Over the Black Friday Cyber Monday weekend, you’re likely to see an influx of new customers. Many of these customers will make their first and only purchase with your eCommerce store during BFCM. You might be wondering why that is… Well, with Black Friday being widely recognised as the biggest eCommerce sale event of the year, customers are willing to shop with new brands, because the perceived “risk” is minimized by the mass savings they’ll pocket. So it’s our mission to convince these customers to stick around for much longer than just one weekend.
It’s a well-known fact that acquiring new customers costs more than retaining existing ones — up to five times more in fact. So how can you increase the lifetime value of these new customers once BFCM is over? With strategic customer journey touchpoints that work on building a relationship and trust, while encouraging repeat purchases, of course.
In this last part of our Black Friday series, we’ll be covering why the following automations are crucial to retain new customers once the hype dies down:
- Nurture Series
- Post Purchase Series
- Review Request Series
Plus, we’ll give you some additional quick wins to ensure your new customers will stick around as long as possible.
Black Friday Cyber Monday will be here in no time, so reach out to our team if you need a hand getting prepared for the busy holiday season.
Now, let’s dive in!
Nurture Series to build a relationship with customers
A Nurture Series is a must-have automation for all brands to have in place (Black Friday aside). A Nurture Series gives you the opportunity to introduce your brand to customers, start to establish trust, and build a relationship. A Nurture Series can include a range of messaging including:
- Brand story
- Unique selling proposition
- Introduction to your product range
- Customer reviews
- Customer service details
- Incentive to purchase
- A ‘meet the team’ feature
- Blogs or other resources
If you have a Nurture Series (or Welcome Series, whatever you prefer to call it) in place, consider putting it on pause during BFCM weekend. This is so customers can get to know your brand properly, without the distractions. With the countless emails that customers are guaranteed to receive over BFCM, a Nurture Series could get lost in the shuffle. Your Nurture Series should aim to prime customers for their first purchase — or in the case of post-BFCM, their second or third.
With BFCM kicking off the busy holiday season, don’t wait too long after the weekend is over to switch your Nurture Series back on. It could make the difference between these new customers coming back to purchase from you for the holidays or in the new year. After all, Christmas is the season to treat yourself (and others), so you want new customers to keep your brand in mind.
Post Purchase Series to prime customers for their next purchase
A good customer experience will help your brand to stand out from the crowd. When people place an online order, they expect to receive an order confirmation email — plus continuous order updates along the way. A Post Purchase series is designed to go one step (or in our case, a few steps) further than simply thanking customers for their purchase. After receiving countless offers during the Black Friday period, you want to make sure your emails stand out — especially to new customers.
A good Post Purchase series will work on building up customer loyalty by utilizing a number of different tactics — one key tactic being targeted messaging. In a Post Purchase automation, you can separate customers based on the number of purchases they’ve made, and tailor the copy to suit. You can do this two main ways — firstly through the use of conditional splits in the automation to separate first time purchasers from repeat purchasers. The second option is to have separate automations to differentiate between these two customer groups.
A Post Purchase series is also designed to work customers up to their next purchase. This can be done a number of ways, for example by:
- Cross-selling products i.e. ‘because you purchased [product name], we thought you might like these’
- Reminding customers that it’s time to replenish their product e.g. ‘Time for a top up?’
- Providing an incentive to make another purchase
Be sure to add the right flow filters to your automation — for Klaviyo users, a Post Purchase series should have the filter of ‘has placed order zero times since starting this flow’. When creating an exceptional customer journey, you want customers to feel like the emails they’re getting are tailored to them. If they’ve already placed an order, or used their discount and they receive an automated email that says ‘hey, you haven’t used your discount’ when in fact they have, this can damage the customer experience.
For more tips, stay tuned for our upcoming blog, ‘How To Create a Valuable Post Purchase Series to Increase Conversions’.
Review Request Series to encourage brand engagement and collect UGC
Once customers have received their new items that they purchased during BFCM, it’s a great opportunity to request a product review. This can be done through a dedicated review series, or at the end of your Post Purchase series. Letting these new (and existing) customers know that their opinion is valued is a great way to continue building trust.
If you’re using Okendo, it’s simple to insert the dynamic block that prompts customers to begin their review by giving their purchase a star rating. If you also have a loyalty program, you can incentivise customers to leave a review by offering loyalty points. For non-loyalty members, if you choose to provide an incentive (say a 10% or $10 discount), be sure to add a set expiry time. This motivates customers to promptly make their next purchase, instead of running the risk that their discount will expire or that they’ll simply forget about it. For loyalty members, if you choose to award points instead of a set discount, this means your customers are able to save their points until they’ve got enough to redeem a higher value discount.
You can check out our Okendo case study here to see how we incentivised reviews for World Fitness by separating loyalty members from non-loyalty members.
If you are using SMS, think about how you can intertwine SMS within your review request email automation. With SMS subscribers being among your most engaged audience members, you’re likely to see an increased review rate using this method.
Bonus tips
Don’t miss the opportunity for customers to subscribe
If you read the first instalment of our BFCM blog series (Building Your Database and Segmenting Your Audience) you’ll know that we touched on data capture forms. A strategy we mentioned was implementing an ‘early access’ list for new and existing customers to sign up to (in the absence of a loyalty program). So, ensure you are adding these customers to your regular newsletter list once BFCM is over, so that they can continue to receive email marketing material from you.
Provide opt-ins at the checkout
Another easy way to nurture new customers after they make a purchase during the BFCM weekend is by providing opt-in options at the checkout. This can include signing up to email marketing and SMS (if your store uses SMS marketing that is — and we recommend that you do).
Make sure your Customer Service is top notch
A bad experience can leave a bitter taste in a customer’s mouth. If they’ve had one good experience followed by a bad experience, they’ll likely remember the bad one. Don’t undo all of the great marketing you’ve done for Black Friday Cyber Monday by having a poor customer experience in the days after. Here are three key points to have in place:
- Clear customer service contact details
Provide this on your website and in your order confirmation email, or early on in your Post Purchase series - Prompt response times
Live chat platforms like Gorgias are great for this. - Simple returns policy
If returns are too difficult, you risk losing repeat business
If you’ve received an influx of orders over BFCM (and we expect you will) shipping times could be delayed. It happens. So be sure to communicate with your customers if you can’t fulfil their orders within the usual timeframe. Your customers will appreciate being kept in the loop as they eagerly await their new purchases.
The wrap up
Black Friday is a huge event in the eCommerce world. Last year in Australia alone, online sales jumped up a massive 42% over the BFCM weekend. This year’s event is not one to miss — for both retailers and customers. But it’s the steps you take after Black Friday that will help you to retain new customers long term and really see your ROI increase. That’s why we recommend having solid email automations in place that will help you to foster a relationship with these new customers, including:
- Nurture Series
- Post Purchase Series
- Review Request Series
Plus, as we covered, it’s key to have solid customer service practices in place to make your overall customer experience stand out.
Ready to get started?
Get in contact with our team here to get started with your Black Friday strategy, or to implement key customer journey automations.