Reward long-term customer relationships, engage short-term

In the world of ecommerce, there’s this infectious notion that ‘new’ is always better. Brands get caught up in the allure of new subscribers, pouring time, money and resources into wooing them to get that first sale.

But, what’s the point if you can’t keep them?

Like in any type of relationship, if you put in a lot of effort in starting it, chances are that other person is going to reciprocate your feelings. Give your new subscriber a sale, they’re going to buy something from you.

However, if you stop there and reduce your effort to nil, guess what their response will inevitably be? Nothing.

No brand wants a one hit wonder but so many still reward their new subscribers more than their current customers. Let’s break the cycle shall we? After all, getting a new subscriber can cost 5x more than retaining an existing customer.

If you want to keep subscribers and turn them into repeat customers, treat them like any relationship you value and want to grow with long-term. That means, sending the right emails at the right time to the right people.

Just like you would send someone who just purchased a thank you email, you’d say thank you if your friend bought you a coffee.

If they bought you a whole espresso machine, you might want to return the favor by giving them the shoes they’ve been eyeing for the last year but never purchased.

That thoughtfulness in picking out something that friend really wants is the type of approach we want to take with email marketing. The equivalent is sending a discount to the person that purchased that low ticket item to buy the high ticket item that they’ve been browsing but never purchased.

With email marketing, brands have the opportunity to build long term relationships with their customers using this type of personalization. The benefit of doing this is increase conversion rate short-term and customer lifecycle value long-term.