9 Steps to Successful Win Back Email Campaign

When your customer leaves, you can theoretically go out and search for new one – but that consumes way too much time and money. Imagine that you do so with your friends. Amanda hasn’t called you in a month? In your face, Amanda, I will find somebody else. O, there you are, Tracy! Wanna be my next best friend? And, after a couple of weeks, Tracy seems to have a busy weekend, so you just turn your back on her and go to Melinda. Melinda, my dear! Let’s go grab some coffee!

If that’s so ridiculous, when it comes to friends, why do you do it to your customers?

Try to get back in touch: that’s what win back campaign aims at.

1 Identify inactive users

Begin with defining inactive user. It might be the one who:

– doesn’t respond to the emails,

– doesn’t visit,

– doesn’t purchase.

Don’t treat all these equally. If somebody visits your website but doesn’t buy, it means that different type of campaign is necessary. We will focus here on the first group: users who don’t open, read or click your emails. Definition you apply will depend of course on the data you have access to, which can vary from just CTR to advanced viewability statistics.

2 Choose the right tool

To perform reactivation campaign, you will need Marketing Automation software. It will provide more advanced analytics of customer behavior, deliver dynamic email feature (the most effective tool for win back campaign) and the whole process will be automated, saving your team a lot of time.

3 Learn why they left you

Why did your customers stopped to respond? Ask them about reasons for broken contact. You can prepare a dynamic “We miss you” email, including not only offer, bonus and expression of your concern (more on that below), but also a short survey – one or two questions.

It’s always a good idea to utilize email as a two-way communication platform. Asking questions will engage customers more and will provide you valuable insights.

4 Be kind

When crafting your win back email copy, express care and kindness. Prepare a gift: a discount, free shippimg, bonus.

– “We haven’t see you around in a while”,

– “Come back” (e.g. “Come Back for 25% Off …”)

– “Welcome back”

– “Hello again!”

– “Where hace you been?”

– “We want you back”.

Use recipient’s name.

5 Don’t overdo

Know average purchasing frequency for repeat customers and newsletter readership to avoid overusing win-back messages. It’s hard to give you some rule of thumb. Simply don’t rush anyone to confirm their activity too soon.

Also don’t send too many messages or you will be marked as spam. If somebody doesn’t want your messages, respect that and don’t notify him/ her every week about last chance.

6. Deliver your promises

If you wan’t your customers back, you have to keep your promises. If customers left because of poor quality materials (and you know this because you asked them, as we recommend above), and that hasn’t changed, don’t issue a win back campaign.

But you can have a tag for customers who declared that materials were the problem and automatically send them message when things change or you broaden your offer. You can write then: “We have been working hard on improving …”. Express that you change for your customers.

7 Offer different options

People who don’t open your newsletter might react well to small adjustments showing your eagerness to adapt to their terms. Send an email offering churning customers the possibility to update their subscription or communication preferences. Maybe they will prefer to read your newsletter once a week or once a month?

Tailor your emails to suit recipients.

8 Clean your list

Not every customer is worth your time. You probably know the type: always dissatisfied, always complaining, late with payments, having a chip on their shoulder. Don’t try to keep customers at any cost – know what kind of audience is not for you. Remove them from your list – as well as people who persistently don’t open your messages.

Base hygiene is essential: we can’t stress it enough. It seems hard to remove addresses from your list, but inactive ones can hurt you.

Inactive, idle accounts transform sometimes into spammers’ trap, so having them on your list endangers your credibility,
Inactive accounts hurt your open rates,
You have false picture of your recipients.

According to Return Path, 20% of average marketer’s list is inactive. So clean up!

9 Make loyalty really pay off

The problem many customers experience? Loyalty doesn’t pay off. New customers get -10% for the first purchase, then -15% for subscribing the newsletter, then -20% for recommending a store to a friend. So after 3 purchases you are done – nothing more there for you, time to search for new store.

We all scream about loyalty, but actually we focus more on acquiring new leads to push through our sales funnel. Be honest with yourself:

Is your loyalty program really attractive and rewarding? (learn how to develop one)
Do you use Lead Recycling to take most of leads that you already have? (read more on Lead Recycling)

Do you really promote loyalty?

It’s like in relationships: if you’re good only in the beginning, who will stay with you for years?