Marketing strategies to squash Q1 slumps

A quick SMS & email marketing guide to help ensure your drip campaigns are on point to bring in first-quarter purchases from new and existing customers.
Emily Roberts

The BFCM marathon is over—deep breath—and you have the battle scars to prove you were there. Maybe the days of stress-dreaming about the year’s most significant promotions are long over, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t still on the hook to deliver big numbers all year round. Here is a quick SMS & email marketing guide to help ensure your drip campaigns are on point to bring in first-quarter purchases from new and existing customers.

Become this year’s marketing hero by building key automation campaigns & raking in revenue through targeted messages.

Win Them Back

Bring back customers who converted before and during BFCM, by creating a stellar Win Back Automation. Creating this journey and backpopulating it with qualifying subscribers is our top recommendation to drive a quick revenue boost ASAP.

Step One: Get started.

Create an automation with “Placed Order” as the trigger. Depending on what marketing platform you’re in, automated campaigns are called by various names, such as “Flows” in Klaviyo and “Journeys” in Attentive and Iterable.

Step Two: Determine the ideal wait time.

You may want to start out with a small wait time (say 30 days) and increase it after you backpopulate the flow (to a little before your brand’s predicted lapse point). This will allow you to get more of those BFCM purchasers into the flow right away, while then accounting for a longer wait time in the future.

Step Three: Create irresistible campaigns!

We like to add at least three touchpoints into Win Back flows—one before the lapse point, one around the lapse point, and one a bit after. This allows us to escalate the urgency of the messaging and the enticingness of the offers.

This will be one of your brand’s top revenue-driving flows, so take your time with it! Use your best evergreen images; add unignorable discounts (AB testing different offers if you’re feeling sciency); and don’t forget to play up the FOMO.

Add compelling CTAs (calls to action), inclusive of live buttons. But don’t bury them! Make sure your subscribers don’t have to scroll to see all the goodies and offers in store for them and can click through to your site high up in the campaign design. This will improve the flow’s click through rate, but also increase conversions.

Step Four: Add personalization.

Everyone entering the Win Back Flow has already made a purchase, and you should have plenty of information about them to use for a personalized and worthwhile experience. From their first name to what they purchased and how much they spent, you can use this data to ensure the automated campaigns are catered to each subscriber.

In emails, add product recommendations using the predictive functions available in marketing platforms like Klaviyo. These blocks of live products will update differently for each subscriber and can be set to account for what they’ve purchased, what they’ve viewed, and what’s currently trending, which you can set up as you see fit, depending on your products and business goals.

This automation will boost repeat purchases for months or years to come, so give it lots of love!

Cross Selling With Intelligence

Those who purchased over BFCM probably didn’t get everything they wanted. It’s time to step up the product recommendations by looking at what they’ve purchased already and delivering the most likely item for them to buy next. It’s a service, really, and they should be touched by your thoughtfulness—basically like having their own personal shopper, for free.

Step One: Begin with your key products.

Start with targeting subscribers who purchased your top-selling items so that you can get the most bang for your effort and the most traffic flowing through your automation. Hero products with low return rates are usually the top priority.

Step Two: Pick what to cross-sell.

Find out what people often purchase with the item, or what they would likely purchase next. There are many tools you can use to determine what items are often purchased together, and you and your team may have an inkling already. Tools range from Shopify’s analytics to additional platforms like Triple Whale, Glew.io, Daasity, and more.

Step Three: Pick your automation trigger.

To trigger this flow, there are at least two options. You can use an “Order Placed” metric with the hero product(s), and filter out anyone who has already placed the item to be recommended, OR you can trigger the automation with a segment.

To do the latter, create a segment of people who have placed an order that included the hero product but have never purchased the item that you will be recommending. The benefit of triggering the flow this way is that you’ll be able to see how big the initial customer segments are in advance, and if you’re curious or would like to do some deep-diving, take a peek through some of the subscribers who will qualify.

Step Four: Convert them again with relevant content.

Whatever marketing channels you’re using, be sure to feature curated content when possible, like first name and personalized offers with expiring codes like targeted discounts, free shipping, or a gift with purchase.

Let loyal customers and brand fans do the selling for you by featuring your top 5-star reviews and UGC or influencer content that features one or more of the products. If the products go together, show them together!

Other Top Automations

We are hoping that the following marketing automations were set up well in advance of BFCM last year for the best customer experience and higher online sales, but if they weren’t, there’s no time like the present to get them into action. (Don’t wait until you’re planning for Q4!)

All The Abandonments

From Browse, to Add to Cart, to Checkout, make sure your brand’s abandoned site & abandoned cart emails are dialed in tight with personalized content. For those who have purchased already, draw upon what you know about their behavior, preferences, spending habits, and location. For subscribers who have yet to convert, start by serving up a reminder of your brand’s welcome offer, if available. If there’s no welcome offer encouraging lead generation, abandonments are a great place to offer expiring discounts. Finally, layer in strategies that are specific to your brand, vertical, and goals.

Post Purchase

From instructional and nurturing content to bounce-back offers and FOMO messaging, the Post Purchase drip campaigns are the perfect place to give your customers the best experience possible, right when they’re happiest—building customer relationships, increasing customer retention, and decreasing time between purchases.

If your brand has a loyalty program, this is also a great time to encourage customers to join if they missed out—and to come back and get their points generated from their last purchase. If they have already signed up, you can remind them of the points they’ve earned, their tier level, and more.

Looking for help or another set of eyes?

Have your marketing strategy reviewed by our best-in-class Retention Marketing team! Reach out to schedule a call. We’re happy to lend our advice, and we’d love to collaborate with you and your brand.