Loyal customers or offer hunters?

2. Discounts are not crucial to campaigns

We’ve made it clear: Online businesses can’t rely on discount coupons to drive sales. While you may want to include the odd discount in an email campaign, you don’t need to share money-off to make a worthy campaign!

Here are alternative reasons to email shoppers, that don’t involve a discount:

• Your product is especially useful during the current season. 
  For example, “our parasol is the sturdiest wind-breaker for beach season.”
• Your service solves a problem many people face this month.
  “As diet products ramp up their advertising, join our mental wellness group to continue healing in good company.”
• New product or line launches.
  “Our top line of the year is set to launch next month, here’s a sneak peek of what you can get your hands on!”
• Relevant company news.
  “We just appointed a customer service team to your account, because loyal customers like you deserve personalized attention.”
• Industry news that impacts your customer base.
  “Inflation hit a new high this month, but our prices aren’t shifting.”

There are too many to list here! Hopefully, it’s now clear that you can communicate with customers for many reasons that do not include a discount.

3 steps to a customer loyalty strategy

Since loyal customers are less price sensitive, what differentiators are they looking for? You’ll find that this question varies by business and audience, but to build a customer loyalty strategy, decide which of these 3 elements might deserve more time or financial investment from you:

• Customer service team
  Outstanding attention to detail and empathy might be your differentiator. Long-time customers expect to be treated as such, so here’s how to serve them strategically:

  • Give loyal customers a separate customer service line, perhaps directly to you.

  • Check in personally with return customers, with a non-automated, personal email to ask what they thought of their last purchase.
  • Send hand-written notes with their deliveries, writing to them by name.

• Holiday promotion
  Shoppers that know your brand may be keen to gift your wares. They just need a timely reminder! Holiday marketing emails showing your newest products, or suggestions to repurchase a similar product as a present, will drive return shoppers back to your store.As proof, stores running holiday marketing campaigns via Aument, added an average of US$3,149 to their rolling revenue. That represents 17% of their monthly income. What could you do with an extra 17% income for your store?
  
  

• Educational content

  While educational content often draws new shoppers, you can also use it to reinforce existing relationships. Each time you create a how-to video or tutorial showing multiple uses for your product, email the link to those who have already purchased it. This costs you nothing but keeps you top of mind for shoppers.Too pushed for time to make your own how-to-style or 3-ways-to-use content? No doubt there’s an influencer doing it for you!