7 campaign ideas for e-commerce to increase customer loyalty

If you work in the e-commerce industry, you know that when searching for the perfect marketing campaign strategy, you have a plethora of options. At the same time, with so many choices available, it's hard to definitively determine which will be the best in terms of increasing customer loyalty. That's why at Persooa, we've prepared a list of as many as 100 campaigns aimed at user loyalty.

It's worth remembering that in the case of email marketing strategies, we can distinguish three key types of campaigns. These are:

• Promotional content, aimed at presenting the offer, taking care of self-promotion, and increasing sales,
• Relational emails – regularly providing customers with benefits or promises. These can be newsletters, birthday gift messages, coupons for signing up for the newsletter, or periodic reports,
• Transactional, most often sent in response to user activity. They involve confirming the execution of an order or informing about its next stages (e.g., assembly or shipment), confirming a subscription, or sending a welcome message.

Below you will find 7 example campaigns that will not only affect loyalty but also improve conversion, making customers want to return to you for more!

1. Brand Promise

Such campaigns have a simple message. Their goal is to start communication with recipients. They often contain a motto, highlight the main feature of the brand or the quality of the products with which the brand is associated. These can be specialized accessories for winter sports, high-quality natural leather bags, original perfumes, or quality industry training.

The effectiveness of this campaign is manifested in strengthening the purchasing decisions of users, while reminding them of the reasons why they chose your brand over a competitive one. In communication, you can use the official logos of brands if you are a multi-brand.

For example, if you offer branded premium products and this fact distinguishes you from the competition, and the customer has doubts about their originality after receiving the order, your task is to assure him that he has received a full-value product. You can prove this, for example, by presenting a list of elements by which one can recognize that a given item is original. 

2. Birthday Campaign

This is one of the best-converting campaigns, increasing customer loyalty and affecting their engagement. In a simple way, it makes a given user feel noticed on this special day for him. This, in turn, is an incentive to continue the relationship with your brand.

For the campaign to have a positive impact on conversion, offer a discount coupon for the next purchases, a discount on purchases for a certain amount, or a free surprise (free training, a sample of cosmetic products, or consultation). For example, Tchibo implemented a birthday campaign in the form of email marketing, which encouraged visiting the physical store, offering the birthday person a free coffee and cake on that day, and a 50% discount on a similar set for the accompanying person.

Wondering if a birthday campaign makes sense?

Research conducted by MailUP shows that:

• OR is 481% higher compared to a typical newsletter,
• the order value also increases by 342%,– the click-to-open rate is 179% higher. 
  
  

Additionally, birthday campaigns achieve many more business goals, including:

• increasing customer satisfaction and happiness – highlighting them on this day positively affects the perception of your brand,
• increasing conversion and generating leads – by adding a special offer and an additional bonus to the wishes, you encourage the user to make unplanned purchases,
• engaging customers who have been inactive for a long time – studies show that even the least active customers are happy with a personal birthday email, and as a result, are also more likely to make purchases with you using a birthday discount.

However, to use it, you must first obtain your customers' birth dates. The simplest method to receive this type of data is to add a field to fill in at the stage of signing up for the newsletter, creating an account, or placing an order. GDPR comes in handy here. Due to age restrictions, you can use a form with a field to fill in the date of birth to verify the user's age.

Wondering how you can implement your e-commerce birthday campaign to increase user loyalty? Contact our specialists at Persooa and learn about the offer to implement Marketing Automation actions.

3. Loyalty Program

A campaign built on the basis of a loyalty program is one of the best to keep customers close. Thanks to it, users receive extra points or coupons for every purchase made, which they can then exchange for discounts, dedicated offers, exclusive products, or freebies.

Struggling to stand out among thousands of loyalty applications and encourage users to download and actively use your brand's Club? Take care of it with modern technologies, Machine Learning, profiling, or hyper-personalization of offers. These tools will allow you to propose an ideally tailored campaign for the user segments you have identified.

Why is this type of campaign effective?

Because it encourages existing customers to continue their relationship with your company and make purchases. An additional motivation is collecting points and the possibility of exchanging them for a specific thing (discount, product, or something else). 

It's also an extra benefit for you as an entrepreneur. Thanks to loyalty programs, you gain more lasting bonds with customers while simultaneously reducing the costs of marketing activities. How? A user belonging to your brand's loyalty program is more likely to decide to purchase from you than from the competition, even despite a slightly less favorable offer. All because of the desire to collect points, receive a discount, or exchange points for a valuable reward.

4. Discount on First Purchases

This is an excellent campaign that will help you gain a group of new users. Use communication that, thanks to additional benefits, encourages making purchases. These can be: free shipping regardless of the order value or after exceeding a certain amount. An extra discount on the first purchases (if it combines with the current promotion, the greater the likelihood that the potential customer will take advantage of it).

