Reminder emails for e-commerce: How to win your old friends back?

Reminder emails for e-commerce: how to win your old friends back?

What do e-commerce websites do to win their lost customers back? Certainly not by praying.

Most of them use powerful and persuasive emails instead. There is a logical reason why marketers are still utilising email marketing to remind them of the abandoned carts. A returning customer tends to spend more than a new customer. So it’s worth giving a little bit of push to get your old friends back to your party.

But is your reminder emails persuasive enough?

Everybody knows that a mass emailing doesn’t always bring success. Not everyone would be happy to receive an email about 50% off on cottage holidays in South Wales at 3 am. Not to mention that they’ll probably never open it.

Soon or later, your badly-timed and irrelevant email will be buried underneath hundreds of other emails.

The smarter, the better. 

I have already talked about ASOS’s smart use of email marketing to win its ex back by trying to fix the relationship. The content is straight to the point. The tone is friendly and not intrusive. They just ‘‘genuinely’’ want to know what went wrong.

It has 4 big call-to-action buttons and 20% discount that you can’t miss out. Even if it can’t win customers back, at least it will be able to gain valuable information to understand why they want to end the relationship. 

Like ASOS, the guys at Kate Spade also try to lure the consumer back to their e-commerce using discounts and free shipping (see Mainstreethost). Kate Spade send a reminder email with an exclusive 15% off about a week after you put something inside your shopping cart.

According to a study, ‘‘56% of people say coupons and rebates are critical in their decision to purchase’’ (see Mainstreethost). It provides consumers with an ‘unexpected’ positive shopping experience that they will remember and possibly share with friends later on. 

Build a strong relationship using emails

Net-A-Porter uses educational and informative contents to build a long-term relationship with consumers (see Funnelove). Reminder emails don’t have to be sent only when there is abandoned shopping carts or sales. But email marketing campaigns can be a useful and powerful tool to build consumer loyalty in a long run.

Net-A-Porter’s weekly email gives a nice summary of new trends, and some tips of the best matching items. Having combined high-quality imagery and educational content, it gives a magazine-feel that makes the email much more fun to read. Such engaging and helpful content also makes Net-A-Porter an expert that consumers can always rely on. 

Every little detail helps…

Why not leave your phone number and email to offer some extra help?

By adding a phone number alone, this reminder email gives you a sense that there is always someone out there to offer personal shopping assistance. 

The very last resort

Use cute puppies or kittens for emotional blackmail.

‘’I’ve missed you!’’ 

Just kidding.

‘Buy now!’ Or ‘Get it before it’s sold out!’ approach doesn’t work all the time. A sense of urgency can be helpful. But too much of it will only sound annoying and forceful to consumers.

A reminder email needs to stand out amongst a pile of other emails. There is a fine line between a useful reminder email and spam in the eyes of consumers.

A smart subject line, clear CTA, a smooth online shopping process, on the other hand, are the keys to help you fix the broken (or lost) relationships.

What do you think?

Appnova is a digital agency specializing in web design, UX, e-commerce, branding, digital marketing and social media.

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