How to set up a compelling re-activation campaign?

What is a re-activation campaign?

With a reactivation campaign - the name says it all - you commit to reactivating your inactive customers. Inactive customers are those who once made a purchase from you or subscribed to your newsletter. But... Their interest seems to have waned. Maybe they still open your e-mails occasionally, but otherwise you don't hear much from them. Of course, it is a shame to lose this group of customers just like that. After all, they are easy to reactivate. After all, they already know your name and you already have their details in your database.

A reactivation campaign has even more advantages than just getting inactive customers back. After all, you also clean up your database with it. After all, you remove the uninterested customers from your list. This ensures a higher open rate, fewer spam complaints, fewer bounces and possibly a lower subscription price.

💡 Tip: are you switching e-mail software? Then set up a re-activation campaign in your first month. This way, you can easily determine which profiles from your existing database are still worth mailing and which are not.

Here's how to set up a re-activation campaign

A reactivation campaign requires some preparation. You obviously don't want to indiscriminately label your customers as inactive and exclude them from all your emails. Setting up a reactivation campaign consists of 4 steps:

1. Determining when a customer is inactive

2. Setting up a campaign

3. Run, analyze and fine-tune the campaign

4. Saying goodbye to your inactive customers

Step 1: Determining when a customer is inactive

The first step does not sound very surprising: determine when a customer is inactive. Is a customer inactive when they haven't ordered for 6 months, or after only 6 weeks? The answer depends entirely on your webshop and the lifespan of the products you sell. You can imagine that the lifespan of cosmetics, for instance, is many times shorter than the lifespan of household appliances. After all, a household appliance lasts longer than a cosmetics product that runs out. In turn, a short lifespan means it will soon be time for a repeat purchase.

💡 Tips for identifying your inactive customers:

• Take seasonal purchases into account. Does a customer invariably buy sunscreen from you? Then chances are that this customer orders from you only in spring and summer. Set up a cross-sell campaign for the seasons the customer is inactive.
• Watch for patterns. Do you see that for a group of products, many customers have the same time between and repeat purchase? This means the product has a long lifespan. Do you see that there is a big difference between lifespans of your products? Then assume the longest lifespan and set up different retention strategies for products with a short lifespan.

Determine whether the target audience is large enough to invest time and energy in it. Do only a handful of customers meet your label of 'inactive'? Then ask yourself if you are not setting too strict requirements or if you are a lucky person with few inactive customers.

An example of requirements for an inactive customer:

Last order was 6 months ago;

Has not opened the last 8 emails.

Step 2: Setting up a campaign

Now that you know what an inactive customer looks like for your webshop, it's time to set up the rest of your reactivation campaign. To do this, ask yourself the following questions:

• What is the goal of your campaign? Is it a new transaction or is it enough if inactive customers open your e-mails again? The goal determines the content of your e-mail(s). So think carefully about this!
• How will you achieve your goal? To entice sleepers to come back again, you can offer something in return for their loyalty. What this should be depends on your goal.
• Is your goal a new transaction? Then give away a discount code, for example, or send matching products from the previous purchase.
• Do you want your customer to open your emails again? Then ask for feedback or provide a whitepaper with interesting information.

Will you send one e-mail to reactivate your dormant customers or will you set up an automation consisting of several e-mails? We explain this choice for you below.

Reactivation campaign consisting of one e-mail

You can choose to set up a re-activation campaign consisting of one e-mail. This is especially advisable when you have a small group of inactive customers. A large campaign will soon be impossible for this group. What kind of e-mail do you send when you have one e-mail to reactivate your customers? An example:

The low-key reactivation email

Indicate that you miss the customer and offer them the option to keep subscribing to the newsletter. But note: does the customer not click the button? Then say goodbye to this customer and unsubscribe him from all your mailings. The below re-activation email from Winparts fits this example perfectly. They are clear in their email: don't click the button to continue receiving all updates? Then they assume you are no longer interested and you are automatically unsubscribed. This way, they avoid frustration with their customers and the database is cleaned up.

Reactivation campaign consisting of multiple emails

Do inactive customers make up a large part of your database? Then don't send just one e-mail to reactivate this group. Instead, set up an (automated) campaign with multiple emails. Such a campaign could look like this:

• Mail 1: "We miss you!" In the first e-mail, let it be known that you miss the customer and tell him or her what has changed since the last visit. For example, add a (dynamic) product row with all the new products.
• Mail 2: "We have something for you." Use the second e-mail as an asset. Give away a personalised discount code. To persuade the customer to come back as soon as possible, you can attach conditions to the discount code. For example, think about validity or lower the threshold and do not set a minimum amount to spend.
• Mail 3: "Is it time to say goodbye?" Your inactive customer has not yet taken steps to become active again. With this third mail, you make one more attempt to bring the customer back. You offer him the opportunity to subscribe again with a single click of a button. Note: does your customer not take any action? Then assume he is no longer interested. Say goodbye by deactivating the profile.

💡 Tip: do you decide to set up a re-activation campaign consisting of several mails? In that case, it might be a good idea to exclude your inactive customers from your regular emails. This way, you won't overwhelm them with emails, avoid frustration and your emails will stand out better.

Step 3: Run, analyze and fine-tune the re-activation campaign

So, your re-activation campaign is in place. Time to send it out and/or activate it! Whether you run a one-off reactivation campaign or activate an automated one, the following applies to both; regularly fine-tune your campaign. You do this based on your achieved results. For example, do you see that few profiles are reactivating? Maybe your content is not relevant enough. Take a close look at your e-mail(s) and adjust the content where necessary.

Don't just look at how your reactivation campaign is going. Also keep an eye on whether the number of inactive customers is growing or not. When you see that you have a lot of inactive customers, it's time to tighten up your entire email strategy.

Step 4: Saying goodbye to your inactive customers

Even if your reactivation campaign is so convincing, it may happen that you don't recover all inactive customers. Don't mourn this for too long and say goodbye to these customers. After all, you did what you could. Unsubscribe them from your mailings and clean up your database.

💡 Tip: send your inactive customers one last goodbye email stating that you are going to deactivate them. Who knows, you might still win over the doubtful customers!