You’ve poured your blood, sweat and tears (and budget) into your Black Friday and Cyber Monday strategies and came out on the other side relatively unscathed. And hopefully, of course, your company reaped the benefits. Congratulations! But now the real work begins.
Like most retailers post-Cyber Week, you now have a list of newly acquired email subscribers and a strong base of new customers who took advantage of your holiday promotions for their first purchase. Resist the urge to sweep these costly acquisitions into the same funnel as your regular subscribers and first-time customers. Instead, implement a re-engagement strategy to evolve this valuable segment of shoppers into loyal, high LTV customers. But keep in mind that timing is of the essence, as 60% of second purchases occur within three months of the first purchase. After 100 days, it drops to a mere 10%!
Here are three strategies to re-engage these visitors to maximize your holiday investments.
1. Learn more about your customers and enable product discovery for them via interactive, educational content
Looking at a customer’s purchase and browsing data is a tried-and-true way to understand who she is and where her interests lie. However, holiday shopping can muddy your picture of your new customer and lead re-engagement strategies astray.
Given that 85% of shoppers’ online spending during the holidays will be on gifting purchases, the best way to be sure of someone’s interests may just be to ask! Use a simple, short survey so you can get to know them better and respond to their unique interests and intent — not the interests of the friends and family they shopped for during the holidays.
This strategy can also subtly highlight the array of categories, brands and collections the visitor may not know you have.
2. Target discount shoppers with relevant offers and discounted items
Many Cyber Week shoppers are hooked using steep discounts and offers. Consider targeting these deal seekers with content and recommendations that fit into their monetary mindset — while slowly easing full-priced items into their experiences as they continue to engage across your channels. For example, you can start by recommending only items that are on sale or clearance, highlighting the discounts they’d receive. This strategy would be best leveraged in email to drive new subscribers back to the site with a sense of urgency to make that coveted second purchase.
Over time, you can start to include full-priced – but still relevant – product recommendations in your emails to this group. It is also a good idea to mix in relevant full-priced items in the recommendations they see once they click through and land on your site.
3. Promote in-store offers with geo-targeting to enhance the brand experience and drive loyalty
Although e-commerce continues to expand rapidly, it’s important to remember that online purchases still make up just 15% of global commerce. Leveraging geographic data is a great opportunity to drive your new subscribers and customers to a physical location with in-store offers and promotions. Shopping in a brick-and-mortar location is a social and experiential way to introduce them to your brand — with a 60-70% chance of a purchase, to boot. What’s the best channel in which to apply this strategy? Focus on email, push notifications and triggered email to incentivize visitors to come back to the site to get more information. You can also remind them of where their local stores are with a real-time message the next time they return to your site.
Final Thoughts
Don’t waste the opportunity to engage the new customers you’ve gained during the holidays. Go forth and conquer with these innovative strategies for re-engaging this critical segment. Your bottom line and your customers will thank you.
This blog post was co-authored by Logan Goulett.
