Win Back Campaigns for eCommerce: make them come back ( Part 1 )

Acquiring customers costs too much to resign ourselves while watching them leave or, almost worse, to see their interest in our online store fade away little by little. Is there anything we can do to prevent it? Well, precisely, that's what we're going to talk about throughout this post.

 

Best of all, we're going to give you several examples of Win Back campaigns in eCommerce, to inspire you.

It's normal to start at the beginning, so let's briefly define what this type of email marketing campaign is.

 

Of course: win back is an emailing action. It basically consists of creating a journey or flow of emails to which a strategy is applied for reactivating inactive users, buyers, or subscribers.

How is this achieved? There are different Win Back strategies, although they all start from something as simple and complicated at the same time: getting them to open our emails.

 

Here are some ideas and strategies:

 A good Win Back campaign for eCommerce is not based on just one of these strategies. The ideal is to work on each of these resources in each email and, in case the user does not react to them, try another one (always in a strategically planned manner).

Actually, this will always depend on each business, but you can take as a reference or good practice a period: 3 months since the last interaction.

 

This is a sufficient time frame to understand that this user might not buy again, but it is not so long that they have forgotten their previous experience.

 

That's why it is important to segment our database effectively.

 
Usually based on three criteria:

 We use this method, known as RFM analysis, where from these values we can classify our customers to define and automate our Win Back emailing flow.

As usual, the best way to understand these concepts is by using some real examples.

 

For this, we are going to look at various types of emails, within different campaigns that, as we say, we will illustrate with some interesting captures.

We put it in first place because it is always the most effective. Even so, it should also be the last resort to bring customers back, since it is the least profitable of all and the one that least creates loyalty (people who respond to this stimulus always expect a better offer in the future).

 

Let's see how Missguided resolves this type of emails

Asks directly: "Are you still with us?" This generates empathy and a sense of community/belonging.

 

Then, highlighted as a call to action, "grab" this 30% discount. In just two lines, it has captured our attention and made us a value proposition.

 

The rest of the text and images are used to tell us everything that has changed since we've been gone and to show relevant products.

 

We can see many more examples, like this one from Sephora with a more aggressive look and text.

"Where have you been?", asks in red, and in the same color, "We've missed you," to nuance. It's a bit intimidating, but it must be acknowledged that it catches the eye.

 

What seems interesting to me about this proposal is to use a coupon with a physical look and with the validity included on the support itself.

 

A more subtle and friendlier idea, but inspired by the same mechanism, is this one from The Bakerista.

The proposal is radically opposite to the previous one. Simple, almost minimalist, with an approach ("What happened? We've missed you") that's closer, almost as you would ask a friend you haven't seen in a long time.

 

The online discount is substantial, but it's not the most visually highlighted. We could say that the product and the two-for-one offer in physical stores is much more striking.

 

Another very direct idea, which relies especially on the text to capture our attention, is this Win Back email sent by Nordstrom to its customers.

"We've really missed you, a lot..." just with that parenthesis they manage to break a sentence that, otherwise, could seem like a standard social formula.

 

It fosters a feeling of closeness, of speaking to us directly.

 

The offer is interesting, but I would also highlight from this proposal the use of a person: a woman with a happy appearance. It is well known that when we see an image of someone smiling, we tend to smile unconsciously as well, and this predisposes us favorably.

 

That's it for the first part on Win Back campaigns for online stores, where we have focused on the offer as a method of retention. But there is more we have to talk to you about...