Stop Winging Your Post-Purchase Emails: A Framework That Works. If You Work It.
Alternate title: Is it worth it? Let Me Work It - A Post-Purchase Experience.
I realize that I spend a ton of time on pre-purchase strategies and initiatives when I’m discussing email/sms marketing ideas and angles. It’s always interesting to find our own inherent biases by simply scrolling through previous work.
I actually do spend a lot of time thinking about and working on post-purchase strategies, though - because this is where email and sms really shine. You already paid for the acquisition, now it’s time to extend the lifetime value of these buyers and grow the business.
Before we start dropping message modules on the sending platform, we need to pump the breaks for a second and think about what we are actually doing. We don’t want to end up with a random series of discounts and messages to our buyers. Come to think of it, we need to figure out how to treat a first-time buyer vs a second-time buyer. How about a 10th-time buyer? We can’t just keep sending the same thank you every time they order, right?
Let’s walk through the decisions to be made here and set ourselves up for a winning customer journey, post-purchase style.
We need some stuff to get started. You need all these things either in your head or laid out in Notion, Miro, Google Docs, or something.
Brand Syllabus
Purchase best-case scenario
Purchase worst-case scenario
Customer ascension plan
Each input here will provide a unique benefit to your post-purchase journey; the more you have and the higher quality they are, the better off you’re going to be. The key to a successful post-purchase is to have a handle on exactly what you’re trying to achieve on the message level and then on the journey level. This is where things get a little shaky if you’re just coming in off the street to one of my customer journey creations. We are always building on top of the previous journeys, so if you haven’t already set up your list growth tools and welcome series according to my process, this could be tricky. Maybe still valuable, but not 1 to 1 for sure.
Brand Syllabus is your source of truth when it comes to educating customers and audience members about your unique value to the world. Ideally, this would have been created back before launching your welcome series, and you’ve been using it to strategically teach your new audience members the most important unique values about your brand. Creating this resource should not be rushed, as it will be foundational for multiple customer journeys across your program. Think deeply about what makes your brand different and special. What are you offering to the world, and how is it unique? What problems are you solving? What impact are you making? We need to take the “fuzzy” idea of who we are and turn it into a straight-up databaseable, clearly defined list. Ideally, 10 or so. Once this is in hand, it’s time to connect it with the purchase worst case/best case scenarios to guide customers through this next step of their lifecycle with you.
When creating your product worst case/best case scenarios, take time to think deeply about the potential experiences your customers may have with the product. Look through reviews (good and bad) and find outliers and trends. How long was fulfillment time? Order from your own site and ship to yourself. Unbox the product and use it. Getting scrappy will pay off big time here, and the closer you get to your customers’ actual experience, the better shape you’ll be in to use email & sms to guide them to successful outcomes with your product.
For example, if you’re running a supplement brand, your primary goal of post-purchase communication is to make sure your customers are actually taking the product. There’s no larger point of friction in the purchase of a supplement than a full, unused bottle sitting on your customer’s counter. When you look at the messaging from a brand like AG1, you can see clearly that this is accounted for in their purchase best case/worst case scenario. Once you have these clear guidelines set, you’re free to think of creative ways to get them handled in your post-purchase over the course of multiple messages.
If you’re selling boots or workout shoes that require a break in period before being the best thing that every happened to your feet… if you’re offering SEO services but it takes 4-6 weeks to see results… if you’re selling internet mattresses and need to warn your customers to duck when they unbox… this can all be covered in your purchase best case/worst case scenario prep.
The next piece to think about is customer ascension. What is the long-term plan with your customer? If your product isn’t re-orderable for whatever reason, what’s the plan here? Is it referrals or gathering user-generated content to help with your acquisition? If you have a re-orderable catalog like beauty/cosmetics, what does your business need your customers to do next? Re-order the same products/variations of the same products, or move horizontally through the catalog?
Stacking this critical piece of data on top of the other pieces we’ve covered allow to to form a true post-purchase journey. This is where you find the answers you seek when it comes to creating journeys for 2x, 3x, and 25x buyers. I’d recommend creating a few segments in your platform to see where the drop-off is for your brand. Try the following rules:
And just look for the drop-off. Don’t worry, you’ll see it.
If you get to the “placed order equals 4” and you’re looking at 5 subscribers, it’s safe to say that you found your dropoff point (it’s 3 in this example, to be clear). Using your brand syllabus, purchase worst case/best case scenarios, and customer ascension plan as your guide to moving users through these segments is the work to getting your post-purchase where it needs to be.
No secrets, no weird tactics or cheat codes. Just better journeys and messaging for your customers, backed by focusing on the right information at the right time.
OK. You’re ready. Get out there and make some better journeys for your customers!
