipped with its own ski mountain made of legal tender.
So how do you get better retention and make the most of all these new customers?
The simplest and most effective way to keep customers coming back are reward emails.
Forget the complicated point systems.
Reward customers based on their spending.
It’s simple, really.
Let’s say someone spends $200 on your website.
A reward email can be automatically delivered with a coupon code for 5% off their next order.
And as the customer spends more, a scaling reward system can automatically deliver their next coupon code.
Of course, the size of the coupon and how much a customer is required to spend to be a “VIP” all depends on your store.
Choose to make the VIP and rewards difficult to attain, or be more inclusive.
Rewards Email Campaign Examples
Here are some reward campaigns to consider imitating – assuming conversion rates over 20% put a pep in your step.
Dressabelle and Dollboxx deliver emails based on the amount of money spent.
Dressabelle
Subject Line: We Have BIG Rewards Just For You!
This rewards email sent by Dressabelle is delivered after a customer spends more than $150. Dressabelle leverages a scaling reward system so after a customer spends $300, they get another coupon.
Metrics
– Open Rate: 80%
– Click Rate: 17%
– Conversion Rate: 47%
– Revenue/Email Sent: $21.67
If you’d rather not let your customers know how much they’ve spent with you, take the Dollboxx approach.
Customers don’t need to know they’ve spent hundreds of dollars with you to earn that coupon.
Dollboxx
Subject Line: $15 Off Your Next Order
This rewards email by Dollboxx is delivered to customers after spending a total of $500.
Metrics
– Open Rate: 87%
– Click Rate: 18%
– Conversion Rate: 23%
– Revenue/Email Sent: $31.35
The big boys are running reward campaigns, too. Here’s one from ASOS and another from Bezar.
ASOS
Subject Line: Pssst Max – here’s your 30%-off sale preview!
This email from ASOS was triggered because I’m an ASOS VIP entitling me to a special discount before a new collection is launched.
As we’ve discussed in this article, how to grow sales without coupons, making customers feel like they are a VIP can be enough to stimulate a new sale, even without a coupon.
Bezar
Subject Line: You’re a Bezar VIP
Bezar delivered this email because I placed a series of orders when the company first launched.
Segmenting customers based on when they placed an order means the messaging can be more relevant.
More relevant emails are more likely to be clicked and lead to an order.
How to Segment Reward Campaigns
There are a many different ways to segment reward campaigns in Remarkety.
The most popular include segmenting by amount of money spent, which Dollboxx and Dressabelle are doing.
Here’s how to design reward emails based on total spend.
1. In your Remarkety dashboard, click ‘Rewards program (total amount spent)’ in the blue bar.
2. Select ‘Customer’s total spending’ from the drop down in the additional segmentation section. Then define who qualifies for this email based on their spending.
3. Edit email design and put it into ‘Run’ mode.
If you’d rather not deliver emails based on spending, you can choose to deliver them based on the number of customer orders.
Here’s how to design reward emails based on number of customer orders.
This campaign can be critical at targeting the folks with only one order.
1. In your Remarkety dashboard, click ‘Rewards program (number of orders)’ in the blue bar.
2. Select ‘Number of customer’s complete orders’ from the drop down in the additional segmentation section. Then define who qualifies for this email based on the number of customer orders.
3. Design the email and put it into ‘Run’ mode.
Other Types of Emails to Reward Customers
Aside from rewarding customers based on their spend or number of orders, there are other ways to reward customers.
Deliver rewards based on purchase date like Bezar did to identify early adopters.
These types of emails can be triggered a certain number of days after a purchase to target shoppers that ordered gifts around the holidays or a special occasion.
Another option is delivering rewards based on products purchased.
Products purchased in the past are an indicator of tastes and interests which makes up-sells more effective.
Let’s go over how to design a reward email based on order history.
1. In your Remarkety dashboard, click ‘Order follow up’ in the blue bar.
2. Define when you want this email to be delivered based on when the order was complete. Make sure to choose the order status that indicates an order was successful or has been completed.
3. Choose which product or category a customer has purchased from the drop down in the additional segmentation section.
4. Design the email and put it into ‘Run’ mode.
So I’m sending reward campaigns, now what?
Well, you should see new sales start rolling in. If not, you might not have enough customers that qualify for your rewards.
Like all well-oiled email campaigns, keep an eye on the performance like opens, clicks and conversions.
Consider setting up A/B test which you can learn more about here.
Ultimately, you’re going to want to see an uptick in returning customers to determine if this campaign is truly working for your store.
Have questions? Drop us a line here.
Other articles for your reading pleasure
– Your complete guide to holiday emails in 2015 and 2016
– 8 reasons customers never open your emails
– Best email marketing practices for eCommerce
Photo source: Den of Geek, Michael Nagle
