Successful ecommerce marketing includes win-back emails. Bravo if all your contacts open and buy your emails regularly! Some online stores are lucky.
Winback emails are used to keep contacts from abandoning a brand. Let’s look at best practices for re-engagement campaigns.
What is Winback Email?
A win-back email is an ecommerce email sent to inactive (idle) customers. In ecommerce, inactive means people who haven’t bought anything in a long time and are considered likely to churn.
Winback emails are designed to re-engage lost customers, bring them back to your ecommerce store, and encourage them to re-order.
Why send a winback email?
Those customers have previously bought from you. It’s a waste to let them go. Getting new customers is costly and difficult. So customer retention benefits any ecommerce business. It’s 5 times easier to get repeat orders from existing customers when you know their shopping habits.
You already know their preferences and shopping habits. Post-purchase email marketing using these data is easier than acquiring new customers.
Winning Back Lost Customers
People can lose interest in your brand for many reasons. And it’s not always a bad purchase. They don’t always need your products. Not everyone regularly checks online stores. Maybe inactive subscribers just got busy with life.
So, how do we re-engage them? This is not the same as sending promotional emails to your entire list. Many people stop opening brand emails because they are all the same.
How to stand out in a winback campaign
Make your winback email interesting, relevant, and actionable. Here are some ideas for your re-engagement email campaign:
- Fun. Reconnect with an old friend.
- Take advantage of limited-time offers to increase FOMO (free shipping or special edition products).
- Incentives. Invite them to your loyalty program or give them a discount coupon.
- Feedback. Ask about their last order to see if they want more.
- New? Announce new products or company news.
- Top sellers Feature the most popular items.
- Values. Keep reminding people of your values or causes.
- Occasions. Send a birthday email to reconnect.
Winback Email Tips
A winback email is easy. Your message, maybe a featured product, and a shop CTA. But the campaign must be done correctly to be effective.
Balance is key in email marketing. Any campaign should be timely and relevant.
1. Define “lapsed customers” for your own company
The sales cycle varies depending on the product. Not as much as evening wear or appliances. If you sell staples, don’t wait too long to recoup lost customers. But if people only buy from you once or twice a year, there’s no reason to worry.
2. Automate list cleanup
If your winback email campaign doesn’t work, automate the process of removing the contact from your list. So you can keep emailing only those who want to hear from you and improve email deliverability.
3. Hit the inbox just at right time
Winback emails, especially those with limited-time offers, must be opened immediately. You don’t want to keep waiting for a customer who has left. So your email campaign software should be able to schedule emails based on past data.
4. Reactivate email unsubscribers
What if email subscribers unsubscribe after receiving a winback email? Give them a second chance. Ask for consent to marketing emails at checkout and in order confirmation emails.
5. Send it from a brand account, not a person
If people have forgotten the brand, they must be reminded. It’s not the time to build relationships with strangers.
6. Personalize it
Marketing emails often lose their impact because they are too generic. Another mass email won’t work now, after all this time. They must feel that you have personally contacted them and addressed their concerns.
7. Don’t always run winback
A regular “promotion” loses its appeal and exclusivity. Winback emails should only be sent when a customer has been inactive for a long time.
8. A/B test everything
Testing will reveal your audience’s preferred winback emails. You can’t know what will work best until you test different subject lines, offers, and sequences.