3 ways to get your customers to return and buy again

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If you don’t know by now, turning a visitor or reader into a customer is the most time, money and energy intensive process in your marketing funnel. But once they become a customer, even if they love your products, how can you encourage them to come back for more… again and again? In this post I’m revealing three ways to get your customers to come back and make repeat purchases.

3 ways to get your e-commerce customers to return and buy again

There are many ways to get your customers to return which all stems from how you position your brand, the way you treat your customers, how often you launch a new product, the brand equity you’ve built up over time and many more. 

But if you want tried and tested tactics that can guarantee repeat business almost on autopilot, then consider these three strategies below.

1. Customer loyalty program

Using a customer loyalty program is one of the best ways to encourage repeat purchases, mainly because the human brain likes to complete unfinished tasks. If your customer earns points for every purchase they make, and they know they have points in their account, just waiting to be used, they don’t want them to be left in limbo.

It’s a subtle psychology tactic of why rewards systems work.  Not only is there a “dopamine” hit for being rewarded for taking an action (ie. points for purchases), it creates a sense of connection because your customer knows that the more they spend the more points they have and the more they can save on future purchases.  

This works really well when your customers are huge fans of your products anyway because it’s an added incentive to come back and buy again, even when they may not be ready to do so (meaning their current product may not have run out but they want to make use of the points they have).  

Rewards programmes are also great because you have the opportunity to run promotions around the points system without seemingly to have to discount your products to create a boost in revenue.

It’s a win-win situation for your customers and you.

2. Referral program

Using a referrals system is similar to a loyalty programme but you are in essence expanding your reach using this technique.

This is not to be confused with an affiliate programme.  The difference between an affiliate programme and a referral programme is that affiliates get paid a % commission of the sale for referring your products to others, whereas a referral programme awards points that can be redeemed on future purchases for doing the same.

With a referral programme, it’s like a double whammy. More customers hear about your products and your referring customers come back for more because they want to spend their points.

3. Win back campaigns

 A win back campaign is a simple marketing tactic that deploys after a customer has been dormant for a while.  Usually, this is an email campaign, but can be deployed via re-targeting ads instead, or both.

If a past customer hasn’t purchased after a stated amount of time, perhaps 90 days, your Email Service Platform (ESP) triggers a sequence of emails to “win them back” as customers. What you include in your win-back campaign is entirely up to you.

You can offer a discount, use persuasion techniques, scarcity tactics, bundle unique offers together to encourage a sale, anything goes when it comes to your win-back campaign. Keep it on-brand and authentic to make sure that your customers are ultimately happy and satisfied with their purchase.

How to create loyal customers and raving fans

There are plenty of ways to create repeat purchases through a variety of promotions and tactics, but these three are tried and tested practices that you might want to consider for your ecommerce shop to get your customers to return. One thing’s for sure… Offer great products, provide great service, treat your customer right and they’ll want to return anyway AND spread the word without the need for referral techniques.