There are two huge benefits of sending win-back emails.
First, you may be able to rekindle old, inactive relationships a customer once had with your business. That's right: it means returning customers and more sales.
Second, you'll be able to delete subscribers whose email addresses are no longer in use (or who have simply lost interest in a business altogether).
And that means a more efficient email list, higher open rate, and more engagement.
Find out how to launch a working win-back email campaign from this episode.
Then check out real-life win-back email examples in our blog post.
Create beautiful email signup forms, coupon boxes, and pop-up surveys for your store with Getsitecontrol.
There are two huge benefits of sending win-back emails.
First, you may be able to rekindle old, inactive relationships a customer once had with your business. That's right: it means returning customers and more sales.
Second, you'll be able to delete subscribers whose email addresses are no longer in use (or who have simply lost interest in a business altogether).
And that means a more efficient email list, higher open rate, and more engagement.
Find out how to launch a working win-back email campaign from this episode.
Then check out real-life win-back email examples in our blog post.
Create beautiful email signup forms, coupon boxes, and pop-up surveys for your store with Getsitecontrol.
Hi,
You’re listening to Getsitecontrol Insider – a monthly podcast where we talk about marketing strategies for ecommerce.
In today’s episode, we’re going to cover win-back emails, one of the often-overlooked tactics that can help you bring inactive customers back.
Without further ado, let’s dive right in.
The idea of winning back a past customer may seem strange at first, but think about it for a second. Relationships of any kind go stale, and that includes the ones consumers make with a business like yours.
That’s what win-back emails are for.
Win-back emails rekindle old, inactive relationships a customer once had with your business.
We’re talking about people who already know you and trust you; all it takes is the right approach, and you are done.
So, what exactly is a win-back email?
A win-back email is an email aimed at re-engaging inactive customers or subscribers that have stopped buying and/or opening their emails for some time.
What defines a win-back email campaign is its definition of an “inactive” customer or subscriber. Every company and marketer will have a different definition that depends on the amount of data available and their goals.
We can say an inactive customer is one that hasn’t purchased for many months; we can say the same for subscribers who haven’t opened an email in that period.
According to Return Path, an average of 20% of marketers send emails to inactive subscribers. What’s more, 66% of their email lists have inactive subscribers.
Although at first, win-back campaigns may look like a strategy to bring past customers back to your store – that’s not all.
A much simpler reason why email marketers send win-back emails regularly is to delete subscribers whose email addresses are no longer in use (or who have simply lost interest in a business altogether).
Consequently, email marketers can save money on their email marketing service provider and lower the chances of having your emails ending up in the spam folder.
Return Path also found that almost half of people who receive a win-back campaign read subsequent emails. From this group, 25% still open messages up to 300 days after receiving the first win-back email.
Even if you don’t receive sales soon after launching a win-back email campaign, it can increase your engagement rates, which is already crucial for an effective email marketing campaign.
Next most popular question is: When should I create a win-back email campaign?
You should create a win-back email campaign if your business faces low engagement rates, poor deliverability, and low purchase frequency – compared to past results or your industry benchmarks.
Win-back email campaigns should be set automatically to every subscriber or customer that receives an “inactive” tag in your email marketing tool. Wait at least 90 days before tagging a subscriber as inactive.
You can extend this period for past customers, depending on your product's pricing and the average time it takes your customers to buy — that is, the purchase cycle.
Stores that sell high-ticket products and whose purchase cycles are long — say, 180 days — should tag customers as inactive after much longer — maybe even a year.
Now that we have that out of the way, let’s talk about what a good win-back email consist of?
The first element is a subject line
Subject lines are critical for any email campaign, but this is especially true for win-back emails. Remember that you are contacting people who haven’t opened an email in a long time. Even if you are contacting past customers, you want to get them excited again about your brand.
Your subject line needs to catch them by surprise. Try to take a different approach to whatever your brand style is; if your brand is formal, use an informal tone; if it is technical, use a down-to-earth tone, and so on.
For example, emails whose subject lines use the words “miss you” and “come back” have a 13% read rate – which is higher than average for many industries.
For win-back emails aimed at getting past customers to purchase again, use the dollar sign or percentage signs. For instance, you can write “Get $20 off” or “Get a 10% discount.”
Regardless of the subject line you use, remember to make them coherent to the content you present. In other words, a funny subject line should have an equally funny email.
The second element of an effective win-back email is its content
The content within your email will depend greatly on your goal and the stage in your win-back campaign.
So what should you include in the email?
First, you can let the subscriber know that your brand and products have changed since the last time they opened an email or bought from you. This approach is particularly effective if the changes came from customer feedback.
You can also use a clever and personal approach, acknowledging that the subscriber hasn’t opened an email or made a purchase in some time and that your company misses them.
Another effective, albeit costly, way to contact your subscribers is by giving them a discount. You should be cautious about using this approach as some customers may not need a discount to take action – so, perhaps you should use it after trying other approaches.
If you want to see real-life examples of win-back emails, follow the link to our blog in the description.
In the meantime, let’s cover the key steps you need to take to create a win-back email campaign.
Step 1: Segment your email list
By now, it’s clear that your win-back campaign will target those subscribers who haven’t opened an email or made a purchase for a higher-than-average time frame. The exact segmentation strategy you implement will depend on your exact business model.
As a start, consider creating a segment of the subscribers who have shown high engagement in the past but haven’t opened your emails after 90 days or so.
The same can be said for past customers with a high average order value and high frequency.
After creating your initial segment — let’s call it the “high-quality inactive” segment — you can create more for average and below-average subscribers. Obviously, the results for each segment will be different.
Step #2: Create the campaign
A win-back email campaign should have a simple structure that includes three steps:
· A welcome email
· Education emails
· A “goodbye” email
In a “welcome” email, you start by reminding the subscriber or customer of the past activity they have shown and reinstate how your brand has helped them in the past. You also acknowledge the fact they haven't opened your emails or purchased in a long time.
In the educational emails, you show your value proposition again, explaining how your products work, how they have changed, and what they can do with them. You can also share any news they may have missed (remember that FOMO is a real problem for people).
When everything else fails, you can offer them a discount, but as we said, make sure to use this option as a last resort.
And finally, in a “goodbye” email, you tell them that you will delete them from your email list if they don’t explicitly tell you they want to keep receiving your emails.
The time between each email within a campaign isn’t as important as having a campaign in place. You can distance your emails anywhere between a day to seven days. You can distance the last email even more. For marketers targeting past customers, you can continue sending these emails for a much longer time.
From the technical standpoint, any email marketing platform that offers automation capabilities will allow you to set up a win-back email campaign. You won’t need any special skills for that.
Step #3: Analyze and improve
After you have set up your campaign, monitor your metrics.
· For inactive subscribers, look at your open rates. Deliverability is another metric you can use, but it should be secondary.
· For inactive customers, look at your checkout.
Wait a few days after your entire campaign has finished and, if the unsubscription isn’t automatic, delete the subscribers.
It may seem odd to delete your subscribers but remember: it will save you money in the long run.
Win-back emails will likely play a crucial part in your email marketing strategy, helping you manage an efficient email list of people who want to receive your emails.
If you aren’t using win-back emails, get yourself a bottle of your favorite beverage and put in the work. You will thank us for having pushed you to try them.
That’s it for today,
Thank you for listening.
Until next time!