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Win back emails are oldies but goodies! This strategy is very effective, cost-efficient, and simple to implement. With these marketing strategies, you can retain previous subscribers and purchasers at ease.
Now easily convert your one-time purchasers into loyal customers back in the door. In the bag of “quick win” marketing strategies, the customer win back email campaigns are so effective.
If you’re not familiar with win back email campaigns, know the idea first. It’s a compilation of messages sent to your past customers to remind them of your brand.
Think of the cases where people add items to their cart, only to never appear again! In these cases, you can entertain customers with incentives and make them complete purchases.
The success-rate of win back emails for subscription-based businesses is higher. But it’s equally great for non-subscription-based businesses like tech companies, manufacturers, and service providers.
In this article, we’ll discuss how to create a successful win back email campaign. You can also get ideas from top win back email campaign examples and strategies we’ve listed.
Win back email; is a double win for businesses! Let’s get some insights.
What is a Win Back Email Campaign?
A win back email campaign is a simple strategy that enables businesses to re-engage with subscribers. The ultimate goal of these emails is to grab the attention of your customers.
If you strategize the messages effectively then customers will take action immediately. Every action of your users will increase the chances of buying your products or services again and again.
Here are a few important facts that will help businesses to create a successful win back campaign strategy:
- 45% of subscribers read future communications on receiving Win Back campaigns.
- 25% of win back campaign subscribers will open and read messages up to 300 days after the first win back emails.
- It costs 5 times more to attract a new customer when compared to retaining existing ones.
However, these numbers are huge for any business but do you measure the win back campaigns? This will help any business to succeed with win back campaigns in a long run. Before measuring your potential win back campaigns, make sure you have the following numbers:
- Number of inactive or lapsed customers/subscribers
- Expected conversion rate
- Average order value (AOV)
Why are Win Back Email Strategies important?
Email is one of the cost-effective marketing strategies available online. This medium helps eCommerce brands to increase the average open rate for email. According to Mailchimp’s email campaign reports, “the average open rate is 16% by industry”.
However, your engagement will be even higher which records “at least 20 of every 100 emails will get opened”.
Many of your email subscribers are dormant and disengaged from your list already. Understand they’ve not unsubscribed your emails but have chosen to ignore or never read them.
Because of this, you’re not just missing out on subscriber engagement but losing your open and click-through rates. As a result, subscribers will not receive updates on the products or services you offer them.
Your email delivery rate will only sink further. Spam filters will not allow businesses to reach their desired outcome. Learn more about content upgrade ideas to help you grow your email list here.
Here’s the average marketing email open rate for your reference:
As shown in this study by Mailer Mailer in 2016, Email open rates can vary based on industry.
Is Email Win Back Campaigns Cost-Effective?
Let’s assume you have sent win back emails to 50K subscribers in your list. This list may include users who haven’t responded for anything long term. Let’s say this win back email generates a 6% response rate.
As a result, you have gained around 3,000 people who want to engage with your business. With this strategy, at least 10% of the customers will make purchases in the next 30 days, and you get an average order value of $100.
But if your average customer lifetime value is $6,500, then your win back campaigns will save 3,000 customers that generate more sales.
Is it worth it? Yes, you can employ these strategies repeatedly to re-engage your dormant subscribers.
Best Practices To Follow
To build a successful win back campaign, you need to follow some practices that we’ve listed as general guidelines here.
Create your subject lines and email copy clearly and concisely.
Use familiar words and simple language to keep up the content approachable.
Don’t send win back emails to your users anonymously.
Apply audience segmentation to offer more personalized messages.
Avoid too many CTAs in one email.
Feature your incentives upfront.
Use marketing automation and behavior-based triggers for best results.
You can even use AI tools to optimize your win back emails.
Winback Email Examples and Strategic Recommendations
Effective win back emails need quality content. You can focus on changes and product updates to engage with your past customers. The content can be fairly universal as personalization is not so important. Take a look at some of the customer win back email examples and ideas we’ve gathered to get you started.
Educate customers on what they’re missing out:
Show the customer why they should come back to your brand. You can explain about upgrades or changes you’ve made to your products.
For example, Death Wish Coffee advertises its products on Amazon prime with free shipping options to save additional charges for customers. This is a great way to promote your brand to win back customers and generate greater revenue.
No plan succeeds at the first step, so try again:
The secret to winning back customers is never giving up, you need to try various strategies to find a better performer. Create emails including multiple touchpoints to find the one that encourages your past customers to come back and give it a try.
