Post-Purchase Email Drips: 5 Important Types And Some Best Practices in Automation

As marketers, we all know the journey never stops with the sale. While it takes quite a bit of effort to retain your customer, the fruits are more than borne out when comparing the costs and profitability. Every piece of relevant research shows us that it costs far less to retain existing customers than to market to and convert potential leads. The revenue gained from the former segment is also significantly more. This is simply because they are already convinced about the brand and / or the specific product or service. What’s more, your existing customer base increasingly and organically contributes to your marketing efforts through word-of-mouth and online referrals, particularly in this digital age of all things viral.

It, therefore, flows that every single message you send out to your first-time and repeat buyers serves to build trust and brand value. The easiest and most effective way to repeatedly touch base with these segments is through proactively sequenced email drip campaigns. These can also help you know your customers better through tracking and segmenting.

Why Automation For Your Post-Purchase Emails?

Simply put, automation makes your messaging to an established and invested subscriber base that much easier. It ensures your communication is sharp, fine-tuned, and timed to perfection. It also becomes easier for you to execute a drip campaign or a series of emails that speaks to the customer once they have successfully placed an order. Without the well-oiled automation tool, it can be challenging to reach out to an ever-growing customer base with highly relevant email marketing post-purchase.

5 Automated Post-Purchase Emails To Make An Impact 

There are certain kinds of post-purchase email campaigns that are more bang for the buck. They help connect with your customers without a hitch and have them coming back. They can also serve to get a strong message of care across, from the brand to your buyers.

Let’s look at 5 ever-evolving kinds of post-purchase email marketing campaigns that unfailingly make an impact.

1. A ‘Thank You’ Goes A Long Way

You can acknowledge your subscriber’s order with a clear and well-crafted message, especially for their very first order. It’s not necessary to have a CTA, but a button can also help you track actions and segment further.

Warby Parker’s email here has been crafted with a direct message and relevant details. The product images and descriptions have been added as bits of helpful reference, and the shipping timeline should stave off any customer queries. The brand has also taken the care to personalize the message with relevant phrases that will speak to the individual customer. It’s all in the smallest of details here.

You can also choose to incentivize the buy-in for the customer with a small but significant coupon, as this tea brand has done here.

This email injects an appropriate sense of urgency to ramp up the conversion rates. It also seeks to personalize the connect made with the customer; the product suggestions have been cleverly put together by analyzing the subscriber’s previous purchase(s). The bit of content marketing in the last segment definitely can’t hurt to build some additional rapport and engagement.

2. Foster Faith With Feedback

An effective way to let subscribers know you care about their brand buy-in and particular orders is by soliciting feedback. This message can go along with your ‘thank you’ email or follow-up in the specific workflow. You can stick to a simple rating on the email itself. You can also make the form as detailed as you need it, on a landing page ideally. Simply ensure the flow is streamlined for scanners and addresses the customer.

You can also add a gentle nudge for additional orders, as Mack Weldon had done here. They have also added striking and simple visuals as well as relevant text links for the secondary CTAs. These are minute details that can be effective tools to amp up click-throughs on these post-purchase drip campaigns.

3. Welcoming With Tutorials

Post-purchase guide emails comprise a sureshot automated campaign that can enhance engagement among your customers. It is an effective way to get across brand details and keep buyers satisfied and coming back.

The travel and leisure brand ‘Away’ has done this piece of communication quite successfully here with a crisp, fully explanatory email. They have taken the care to include every relevant detail that a first-time user / customer would need. The tone, with appropriate usage of ‘we’ and ‘you’, is empathetic and directly speaks to the customer.

Remember, the more visuals, including videos, the better and more comprehensive the tutorial. You can do this by adding standout CTA buttons leading to your website or a landing page. You can also choose to make the email itself more distinct and interactive with niftily designed GIFs.

4. Reel Them In With Rewards

How do you encourage your customers to keep coming back, filling up the cart, and checking out? In other words, how do you keep them from jumping ship to your competition?

Incentivizing your subscribers to make repeat purchases, time after time, is a crucial reason to automate your post-purchase email marketing. You can initiate this sequence with a call to sign-up or intimate them about an automatic onboarding to your rewards or loyalty program. Take care to briefly but clearly explain how it works. 

You can also automate regular updates on their points standing and how they can augment and use them. Try some standout, quirky communication for the curiosity factor and to improve click-throughs. Also, ensure the sign-up process is streamlined and straightforward, a one-step flow preferably.

Chipotle has nimbly addressed the ‘what’s in it for me’ point here by speaking to the customer. The steps are clearly explained, and the CTA is distinct. The secondary CTA is helpful, as is the casual and engaging tone.

5. Bolster The Brand Communication

So your email subscriber has successfully received their first order and perhaps made that all-important second purchase signifying their buy-in. Now what?

While automating your post-purchase email campaigns, it’s important to factor in communication fatigue and the need for breaks. You can ensure your email marketing to potential repeat-buyers is more well-rounded by integrating different kinds of communication. Research indicates that indirect content marketing can significantly contribute to engagement metrics.

Keep your customers in the loop and show them you value their buy-in with some relevant brand messaging. This could be about recent updates to your catalog, your most recent CSR or other initiative, or simply a round-up newsletter from the CEO. You can also speak more directly to the customer with communication about the impact of their orders (to the sustainability cause, for instance). Make sure these emails are personalized, at least to the extent of the address.

You can also, of course, make these emails more transactional by adding relevant details and CTAs, as The James Brand has done here.

Things To Keep in Mind While Automating Post-Purchase Emails

Here are a few points to keep in mind to have your automated post-purchase email marketing campaigns make the best impact possible:

• Track and tune for customer behavior: Customize your content, design, and overall flow in alignment with customer browsing and action patterns. In most cases, this customization has to be at the individual customer level.

• Address customers’ interests / pain points: Make sure every piece of communication speaks directly to your buyer. At each stage of crafting your email marketing ask yourself: ‘What should the customer know? Is this information useful for them?’ Segmenting plays a very important role here, too.

• Make a connection: This can’t be stressed enough: you have to strike a note with every customer. Personalization, of course, goes a long way in this regard. With all the new avenues of tracking customer information, you can effectively integrate your brand into their life and make it truly relevant to them.

• Get the timing right: While the ‘what’ of your post-purchase email campaigns is the crux, the ‘when’ is almost equally important. You should make sure the frequency is just right. Also, the time when your mail lands in the customer’s inbox is all the more important. You can’t go wrong if you track, test and tweak at every stage!

Wrapping Up

So, there you have it — the need for and some best practices in automating your post-purchase email marketing campaigns. By segmenting, streamlining, and sequencing your communication to potentially repeat buyers, your brand can speak volumes to retain and grow your base as well as your bottomline.

Do you want help with setting up effective email drips?  We can help.