Winning customers and collecting their data can be extremely time consuming and costly. Admittedly there is no better feeling in the world than winning a new customer, especially if it has taken what feels like an age to get them over the line.
But what happens if you spend all that time and resources winning them, they make their first purchase and that’s it, they have bought from you once, but they are gone, never to be seen again.
The key to ensuring your customers stay with you and don’t go wondering off to your competitors, is keeping them interacting with your brand, keep them popping onto your website and chatting with you on social media. Keep your brand at the forefront of their minds, and then when it comes to making a purchase, they will think of you first.
Unfortunately, it will never be possible to keep 100% of your customers, you may not have done anything wrong, but sometimes they will just go elsewhere. Now wouldn’t it be great if you could try and win these lost customers back easily and at a very low cost? Well with SMS and this simple plan you can do just that.
98% of all text messages are read and only 22% of emails are read
To win back customers you need to be able to get in contact with them. As text messages have a much higher open rate than email, SMS is the perfect way to rekindle with lost customers.
1. Give them an amazing offer with a time limit
Send them a personalised offer, but don’t just send them any old offer, make it an offer they won’t be able to resist. Don’t just offer them 10% of £15 off, make it too good to be missed, and set a time limit for it to claimed by. Remember you want these customers back, so sending them a normal offer won’t entice them enough.
This is probably the easiest way to win customers back, as the majority of people who go elsewhere will be because of price – they found what you were offering cheaper somewhere else.
2a. Send an even better offer to those who still didn’t purchase
A week after your initial offer has finished, send an even better offer to those that didn’t claim the offer the first time round.
This may only get a handful of more purchases, but we have found that sending a second message, or a reminder message, has a hugely positive effect.
2b. Send a second offer to those customers that bought
At the same time as you are sending the second offer to those who didn’t make a purchase the first time round, send a separate message to everyone who did claim the offer.
This offer can be one of two things. You can send another generic offer, just make sure it is not as good as the first, you want people to purchase from you not just because the offer is great, but because they like your products and can make a small saving at the same time.
The second option is a more personalised offer, this is in terms of what they purchased with your initial offer. Let’s say they bought a summer dress, why not send them an offer about swim suites. Or if they purchased a certain bit of software, send them a message about an add-on, or to another product you know other customers have purchased in the past along with the first one.
3. Follow up with a survey
Find out what your customers like or dislike. It’s important to know what you are good at and where you need to improve.
A great way to get people to answer a survey is by offering an incentive, so you could say, by answering the SMS survey they will be entered into a draw to win something, a holiday, iPad, box of chocolates –whatever prize you think would work the best for your customers and is in your budget.
4. Ask them to join your SMS loyalty program
The best way to keep customer on board and interacting with your brand is to use an SMS loyalty program. Just like signing up to an email newsletter, the customer signs up to receive VIP promotions via SMS.
Here you can inform people of new products, events, special offers and more, making the customer feel like a VIP and keeping your brand at the front of their mind.
We would suggest spreading these messages out over a 8-12 week period, you don’t want to overwhelm these lost customers by sending them multiple messages in a short period of time – this will easily turn them off and those who purchased from you will get annoyed, and those who didn’t, are unlikely to ever purchase from you again.
Always remember to include an opt-out option to all these messages. Nothing is worse than sending someone a message that they are never going to interact with, don’t want, and will eventually get annoyed with, meaning they will never come back to you ever again.
By following these 4 simple steps you will have engaged with lost customers, got them to purchase from you again, found out what they like and dislike about you, and got them to sign up to loyalty program.