How to Increase Revenue/Profits from Post-Purchase Emails for an eCommerce Business

In one of the slack groups about DTC, someone asked this question a few days ago.

Just wondering how we can boost revenue in the first 30 days after purchase and whether or not a discount to incentivize a repeat purchase makes sense.

It's very interesting, and profitable, actually because post-purchase is when you can really shine, and increase your customer lifetime value.

Interesting, heh? Read on...

Here's how we break down our post-purchase flow into 5 distinct parts over 28 days.

Part 1 is just one email, that we use to gather customer data and offer an additional item for sale.

The first email we send out right after post-purchase, is one of three emails, (let's call it Email 1 - and is randomly sent to 1/3 sample as 1A, 1B, or 1C) is as follows:

The users are selected at random, the objective is to turn the users' post-purchase anxiety into a mutually helpful conversation.

Email 1A:

Bounce Back - Instant 20% discount, valid for up to 3 hours only

This email helps the logistics team pack up an extra order on the same packing slip, thereby saving on shipping cost, and prompts the users to make another buy immediately.

Our open rate on these emails is over 75% and the conversion rate is 10% or more.?

The average revenue per subscriber - $2.5 for a store that does an AOV of about $60

Email 1B & 1C:

Our objective from these emails is to gather customer data, and we offer a different incentive in each of these emails to the customers, in exchange for taking this post-purchase survey.

Here's how the split looks like in Klaviyo

Email 1B offers a $10 voucher for taking this survey

Email 1C offers a chance to win a full refund of your order when you take our survey

Survey questions

In the survey, our objective is to ask them 4 questions.

1. How did you find us today?
2. What made you buy from us as against our competitors
3. Who else did you consider besides us for this purchase
4. What nearly prevented you from buying today?

This data is extremely helpful in figuring out a lot of strategies for future marketing campaigns.

Logistically, Email 1C is the hardest to implement, as you have to do a lucky draw every week or every month, depending on what your daily order volume is, and then process them a refund) but the take rate is higher than the $10 voucher for the same survey

Part 2 consists of 4 emails and is spread over 8 days and starts on Day 2

From Day 2, we start with something we call a

Pre-Arrival Buyers Remorse Reduction

Customers buy on emotion initially and then, they justify their purchase by logic later. Before buyers' remorse sets in, we want to make sure that we hold their hand and give them reassurance that they're in good company.

This is a set of 4 emails, in which, we highlight the following 4 crucial elements.

Email 1 Thanking them for making the decision, and reaffirming their order details, payment, shipping, etc., making sure that they have a record of all purchases.

Email 2 Highlighting our brand values, showing how we care about the environment, social causes, and anything else that shows we're not just a profit machine but have a fundamental social cause to our business.

Email 3 Show them some UGC testimonials from other users and provide social proof

Email 4 In this email, we highlight product features, and their benefits, helping them visualize their life with the use of the product.

Part 3 - UGC and Testimonials (Plus a coupon for sending UGC)

This sets the stage for the next 2-3 emails, which are generally triggered after their order has been delivered, and we ask them how did they find the overall shipping experience, and a chance to win another $10 (or higher or lower, depending on your AOV) when they send us a UGC photo/video of their unboxing/testimonial.

Because they have already seen this type of content in one of the earlier emails, they're more likely to respond and provide us with the testimonial, helping us generate UGC as well as potential sales.

Part 4 is when we start cross-selling with the help of content and a small discount

After this, in a couple of days, we offer a high-value piece of content, that pre-positions another few items from our product range (think of a recipe, where we talk about products we sell, or a beauty regime, where a few of our products are highlighted, or top places for surfing, where we highlight some beachwear - the context is always our product range) and drive them to visit our website, to read more content.

This helps tag them as active visitors to the website, and possibly bring them back into our BROWSE ABANDONMENT funnel if they end up clicking on the product from the article page.

IF not, we send them an offer of the products we highlighted in the article, with a time-restricted (4 days)?10% discount, and run a series of 3-4 emails, with urgency in the last email showing a timer.

Part 5 is when we push sales, with a higher discount and shorter validity

If they still haven't bought, we start with a higher discount, (lets say 15%) and shorter validity that we describe in hours instead of days (72 hours) and then send them a couple of?urgency emails again.

Conclusion

All of this presents a nice uplift of anywhere from 25-50% depending on the nature of the product

Further, if the product categories are something that may not lend themselves to be bought repeatedly (clothing, high fashion garments, etc) we include a "give $10 get $10 offer" with the discount - suggesting, if you think a friend can use it, you can give them this discount and we'll give you the same discount on your next purchase within 30 days.

This entire process takes about 28-30 days.

Want examples of these emails? Or more strategies like these? Let me know in the comments below.