In this blog, we will take a look at what can be done to transform a single purchaser into a returning customer. This is a very important activity for ecommerce websites and involves the use of marketing tools and content marketing.
In the customer lifecycle we are describing, the organisation has used visitor behaviour to personalise content (using a marketing automation software product such as HubSpot). You will know that customers have purchased items using a secure online payment system and completed the customer registration process. The next challenge for digital marketers is how to encourage those customers to return and purchase again.
The purchase process has provided the organisation with some customer details such as name, shipping and billing address and email. This opens up the opportunity to start targeted communication - via email newsletters, abandoned basket emails or purchase and delivery confirmation emails.
Three opportunities to reconnect with these customers:
- Use order and delivery confirmation emails as an opportunity to promote up-sell and cross-sell offers: Firstly, you know that these will be of particular relevance to that individual. These can be based not just on what they have purchased, but also on what they have browsed and searched for during their time on the organisation’s website. By being proactive with personalised communication, digital marketers have the opportunity to draw customers into personalised offers and encourage them to share further information about themselves. For example, a personalised email enquiring why a basket has been abandoned may highlight a previously unknown problem experienced by the customer during the payment process or give insight into that individual customer’s online purchasing concerns and motivations. The organisation then has the opportunity to rectify that problem or deal with the individual’s concerns and consequently win the sale.
- Use cookies to get a picture of an individual over time: Such as how often they visit the site, how long it has been since their first and last visit, which campaign they arrived on the website from, how long they spent on the website and which products they looked at or searched for each time. This builds even greater insight into that individual’s interests and motivations to help drive highly relevant, well-timed content with the website or via other channels such as email or even a call centre.
- Use specific personalised tactics to target specific events: Tactics such as personalised birthday offers, confirmation emails with highly relevant personalised offers and a slick buying process are a small part of a wider digital marketing campaign, all of which should hold personalisation as a key component.
The next major difficulty to overcome
Setting the rules of the campaign can be a challenge and adapting them quickly to react to online customer behaviour was once an even bigger challenge. However, through the use of technology such as marketing automation software, organisations can have the capability to allow digital marketers the freedom to customise page content on-the-fly and adapt rules in real-time. You have to use and operate logic and quickly adapt it to reflect behaviour and success.
Segmenting your base by other types of behaviour
There are other types of behaviour which will help build a closer relationship more quickly. Does a customer browse at a specific time during the day? Does the customer browse using a specific type of device? Examination of your data might show that mobile devices are more prominently used during certain times of the day and, therefore, offers more suitable to mobile browsing would work better during these times. Bringing this down to the individual is possible by using intelligent lists based on behaviour. You can then construct commercial offers which fit better and are more likely to resonate with them.
Next steps
These types of programmes are important for e-commerce organisations who want to improve performance and convert a single purchase customer into a frequent purchaser.
If you are really interested in adding this to your business then one of the first steps is to starting using a system such as Hub Spot. Additionally, you should be considering using a content marketing agency to drive your marketing software. You can find out more about this from us by clicking below.
If you liked this blog then you might also like this previous blog too: http://inbound.itqsolutions.net/blog/6-actions-to-combat-e-commerce-customer-indifference