Catching shoppers when they are already looking to spend is relatively straightforward, especially when it’s dangerously close to a gift-giving holiday like Christmas. But turning them into forever customers means nurturing them beyond the purchase to keep your business or products at the forefront of their minds.
Ketan Kapoor, CEO and cofounder of Mettl, puts this effort into perspective. “You have to make efforts to woo your customers across their entire buying journey that consists of three broad stages: the pre-buying experience, buying, and post-buying experience.”
This is just one of many tactics your business should implement to convert holiday shoppers into forever customers. “If you can [exceed customer] expectations throughout these stages and not give them a single touchpoint to complain about, then [...] you can delight them and retain them for good. Always make it a point to deliver more than what customers expect, and surprise them for all the good reasons.”
Below we explain four tactics to maintain your holiday shoppers.
Build an Email List
Whenever a customer buys something from your company, make sure that you ask them to provide an email address. Establishing a direct line of contact between the customer and your business is essential if you plan on trying to convert them into a long term customer.
Send an initial email thanking them for their purchase a day or so after their order has gone through. Thank you emails have a good open rate and also help with conversions, particularly if you display some products you sell which are relevant to the ones they ordered.
Offer Low-Cost Giveaways and Promotions
Use affordable giveaways to reward customers for shopping with you. Simply add a small giveaway item to their bag at checkout or in the order you ship them. Since personalized giveaways on average are kept by recipients for six months, your customers will be reminded of your business often and are more likely to visit again.
One of the things we do around the holidays is send out redeemable promotion codes that can be used up to one month after the original purchase date. This encourages customers to come back and visit our online store again.
Present website visitors [with] an offer they can claim only after opting into your newsletter. The newsletter offers them additional incentives which they will keep getting directly [to] their inbox.
Connect on Social Media
Interacting with your ideal customers on social media is a great way to keep your brand at the forefront of their buying options. Be especially active during the holidays to gain new connections that you can nurture after the season ends.
Providing answers to Facebook groups as your company is also beneficial. Find groups that are relevant to your industry and pitch into discussions and offer advice. This will help your brand to build a trustworthy and helpful name within the industry, encouraging people to visit your site at any time of the year.
Asking for follows, using hashtags or tagging your business’s social media account on posts or photos is a great way to get customers to interact with your brand and feel important, creating another method to maintain communication.
Look at Historical Trends
If you collect any demographics on customers, you’ll have data to give you an idea of who your target buyer is and what products or services are your money makers. You can accomplish this task with software that tracks customer purchase histories, monthly trends in revenue and inventory sales.
Leave no stone unturned when it comes to delighting your holiday shoppers this season. Leaving their conversion up to chance is too big a risk when there are so many ways you can facilitate long-term engagement.
Update your online store for the holidays.
Tell us how these tips (or any we missed) have helped you gain forever customers from holiday shoppers in the comments section below.
