Customers come, and customers go; it’s a natural part of business. But there are many marketing strategies you can employ to ensure that fewer customers opt-out or unsubscribe from your list. And for those that do? You have options to win back customers, even if they have unsubscribed from your list. It takes a little planning and a strategic technology partner, but the results speak for themselves: a higher opt-in rate than with unknown users, and a faster time to purchase as well. Here are the steps you need to take to win back customers.
Analyze Your Customer Data
Before you can target a campaign to win back unsubscribers and former customers, you need to know what makes your current customers tick. Take a look at the data available on your repeat customers to assess average order value, time between purchase, and top products. You may also want to see what the average time was from sign-up to first conversion, and identify your most successful promotions or offers. Examine customer demographics as well.
Then perform a similar analysis on your unsubscribed users and former customers. What, if anything, did they purchase? How often? Were they strictly looking for sales? You’re looking for trends or patterns you can use to tailor your campaign to win back customers, as well as identify the right subset of unsubscribers who are most likely to return as loyal customers.
Launch a Campaign to Win Back Unsubscribers
Now that you know which products and offers keep shoppers coming back, as well as the demographics of your core customers, you’re ready to star a campaign to win back customers. Put that data to work to build a targeting profile of unsubscribers who are likely to resubscribe or repurchase when presented with a compelling offer. Identify the unsubscribed users in your database who match these criteria, and use that list to launch a targeted opt-in campaign to win back unsubscribers.
While you can’t email these users (they did unsubscribe, after all) you can target them using their email address. Hashing their email address creates an anonymized identifier of the user that is the same every time. For example, 123@mail.com is always encrypted as ZYX. So if the user is logged in or provides their email address while browsing a site in our network, we can pre-ping to see if they match your list, then only show the ads to those on your target list. This allows you to run a highly targeted campaign with unique offers designed to win back customers.
Segment Your Lead Nurturing Efforts
Once you have resubscribed former customers, it’s time to put your lead nurturing efforts to work. Keep in mind that these people are already familiar with you, so there doesn’t need to be a long introductory period. Get right to the opt-in offer you promised and get to work on a way to truly win back customers by converting them quickly. A hard sell or aggressive offer will often work well here. Provide a sense of urgency, or call upon your data to use what you already know about them. They subscribed or purchased in the past, which makes them easier and quicker to convert than brand new leads. But when it’s time to truly win back customers, not just leads, it all comes down to lead nurturing.
Follow these three steps and you’ll rebuild your email list in no time. Need some help? We can develop a campaign to win back customers using your data and unsubscribed user list. Let’s get started today.