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7 Ways to Re-Engage Customers After the Holidays

December 28, 2016

1) Welcome New Customers

Hopefully your email list has grown over the last few weeks as new customers shopped for the holidays. Now it’s time to re-engage all of your new contacts! Craft an email campaign just for them. Customers who receive a welcome email show a 33% increase in long-term engagement. In this phase of the game, your goal is to cultivate a relationship with your new customers. Remember to focus on the customer and their needs rather than focusing on your business. Build trust with your new customers and teach them how your brand can meet their needs.

2) Connect in a Unique Way

You’re not the only one contacting your customers after the holidays. You’ll need to stand out from the crowd. Try to connect with your customers in a personal way. You could send a greeting from your CEO, thank your customers for a successful year, link to your most popular blog articles from the past year, share some tips, or hint at the new things you have in store for the coming year. If you have a shipping address for your customers, add a human touch and surprise them with a card in the mail, wishing them a happy new year.

3) Use Promotions

Many consumers will be feeling price-conscious after all their holiday spending. You can help put them at ease and encourage them to return to shopping by running a post-holiday promotion. Offer a percent-off discount, free shipping, or even a buy-one-get-one deal. Advertise your promotion on your site, on social media, and via email. Be sure to stress that your promotion will last only for a limited time in order to create a sense of urgency.

4) Prepare Your Customer Service Team

Tis the season for returns and exchanges! Make sure your customer service team is ready. Although their job title doesn’t include “sales”, customer service reps should understand how their interactions with customers can help the company grow. Your customer service reps are the face of your company; every interaction they have with your customers can make or break your company’s relationship with its customers. If your customer service reps can handle returns and exchanges painlessly, your customers are sure to remember that and keep coming back for more positive experiences in the future.

5) Gather Reviews

The more customer feedback you gather, the merrier! Online reviews are a valuable conversion tool any time of the year, and an increase in traffic during the holidays is the perfect time to gather reviews that will benefit your business throughout every season. You could start out small by including a request for product reviews in your receipt emails, or scale up by installing an automated reviews collecting tool such as Advanced Reviews.

6) Provide Loyalty Discounts

Don’t just thank customers for shopping your site at the holidays. Reward them for sticking with your brand once the holidays are over. Brick and mortar shops will often slip a coupon in shopping bags for a discount that’s valid after the holiday season. You can do the same thing with your online shop! Include a discount code in your receipt email that will not only show customers you appreciate their holiday business, but you hope to see them back on your site again soon.

7) Prepare a Cart Recovery Campaign

After the holidays, customers will browse multiple sites as they look to make returns or spend gift money. Make sure your abandoned cart recovery campaign is ready to win customers back as they’re browsing around! As customers hop from site to site, it can be difficult for them to remember where they found their favorite items. Sending shoppers a reminder about the goodies they found on your site is a great way to retarget shoppers, set yourself apart from the competition, and win back your customers. Sign up for a free 30 day trial with CartStack, and set up your abandoned cart recovery campaign today!