Everyone loves growing their customer base.
With new customers comes new opportunities, new engagement, and new sales.
However, it costs 5 times more to attract new customers than to retain existing ones.
So, why aren’t more brands focusing on keeping their current customers happy and loyal?
Customer loyalty is highly beneficial for any business. Happy customers equal repeat purchases, word of mouth referrals, user-generated content (UGC), and brand advocates.
To help you and your brand experience all of these benefits, here are 10 email marketing campaigns that increase customer loyalty.
Welcome
Whether your goal is customer loyalty or not, welcome campaigns are an email marketing must-have, generating up to 60% in open rates and 14% in click through rates.
For many customers, the welcome campaign is one of the first communications they will receive from your brand. Usually sent after initial sign up or first purchase, this is a point when the recipient is highly engaged. So perfect for making a good impression.
Treat your welcome campaign like your shop front; using it as a chance to showcase your brand with striking imagery and snappy copy. As well as including relevant information such as contact details, social channels, and store locations.
Post purchase
Once a customer makes a purchase, the hard work isn’t over.
Key to customer loyalty is ensuring your consumers feel confident in the buying process. So brands should ensure customers are kept up to date with every step of the post-purchase journey.
This includes a purchase confirmation and even a thank you email, and updates throughout the delivery process, from when the item has been dispatched through to final delivery.
Recommended products
Consumers today expect a personalised buying experience.
That means one-size-fits-all product recommendations no longer cut it.
Brands have masses of data available to them. This can be utilised to showcase the most relevant products to each individual.
For instance, brands can use recent browsing and buying behaviour to recommend similar or popular items to consumers who have yet to make a purchase. Or cross-sell related items to the customer post-purchase.
Abandoned browse and basket
Similarly, abandoned browse and basket campaigns are another way of providing consumers with highly relevant, personalised product recommendations. All helping to streamline their buying journey.
If a potential purchaser has been browsing specific products, and even added them to their basket, but is yet to check out, make this final step a breeze for them.
Brands can automate highly targeted browse and basket abandonment emails to remind the recipient of the product they’re missing out on. But also address any potential concerns that may be stopping them from purchasing. This can be done through FAQS, reviews, or by offering alternative products.
Anniversary
Nothing shows a customer you value them more than celebrating their special days.
Whether it be their birthday, their wedding anniversary, or simply the anniversary of when they first signed up with you. Make sure your customers feel special by sending them an anniversary celebration.
This should be personalised to them as much as possible. So consider including their first name, a relevant banner image, and even a personalised discount code as an anniversary gift.
Pre-launch
Customers love feeling like VIPs. And every VIP loves a pre-launch.
Before you launch your latest product, sale, or event, give your loyal customers a sneak peek and an opportunity to bag the best items before everyone else.
Not only does this support customer loyalty, but it is also a great opportunity to get your happy customers to create some buzz around your main launch. Ready for the big day.
Exclusive offers
As well as pre-launches, another way to make a customer feel like a VIP is by sending them exclusive offers that the rest of the world doesn’t have access to.
This could include an exclusive sale or promotion for your most loyal customers. Or, you could use dynamic content to send individual, personalised discount codes to each of your recipients. Adding that element of personalisation that makes them feel recognised.
Feedback
Asking for feedback isn’t just beneficial for brands, it also helps customers to feel listened to. And gives them an opportunity to input into the business.
You can ask for feedback as part of the post-purchase communication journey, in the form of ratings or reviews.
But you can even use feedback for those consumers who never made a purchase, but have browsed regularly or added items to their basket. By asking them why they didn’t check out, you are gathering insightful information. Whilst also showing the consumer that you care about their experience.
Community
If you have a customer base that regularly offers up reviews, testimonials, and social media posts. Then show them off.
Building a sense of community around your brand is a fantastic tactic to build up customer loyalty.
It reassures customers as they can see others who trust your brand and buy from you. And it also triggers a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out) as they want to be part of the community, and brand, too.
Re-engagement
Sometimes, even though you’ve put time and effort into making your customers feel special, they simply don’t engage with your brand.
As we’ve mentioned, it costs more to bring on a new customer than to keep an existing one. So, with this in mind, don’t let this customer go easily,
Instead, send them a re-engagement campaign to grab their attention once again.
Focus on sparking engagement with the recipient. Whether that is by sharing your social media channels, promoting products they will love, or including a time-limited discount code.
Would you like to increase customer loyalty for your business?
Then as well as these email campaigns, we have lots of tactics and strategies that will help you create long term brand advocates.
Get in touch with our team of industry experts to find out more.