You notice many visits, traffic on your site, and even observe that products are often added to the cart. However, the purchase is not finalized, and the customer rarely returns to you again. How to prevent this? Take care of the so-called lead magnet and surprise him with a push or exit pop-up with information about an additional discount on the first purchases after signing up for the newsletter before he leaves your site. This way, you will achieve three goals:

• you will gain a valuable lead,
• you will take care of increasing conversion by encouraging purchases with an extra discount,
• you will be remembered by the user, who will visit your site again and make a purchase – at this point, take care of positive associations to gain his loyalty.

Protip: if the automation tool you use allows for such exclusions, do not display these types of messages to people who are already in your database.

The effectiveness of the first purchase campaign results from the curiosity of users or the competitive offer you propose. It's an additional space to take care of positive associations with your brand. At this point, take care of good relations, quality, and speed of customer service. Make sure that the delivery is not delayed, and the product itself is full-value. All this will ensure that new customers can become lifelong fans of your brand.

5. Consumer Referral Program

This is a simple campaign that brings many positive effects for e-commerce. It not only increases the engagement of existing customers but also allows you to generate additional leads at a low cost. It involves acquiring new customers by offering existing users the opportunity to invite friends to take advantage of the offer or get acquainted with your brand.

The referral campaign will definitely affect customer loyalty. This happens through the well-known technique of consumer recommendation marketing. Think about how many times you have recommended a given product, service, or brand to friends after your positive experiences? Surely it has happened more than once. Use this in your company as well and offer an incentive for users. Remember, however, to briefly and clearly explain to customers what steps they need to take to invite new people to shop in your store or what needs to be done so that the referring person and the new potential customer can take advantage of the bonuses.

Of course, this involves offering the customer an incentive to recommend your store/product or service. It can be an extra discount, additional points in the Club, or other benefits for both the referring person and the one receiving the recommendation. This approach will allow you to increase sales, gain a group of new users, and thereby take care of the loyalty of current users. Wondering about the benefits of this type of campaign?

Here are some of them:

• you can appreciate current users and their activity with additional benefits, thereby increasing their satisfaction,
• you build positive associations with your brand,
• you simply expand the group of loyal users,
• you have a chance to gain new customers,
• you reduce costs by engaging recipients in the natural promotion of your brand.
  
  

6. Sale

The key element of this campaign is that it cannot last as long as classic sales or promotions. It must be time-limited, causing users to feel additional pressure due to the short duration. As a result, they are more likely to take advantage of the attractive offer before it disappears or the assortment is sold out.

This type of campaign can provide you with a large scale of sales in a short time. However, it requires good preparation from you – both in terms of assortment availability, customer service, and order fulfillment.

How to highlight the short duration of the promotion?

Use marketing automation actions. This is the right moment to:

• apply a countdown timer on your site counting down to the start of the sale or after its start to the end,
• generate email shipments reminding of the ongoing sale,
• send push notifications or emails to users a few hours before the end of the action.

In this way, you will take care of a good reminder to the user that the offer is coming to an end, and at the same time, you will notice an increase in conversion. Remember, however, not to use such a campaign too often – let loyal users know that these are exceptional situations worth taking advantage of.

How can you appreciate current customers?

First and foremost, make sure they feel special. Let them know that the offer is directed only to club members. This will further influence the desire to wait for the moment when they will have early access to the sale offer or new collection or receive an additional discount on the promotion, which all users can take advantage of. 

7. Win-back campaign

This is nothing more than communication directed to users who have already had contact with your brand in the past but have been inactive users for a long time. Its goal is to influence their re-engagement and activation in order to regain loyalty. 

How can you reach inactive customers?

To remind them of your existence, create a win-back type campaign. Let its first element be a message explaining the renewed contact (inform that the customer has not opened emails or entered your store's app for x time).

The next step will be to directly ask the user whether they still want to receive messages from you – both image and marketing ones. Remember, by giving a choice, you show respect to your customers, and as a result, you build positive emotions.

Then allow the user to update their data including permissions to receive messages chosen by him through his preferred channels and only about topics that interest him. Do this through a clickable CTA that will take him to his account, landing page for login, or other elements on the site. Also, remember about the possibility of choice – let the customer know that they can unsubscribe from the subscriber list. Don't worry that this may happen, on the contrary – it will positively affect your mailing list, which thanks to systematic database cleaning will be much more qualitative.

The above-presented campaigns for e-commerce are just a few suggestions that you can apply to increase customer loyalty. However, according to us, these are the most effective. So, if you are looking for an effective way to encourage users to make repeat purchases or visits to your site, test one (or more) of the above e-commerce campaigns and see what additional benefits they bring to your company. 

Increase customer loyalty with Persooa experts

Remember, in today's business world, email marketing communication is too important to allow for its exclusion. In the case of the above campaigns, the return on investment (ROI) and conversion are significantly higher than in other digital marketing strategies. Send individual types of messages to selected segments from the database, saving time, and in your campaigns, use software designed for marketing automation. If you have never done this before, click here and take advantage of the expert knowledge of Persooa experts or schedule a consultation.