For example, Dinnerly uses a meal-delivery kit in its win back emails to get customers’ attention. Optinly is a great email marketing tool that helps businesses to entice users with incentives like discount codes.
Use humor to grab customers’ attention:
The Dollar Shave Club is one best example to show how humor favors email campaigns. They have compared the relationship between customers and the seller to a relationship.
The subject line is crafted so cleverly and this content has increased open rates. See how it fits perfectly with their brand voice.
When everything fails, offer a gift or discount:
Let’s have a look at the wine company, Winc. They have shared a $10 offer coupon for customers right after 21 days of membership cancellation.
This strategy is powerful to engage customers again in your sale but it doesn’t drive retention. Therefore, you can include this type of promotion as the last resort in your win back campaigns.
Let your customers pause or cancel anytime
The cancelation or pausing options are very essential for subscription-based businesses. For example, Netflix offers a non-commitment cancellation plan for their customers.
They also use a “Rejoin today” call to action button to re-engage the lost customer and initiate a subscription.
Catchy subject line combined with offers:
Basic Man is an underwear brand that triggers customers with the attractive subject line “We want you back! Here’s a 50% offer”.
This is a straightforward strategy to capture customers’ attention. They will also increase your open rates and email list. The company doesn’t lose revenue as it claims to offer only for the first month back.
Talk about the brand’s value:
Create and attach strong brand value to your products and services. This will help you to communicate and re-engage with customers easily.
For example, Dinnerly highlights how they’re saving time and money with real-time insights.
Win your customers with seasonal campaigns:
If you’re a newbie, just have a look at Blue Apron, you can find how they create seasonal win back campaigns.
They always trigger past customers by talking about different ingredients and dishes introduced recently. So, your customers will get fascinated to join back and try out the new recipes.
Recommend new ranges of products:
MistoBox reminds customers why they have subscribed (to try new coffee flavors) and then shares different products.
This win back strategy is great to retain past customers even if they didn’t like previous products.
Send product recommendations for customers:
Pandora Jewelry follows this interesting strategy to remind their customer about the new looks they offer with their latest products. This famous accessories brand sends a follow-up email to customers at monthly intervals.
Their email includes product recommendations that encourage customers to refresh their look.
Invite the customer to visit physical stores:
Generally, Win Back strategy focuses on driving customers back to your online store. But this tactic will also work for brands to engage customers in their physical stores.
You can offer a discount coupon, and mention that it’s applicable on in-store purchases. Great, right? LOFT is using the same strategy to win back and even provides a route map that guides to the nearest store.
Create a sense of urgency:
Baron Fig creates urgency by providing coupon codes that are valid for a short duration. They also suggest reasons why customers should buy products immediately. Their reasons are convincing enough for customers who are waiting for a worthy upgrade.
How To Create Successful Win Back Campaigns?
Win back emails are generally straightforward and don’t require any personalization as the messages are pretty universal. Here are some tips to get you started:
Follow-up with a win-back email at the perfect time
You need to keep testing in order to find the perfect time, this will vary from company to company. For instance, Dinnerly waited 21 days before sending their first win back email as given in the example above.
However, the time frame will vary depending on the type of business you have. If you look at a clothing retailer, the time frame obviously differs from that of DInnerly. So, keep testing and find the best time frame for your brand and product.
Create exit criteria for your customers
Don’t be too clingy, if a customer returns, they won’t prefer to look at the same recommendations. For a brand, it might even spoil your reputation, so remove subscribers or customers who made purchases from the automated email list.
Edit your win back campaigns regularly
It’s simple and easy to set up an automated email campaign for your customers. But don’t forget to update your email content on a regular basis. Of course, you can create hype for new products, and improve your customer service by sending updated details since their last purchase.
For example, a popular beauty retailer Ipsy sends win back emails along with up-to-date products dynamically.
Ready for a win back?
Are you trying to engage subscribers who haven’t responded to any of your messages? This seems daunting at first, but you can win back customers with effective email campaigns.
Optinly is one simple automation tool that re-engages with customers before they ghost you. You can implement any of the strategies mentioned while creating your win back emails. With these examples, you can surely recover more customers and sales to your brand.
Don’t forget subject lines, strategic timing, and attractive content, as they are important. You can evaluate the conversion rates and strategize your unique ideas. However, your main goal must be to entice customers and increase your email open rates.
Launch your Win Back Campaign today!
