Email is often a critical success factor for most e-commerce stores. But not knowing which emails to use at the right Customer Lifecycle Stage could be hurting profits.
If you're a marketer, you're probably familiar with the traditional model of a Customer Lifecycle:
• Reach
• Acquisition
• Develop/ nurture
• Retention
• Advocacy
Look familiar?
What if I told you that you could simplify this further for your emails, and drive more sales with your customers?
In the e-commerce email world, a simplified model looks like this:
• New (potential) customers
• Existing customers
• Lapsed customers
Far easier to remember 💡
Often, the trick to making more sales is simply tailoring your emails to where in these 3 simplified stages of the Customer Lifecycle your customers are.
How Email Improves E-commerce Customer Lifecycle Value
So, what can you do to improve the value of your e-commerce customers? It starts with sending the right email at the right time!
As you can see in the image below, we've simplified each stage of the Customer Lifecycle and illustrated some of the email opportunities you can use to grow your revenue and client relationships at each stage:
Let's take a look at how email improves e-commerce customer lifecycle value at each stage.
The New Customer Lifecycle Stage
Your email opportunities here are designed to tell potential customers more about who you are as a business, what you have to offer and why spending their money with you is the right decision.
Here you can use emails such as:
• Welcome sequences, to nurture them and gain their trust.
• Site abandonment emails, to tell them why they should stay on your page.
• Price drop emails, to incentivise their first purchases.
• Abandoned cart emails to let them know why it makes sense to part with their cash.
At this stage, it is critical to make your sole focus illustrating the value you bring to potential buyers. People hate being sold to, so convince them to spend their money with you through value.
The Existing Customer Lifecycle Stage
Here the goal of your emails is to offer continuous value, build your relationship with your customers and get them to advocate for your brand.
Here you can use:
• Product feedback emails, to improve your offer to your customers.
• Cross-sell & upsell emails, to add further value to existing products or offers.
• Product replenishment, to remind clients about recurring items.
It's easier to retain a customer than obtain new buyers, so the focus here is to use email to improve their buying experience, offer further value and act as a trusted partner to your customers, instead of merely making them another consumer.
The Lapsed Customer Lifecycle Stage
Finally, your goal here is to retain clients and win back their engagement with your emails and products. How do you do this? Find out why they stopped buying in the first place and entice them back by plugging in the potential lack of value that caused them to stop spending money with you.
Here you can use:
• Personalised check-ins, to show they aren't just another buyer of your products
• Re-engagement emails, to entice them to interact with your emails and take action
• Win-back emails, to incentivise them to buy again and create further interaction
Winning the attention and expenditure of your customers back doesn't have to be difficult, Learn what motivates them, find out where you're missing the mark and improve. Lapsed customers are great teachers to businesses about how they can improve their offerings.
Regardless of what email you send and at which stage you're sending it, always add value. If you don't our emails will forever be lost in the flurry of competition in your customers' inboxes.
Before you go! Email ROI is one of the highest across all marketing channels. How do you grow your business from email without an email database? Learn the fastest ways to grow your email list today by clicking here or on the image below 👇
Want more tips like these? Get our expert email guide today! Click here to find out more
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