In today's extremely competitive Amazon marketplace, and with the ever-growing difficulty of maintaining reliable supply chains, sellers need to have clear backend marketing plans that maximize the revenue potential from each customer sale.
Sellers can no longer afford to have customers exit their sales process after the initial purchase, they need post purchase marketing for Amazon.
The way sellers treat their customers after a purchase often dictates whether or not those shoppers will purchase from them again. If sellers view their customers as mere 'one and done' transactions rather than as people whom they can build ongoing relationships with, they run the risk of losing those buyers forever.
What is Post-Purchase Marketing?
It’s how a seller treats their customers after they have converted that reveals the true value of supporting a seller’s brand and products. This is known as post-purchase marketing. It consists of a series of strategies that sellers can use to build ongoing engagement and loyalty in their customers.
Post-purchase marketing helps sellers to influence how their customers feel about their purchases and their relationship with the seller’s brand. It’s an opportunity for sellers to leverage their customers’ excitement/anticipation for their purchase in the seller’s favor, interacting with buyers when they are most impressionable.
When executed correctly, post-purchase marketing can:
- increase the likelihood a seller’s customer will buy from them again,
- decrease buyer's remorse,
- increase page rank with quality traffic,
- decrease advertising costs,
- increase the lifetime value of a customer,
- decrease negative reviews,
- transform former leads into brand evangelists, and
- help build a dedicated customer base of buyers for years to come.
Customer Retention is More Important Than New Acquisitions
Retaining current customers is a better use of Ad Spend than campaigns seeking to obtain new ones.
The numbers speak for themselves… it is five times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to retain an existing one. Also, the odds of making a sale to a current customer are 60% to 70%, compared to only a 5% to 20% chance of selling to a new lead. Besides, increasing customer retention by a mere 5% can increase a seller’s profits by as much as 95%.
Surprisingly, 91% of Amazon sellers do not follow up with customers after they have bought from them with post-purchase marketing.
They overlook post-purchase strategies to generate repeat orders and cross-sells, while only an exceedingly small percentage of sellers (1%) actually put into place mechanisms for recurring sales.
This means there is a huge opportunity to increase revenues awaiting those sellers who create processes that routinely capture additional dollars after the initial sale.
Backend strategies are also important because Amazon rewards those incremental post-purchase sales with increased ranking, which drives more organic sales.
The sales process on Amazon should never be just ‘one and done.’
The Role of Email in Post-Purchase Marketing
The sale is only the beginning of the relationship with a customer.
The first email after a purchase can set the tone for a seller’s relationship with their customers. Email campaigns are determined by how the seller wishes to influence their customer’s future interactions with their business. The immediate post-purchase period is an ideal opportunity to solidify a relationship with the purchaser.
Keep in mind that by tapping into post-purchase engagement, sellers aren’t necessarily asking customers to buy from them again…at least, not immediately.
Triggered post-purchase email follow-ups can be used to show that the seller is still invested in creating a positive brand experience.
Sending a ‘Thank You’ email immediately following a purchase and confirming shipping can help to build anticipation in the customer (if even Amazon is handling the shipping for you).
Emails can also be used to customize the shopper’s post-purchase experience so that they are encouraged to explore the seller’s brand story via social media links, blog posts, product guides, and coupons that can drive further purchases.
Best of all, post-purchase emails have some of the highest open rates out of any email communications (42%), as opposed to regular email open rates of just 16%.
Post-purchase marketing is a conduit through which sellers can increase sales, profitability, organic ranking, get reviews, reduce returns, eliminate bad reviews, build a real brand, and maximize their business' value at exit.
It's the seller's opportunity to influence how customers think and feel about their products, brand, and purchases.
Post-purchase marketing doesn’t have to be difficult; it just has to be personalized and consistent.
Inside of Entourage 2.0 is the all-new Entourage University. Within the University, beginner, intermediate, and advanced sellers will find the latest ‘seller-hacks’ that can be leveraged to improve a wide range of areas in their Amazon businesses.
Entourage University is a central location where sellers can educate themselves on the basics of creating Amazon ads, optimizing them, and expanding upon them. It includes resources for understanding advertising strategy, as well as tutorials for using Entourage 2.0 software to implement the strategies and campaigns they've learned.
Inside of the Entourage University are six modules from Post Purchase Pro (free content), available to 2.0 subscribers, which will guide sellers step-by-step on how to set up post-purchase marketing.
14 Best Practice Tips from Post Purchase Pro
- Post-purchase marketing starts by harvesting and growing a customer list which is used to send more traffic back to a seller's listings.
- Speak to your customer in a language that makes sense for your brand and for your niche. Every single word needs to be deliberately placed to compel action on their part.
- Don't give your prospects too much to do or too many choices, or guess what? They won't do anything. A confused customer does not take action. You need one simple message in each email. It's easy to read. Easy to understand with one simple call to action request.
- Communicate a simple message in a way that proves you are the authority on the matter and compels the reader to take an action that benefits them
- Set customers up for your next action step with specific language designed to move them to your next mutually beneficial step.
- Each email should have a goal. Each new message should build off the last goal and lead your customer down a well thought out journey. Ultimately, producing the result that you desire all while delivering continuous value. Your sequence should always revolve around your brand and your goals for your business.
- You have to speak to your customers differently. Segmentation is important.
- Different traffic coming from a mobile phone needs to see something that's friendly for a mobile device.
- Include content that is relevant to your customer's interest, then you'll get much better open rates, lower unsubscribes, and fewer spam reports.
- You'll need to set your frequency and stick to it and always show up. Be front of mind and never forget to give value. Don't forget urgency. When you write an offer email, you must include urgency. Action must be taken within a certain amount of time. Otherwise buyers will just procrastinate without urgency. They will not act because they think they can just wait until later to make a decision.
- Always give them a very good reason to act right now. And don't be afraid to incentivize. Give buyers a good reason to act or reward them to act. Use a promotional code for Amazon products.
- If a customer is not happy...first immediately remove them from your list. Second. You'll want to overwhelm them with value, so they won't leave a negative review. Offer to let them keep the product with a full refund. Offer to send a replacement, but also give them a bonus, send them a replacement and a $10 Amazon gift card with a handwritten note.
- Provide easy returns, so that you eliminate fear. If customers don’t like your product, they can simply return it and get their money back. This drastically improves the post-purchase engagement and encourages customers to buy from you repeatedly.
- Once you evaluate and optimize your follow-ups, you need to be sure that no customers missed out by automatically adding new customers to the sequence.
