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If you have optimized your online shopping cart and the checkout page is seemingly flawless, you might assume little or nothing else remains for improving the customer purchase experience.
Not so. The best ecommerce merchants know the experience doesn’t stop when an order is placed. They nurture that customer relationship beyond checkout.
One of the most successful—yet typically underutilized—vehicles for doing so is the post-purchase email. This message type converts at 18%. That’s a 180% lift over the average promotional email.
They’re useful for keeping customers content when orders are delayed, as Craig Hastings of Baking Steel has discovered.
Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Google Podcasts
As culinary director and Baking Steel’s go-to marketer, Hastings established a series of emails delivered after anyone buys the company’s hallmark product, a steel pizza stone. He later created versions for both griddle and accessory customers.
Hastings explains how the series helped customers bide their time during the height of the Covid pandemic, when demand from stay-at-home cooks outstripped product supply and created backorders of six to eight weeks. He discloses the types of content the series employs to espouse the notion of treating customers like family, and why authentic content of good quality is important.
Lucas Walker, ecommerce veteran, also shares his views on why the post-purchase message might be the funnest of automations for email marketers.
“I think everything we’re talking about boils down to nurturing the customer and making the purchase experience better. So it’s not just, ‘Hey, thanks for your order.’ And then tomorrow I send you another promotional message asking you to buy more stuff.”
— Greg Zakowicz, Host, Cart Insiders Podcast
We contemplate the following questions about post-purchase emails:
- Why is post-purchase messaging our podcast host’s favorite automation type to discuss?
- Should the message be aimed at driving sales, or is it more about reinforcing the brand?
- Why should you consider lacing in an affiliate partner?
- What makes for a great post-purchase message?
- What do merchants overlook when crafting a post-purchase message?
- How can post-purchase messages prompt better customer service?
Listen to the full story on the Cart Insiders Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
About the guests
Craig Hastings, Culinary Director and Marketer, Baking Steel
When Hastings isn’t developing recipes at Baking Steel, he’s involved with email marketing, product fulfillment, and other fun endeavors to keep customers happy. His culinary background includes working for famed chefs James Beard, as well as Tony Maws of Craigie on Main. Hastings is the founder of Served Meals, a non-profit organization in Massachusetts serving food-insecure people while slowing the amount of food waste in the world.
Lucas Walker, Founder, Rolled Up
Walker is a serial entrepreneur. He has started three successful businesses in the software, ecommerce, and media spaces. Walker’s experience also includes marketing for an internationally-recognized sales trainer, where he launched the Make It Happen Mondays podcast, oversaw partners around the world, and reviewed over 10,000 ecommerce websites.
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