8 Levers To Pull In Your 2023 Retention Strategy BEYOND Email Marketing…

Email marketing is generally 5-7 core flows, and sending 1-4 emails a week to your list.

Done well, this should be generating 25-40% of revenue (depending on what you sell).

Great right?

Well yes, and no. The traditional email marketing strategies often neglect many other levers we can pull to benefit the brand. These can decrease CPA, CVR and increase LTV and loyalty.

These include:

1. Loyalty & Rewards Programs

DTC ecommerce is as competitive as ever. With Amazon and new stores fighting for your market share every day, you need to give your customers a reason to stick with your DTC store.

Loyalty programs are a great way to do this. Offer points back per $ spent, following on social media, signing up and much more. This means next time your customers are in need, there’s one extra reason to shop with you, instead of Amazon or your competitors.

2. Referrals

It’s no secret word of mouth marketing has, and always will be one of the most powerful forms, so why aren't more ecommerce brands crushing it with referrals?

Most brand offer customer referral incentives, but very few ever get any traction.

Why?

Most brands make referring too hard, not worth while, or simply don’t let their customers know about it.

I’m preparing a guide on how to create profitable referral programs that convert, so stay tuned for that.

3. Community Building

Building a community around your brands enables you to engage directly with your community, and let them engage with one another.

This increases loyalty, allows for conversation around your product and gives you another vertical to roll out special offers and rewards. Done well communities can print your brand cash.

4.SMS

Mobile was responsible for 42.9% of all ecommerce purchases were made on a mobile in 2022. With the rise on TikTok and Instagram, this trend is expected to continue.

Therefore it makes sense to hit them on the native device they found you.

To do this, not only do you need effective method in place to collect SMS consent (giveaways, early access, discounts, rewards bonuses etc) but you also need to distribute content to that list in an effective manner (campaigns, flows, promos etc).

If your SMS strategy for 2023 doesn't tick both of these boxes, maybe you should rethink…

5. Zero Party Data

Quiz funnels not only allow us to increase “leads” coming into the brand, but also allow us to be able to tailoring their welcome flow experience to handle objections specific to their pain points. This is a great play for skincare, supplement and generally CPG brands.

This can also be used to aid segmentation in post purchase campaigns.

6. UGC Collection

Tired of expensive influencers and creators?

Get real, authentic UGC from your list with a post purchase nurture. Create your strategy around the type of product and type of UGC desired for the best results.

You’ll need a different strategy for an unboxing/try on haul VS a before and after/testimonial.

7. Direct Mail

While everyones rushing online with email and SMS, consider direct mail to reactivate customers not responsive to email, or as a post purchase flow with a QR code linking to rewards sign up.

Don’t sleep on direct mail in 2023, its going to play a huge role for our clients in all 4 quarters.

8. Customer Feedback Forms

Reduce top of funnel customer acquisition costs by using customer feedback surveys to collect marketing claims.

Eg. 84% of our customers said X product helped with X solution when used X times per week for X months.

92% of our customers said they would never go back to X TYPE OF PRODUCT after discovering X.

You can also use these surveys to gather data to make decisions on pricing, future product release, innovation direction etc.

Enjoy these tips? We are going to be posting 2 of these style posts every week, so click follow to stay updated.