Let’s state some facts first; email marketing is the most powerful sales channel with the best ROI around. In fact, 81% and 80% of respondents respectively said that email marketing drives customer acquisition and retention. Other than that, emails help businesses build solid relationships with their customers after they have closed a sale.
Emails can turn customers into lifelong fans of your brand. Research from Bain & Company shows that a 5% increase in customer retention leads to a 25% growth in profits. Therefore, in order to convert traffic into fans, it is important to send your customers post-sale emails to show them how much you value their interest in your brand.
Post-Sale Emails That Convert Visitors to Customers
- Order Confirmation Email
- Shipping Confirmation Email
- Thank You Email
- How-To Email
- Shipment Check-in email
- Survey Email
- Review Request Email
- Special Offer Emails
- Customer Information Email
Order Confirmation Email
Once a purchase has been made, the first and most important thing that customers want to know is if the payment was successful. And the order confirmation email seals the deal for customers. It helps ensure customers that their transaction did indeed come through and that its shipment is currently being prepared.
It is highly crucial that this email is sent immediately to customers upon making the transaction, otherwise they would assume that they have been scammed out of their earnings.
The order confirmation email has to ensure that the order has been processed, when can customers expect the shipment, how they can track their order and who they can contact if something goes awry.
You can use order confirmation emails as a means for upselling or cross-selling, but if you’re new to the business unlike Amazon, then you could jeopardize the trust of your customers.
Also, be sure to include a social share button along with your order confirmation email to generate more exposure for your ecommerce store on popular platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. You can also get more customers if you put in a referral reward based on how many times customers share these emails.
Shipping Confirmation Email
This is an email sent out to a customer to verify that their order has been shipped out. It also helps build trust within your customers as you allow them to know the status of their order and help them keep track of it. But instead of making into a simple “Your Shipping is Confirmed” message, you can give it a little creative spin like this:
You can also insert a bit of humor into these emails to lighten the spirits of your customers.
Thank You Email
Thank you emails may be the most basic one of them all, but it is still very effective in building trust and strengthening customer relationships. Giving customers a thank you message on-site right after they have handed over their payment credentials, is also very effective in building trust.
Transactionals are said to have twice the average open-rate of non-transactional emails. Also, be sure to inject a bit of personality into these emails to entice customers even more. It can look something like this:
You can also send out video thank you messages by using Instagram or Bonjoro and encourage them to like, share, subscribe and comment in return. This evokes a mutual sense of trust and care between retailers and customers.
How-To Email
There are some customers who wish to know how a product before or after they have made a purchase. For instance, Dyson, the vacuum cleaner manufacturer, puts out emails to customers who have recently purchased a product from them and encourage them to ask for any assistance as the image below shows:
Presenting a means to make the most of a product is indeed a superb way to strengthen customer relationship. You can also guide them to a tutorial blog series or how-to-content if customers feel that the product is a little complicated to use. Ensure to use clear and crisp images to show them how to assemble the vacuum cleaner in a sequential order.
Shipment Check-in email
Once the shipment has reached your customers, you need to send them a type of survey email that provide you with feedback about your online store’s delivery services. The following are some of the more common questions to ask your customers:
- Did your product arrive safely?
- Did your product arrive on time?
- Do you have any issues with your product so far?
Doing this is necessary because we all have experienced a package arriving late, damaged, or have even received the wrong package. There have also been times when the payment for a product has been sent through, but the delivery could not be done.
Hence, this email is produced as a way to reach out to your customers whether or not something bad about their transaction or purchase surfaces. This will further tailor your business more favorably to your customers.
Survey Email
If customers are satisfied with their product, you can send them a simple survey email of how likely they are to refer your brand to their friends and family. The most popular survey system that businesses usually like to use is the net promoter survey. You can make one of your own using either TypeForm or SurveyMonkey.
Review Request Email
The first thing that customers do when they look for a product online is see its reviews. If the product has an overall positive average review, then customers will be more inclined to purchase it and vice versa.
So to the customers that have already bought items from your store, send them emails that ask for their review on the item they had recently purchased. Even if it is a negative review, it will provide you with an opportunity to improve your services. Be sure to sent this email a few weeks after your customer had received their order.
Special Offer Emails
The most loyal and long-time customers have to be rewarded in a special way for opting for your products after so many months and years. For this, you can send out emails that provide special offers such as a free coupon, a discount for a limited time period or an exclusive access to a product’s premium services.
Customer Information Email
If you wish to maintain a more meaningful relationship with your customers, you will need to get more than their name, house, and email address. You can also interact with them and understand their preferences so that you can better tailor your business to their tastes and needs.
Be sure to give your customers a clear choice in the kind of products they’re looking for in their email notifications. Once you have all the information from your customers, you can tailor your emails according to their expectations.
Conclusion
I think I have done more than my fair share of showing you all the best post-sale emails that convert traffic into fans. Unless you already have a loyal following, you might get move the sales needle for your eCommerce store. If there are other post-sale emails that I haven’t mentioned, please let me know in the comments below.
