💬 Reducing 'churn' is a really key area, in my opinion, for brand owners and eCommerce marketers get on top of (if not already), and continue to optimise over time.
It's closely tied to retention and LTV, and is a critical component in building a scalable/sustainable growing business that can ride the waves of competitor and macro economics waves/fluctuations.
Why (eCommerce) churn is important to be on top of:
There are many others factors/benefits as to why, but these are the core areas I remind people/businesses I speak to (and consult with).
There are many ways to tackle eComm churn, but these are many strategies/initiatives I've seen work effectively with churn (that are great starter thoughts/points for brands that are early-stage and even more mature in growth).
Win-back campaigns are certainly one on my most effective and recommended strategies. Super easy to setup these automations to try get inactive customers back, or those who stop subscription programs (if you run them).
You can easily find these segments of customers if you use Shopify as your CMS (but any decent store CMS should be able to do this for you).
Integrate with the likes of Klaviyo and/or attentive (great SMS tool) for running personalised campaigns based on certain behaviours, especially "close to churn" audiences. Make sure to test various offers continuously to see what helps get customers back.
You gotta display customer reviews/stars/UGC videos anywhere and everywhere, and remind customers through email and your social channels. In a world where there's so much being thrown at customers faces, they can get distracted competing brands/offers.
You need to constantly remind them why you're the choice when it comes to your product - make sure your customers who love you do the selling to encourage more.
Running exchanges as a focus rather than returns in combination with the likes of free credits is a smart tactic to try get customers to come back and be loyal.
Returns can be a frustrating experience, so any way to make it more pleasant/streamlined can leave a good mark in the customers' mind to come back.
In conjunction with the above, do your best as a brand to make your returns/shipping policy as friendly as possible. Not only that, make it clearer and accessible.
Loyalty/rewards programs are the holy-grail in my view (and from experience consulting with numerous brands) that can keep customers engaged and motivated. Yet, so many brands still lack some sort of loyalty program strategy.
Having a multi-tiered points system in place that can unlock various awards along the journey is a really effective strategy. Great for encouraging customers to stay and see what rewards they can unlock.
A smart strategy I've seen a few companies do is collect birthdays via email to receive special birthday gifts whenever a customer birthday comes to light. You can easily ask for birthdays and have the opt-in automated with your CRM/database via prompting/asking via an automated email campaign - for instance, 2 weeks after they made their first purchase.
I've said this before in other checklist points - remember that sales-focused emails are great, but you need to lean more into sharing good value-add content that helps educate customers in regards to your product. And even if you run out of content ideas, share new posts from your TikTok, IG, or other social accounts.
Even then, just simply sharing UGC/influencer content is awesome.
If there's a strategy worth looking to investing resources into (alongside loyalty programs if you don't have one already), is building a community.
Of course, building/developing a community is easier said than done - however, the payoff is big when you get it right.
Highlight customer support to your audience as something you really care about - highlight it across your site, socials and email.
I mentioned this earlier in regards to "win-back" campaigns, but it's important to break down segments and deliver new offers based on their behaviour/interaction with your store.
Use a mix of data collection methods, including the likes of pop-ups and asking for 1-click answers, to prompting customers to respond to a personalised email you sent to them. The main takeaway here is that too many brands rely on "tools" to collect answers and data, which is still very important, but you need to mix with qualitative insights, whether that is through email replies, chat support answers, or via the phone.
Need to make it easy for customers to choose their preferred payment methods. Not only this helps with optimising conv. rates, but it gives power to the customer to make their own choice when it comes to buying products.
Helps with AOV and higher-priced products.
What's really exciting about all these development in analytics/AI at the moment is the release of new affordable platforms that can help you uncover incredible insights into your marketing and overall business financials/operations.
