An excellent welcome email program can quickly introduce customers to your brand and begin the connection off right. But what about customers who come back after churning? Do they should undergo the identical onboarding process, or would something that reflects their experience together with your brand encourage them to remain longer?
I began enthusiastic about this while listening to Stef Work with Paramount+, the streaming TV service, as she described her “Welcome Back” program for returning customers – those that had canceled their service but then resubscribed again.
I’m one in all those people. After cutting the cable cord a decade ago, I’ll subscribe to a streaming service to catch a show or a series after which cancel. Recently, my mom asked me to assist her enroll for Starz! so she could watch “Outlander.” I assured her we could cancel the subscription after she finishes watching all eight seasons in 2026.
And then I heard Stef describe Paramount+’s welcome-back email, and something exploded in my brain. I believed, “Of course you might have that! It makes total sense!”
When you already know one another
If I resubscribe to a streaming service, do I want to undergo the identical onboarding process? Stef says no, that Paramount+ understands these returning customers already know the brand, they is perhaps returning for a specific show or series, they usually likely subscribe, cancel, return and begin the method all all over again.
In other words, they know me, and their welcome-back program shows that.
This also describes retail customers, who shop at some brands just once a yr at the vacations, or SaaS users who enroll for a free program, cancel it after which return to upgrade to a paid version. And that’s why I had that “ah ha!” moment in the course of the Paramount+ presentation.
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We can create a welcome-back program for nearly every retail or SaaS vertical. But it might’t be a retread of your standard welcome or onboarding program. Let’s explore three things to contemplate as you construct a welcome-back program.
Three belongings you need for a welcome-back program
1. The correct data
With a subscription service, you might have concrete data points for subscribing, payment history, account cancellation and resubscribing. In retail, while you should use email opt-ins and unsubscribe data to discover returning customers, it’s often more a query of emerging from dormancy. Do you might have the information to pinpoint which customers are recent or returning?
Specifically for email, can your ESP process that additional subscription after an unsubscribe? At some ESPs, when you’ve unsubscribed with one address, you possibly can’t reuse it to start out a recent subscription. You will need to ascertain that together with your ESP representative. Make sure you might have access to that data so you possibly can put it to work.
Your recent welcome-back program can be one other automated email or series. You might want to know not only whom you’re including but in addition whom you’re excluding based on the information to make sure you’re sending the suitable welcome program.
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That’s why you need to start investigating a welcome-back email program by evaluating your data, which is able to define your strategy.
This is your pre-work. It’s all about developing your strategy before launching the tactical work of designing and testing the emails. Part of your strategy exercise is discovering what data you might have, whether it’s formulated appropriately, and whether you possibly can distinguish between recent and returning customers.
2. What it is advisable say
This is the strategic a part of designing your welcome-back message. What can be best in your relationship with that customer?
With a subscription service like streaming TV, viewership data will inform your message content to acknowledge the shows they watched previously and the categories they browsed and streamed from most frequently.
Your message would highlight that show, and include similar shows in the identical genres or on complementary topics, with similar casts and narratives. If that sounds suspiciously like cross-selling or upselling in email marketing, bingo!
A retail welcome-back email would have similar content, showcasing familiar merchandise categories and recent merchandise lines or services the corporate just added.
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Your welcome-back program’s goal just isn’t simply to say “Welcome back!” and show them the identical content they viewed before, but in addition to make use of your data to retain them, whether or not they’re streaming customers or retail shoppers, after they’ve done what they got here back to the brand to do.
This is where the strategic work comes into play. Think concerning the consumer at that level and the behavior that you just learned in the course of the data exploration. Your email content can be different for different cohorts of your customers.
Figure out the best way to speak to streaming customers who watched two shows that ended concurrently. Figure out the best way to discuss with a customer who shops together with your brand once a yr at the vacations. It’s not a easy message saying, “Here’s what you acquire last yr. Do you would like to buy it again?”
It’s all concerning the connective tissue between their experience at the height of their intent and what else you might have that matches that on this next phase of your relationship. Your message have to be highly relevant to retain that customer long after they achieve their original goal together with your brand.
3. A approach to keep them from churning
A welcome-back email just isn’t only one message in a series. You’re essentially merging a welcome, an onboarding and a win-back into a single recent journey focused exclusively on churned customers who’ve signed up again. This includes a recent message schedule.
As an example, for a series on a streaming service, you’d arrange a journey to send a message in the beginning of the season, one other in the center and one other near the top, other than other promotional emails you may send. There’s a lot of complexity there.
Throughout the journey, the message goals transition from welcome back to retention. You say, “We hope you’re having fun with Outlander. Now here’s something else we now have that you just might like.”
And yes, you’re sending a similar message to other customers, but you realize these returning subscribers have a track record for canceling when the show season is over. So, your messaging have to be much more heading in the right direction.
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The same is true for retailers. You would arrange a journey to send emails reaching out at different times of the yr with content that cross-sells and upsells, with products just like what they’ve bought or the subsequent logical purchase within the product cycle.
You also stress your brand value, services, expertise and other advantages to influence once-a-year shoppers to stick to your brand as an alternative of unsubscribing after they get what they need.
Retention and extension are difficult to realize. That’s why developing a strong strategy is an important thing you possibly can do to influence customers to remain longer.
Accurate measurement is vital here. Can you track the flow of individuals out and in of lively customer status? What KPIs can show you achieved your retention goal?
The tactical aspect of making a recent welcome-back program is the straightforward part. Developing a technique to guide your messaging after which proving it really works is the hard part.
Bottom line
Stef’s presentation was an eye-opener for me. Her comments made sense to me immediately.
I must have been embarrassed at not doing this myself during my 27-year profession, but I’m not. We have to be open to recent concepts, regardless of where we’re in our careers or how much we’ve already achieved with our email programs.
I’m particularly smitten by the welcome-back concept because it might be applied to so many industry verticals, from subscription services to retail, travel and hospitality and even financial services.
It doesn’t matter that the concept originated with a streaming TV service. Everyone can use it. This may also help us email marketers proceed to grow as an industry and as individuals to make sure we’re doing it appropriately to serve our consumers higher.
Please consider whether a welcome-back program could help your organization be more welcoming to returning customers and encourage them to stick with you longer. If you develop a program or already do something similar, shoot me a note on LinkedIn. I might like to discuss with you about it.
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