How to Increase Customer Retention by Sending Reorder campaigns on WhatsApp

_{A Masterclass on Reorder campaigns on Whatsapp}

The cost of acquiring new customers is 5X that of getting existing customers to buy from you.

Most D2C brands we know are trying to reduce rising Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC) to optimise their marketing spends and please their investors.

However, one way to become more flexible with your CAC is to have your customer retention strategy down.

When more people stay loyal to your brand, you can justify spending more on reaching new customers. It will also be more effective.

So, what can your D2C  brand do to increase repeat orders?

Traditionally, ecommerce brands use email and SMS to reach their customers, but we all know their open rates are at an all-time low. 

Instead, you need to send reorder campaigns on the channel where your audience hangs out the most.

On WhatsApp.

In this blog, we show you why customer retention matters, why WhatsApp is the best forum for your retention strategies, and tips for creating and maximising your returns from repeat orders and customer engagement campaigns.

So why does Customer Retention matter for E-commerce brands?

Well, if you retain your existing customers and remind them to order again from you, you can –

Boost revenues while lowering CAC

Acquiring new customers is significantly more expensive than retaining existing ones — most e-commerce businesses devote 80% of their marketing budget to acquiring first-time customers.

However, repeat business accounts for 40% of the average e-commerce store’s revenue.

Additionally, increasing customer retention rates by 5% can increase profits by 25 – 95%.

Spend lesser on Advertisements

Acquiring new customers means running multiple + expensive advertisements and social media campaigns.

If your retention rate is excellent, you don’t need to depend heavily on finding new customers to reach your revenue goals. 

Instead, by making use of the tips we’ve listed next, you can retarget your existing customers, fulfilling their existing needs and upsell+ cross-sell other products to them in a scalable way.

Our recommended approach can help you boost your revenues by as much as 3x! 

Curious to know more? Read till the end to discover how brands achieved this with our campaigns.

Promote your Brand for free

Your brand image benefits massively when your customers remain loyal to you. 

As a result, your customers are more likely to recommend your products to their families, friends, and other near and dear ones. 

There’s nothing people trust more than recommendations from people they know well.

As a result, you benefit from organic, word-of-mouth recommendations, without spending anything!

Customer retention is particularly important for businesses that sell beauty, health and wellness, and other products that require customers to restock regularly.

Targeting such customers can significantly boost your brand’s revenues and growth.

Why is WhatsApp Marketing Better for Customer Retention?

• India’s 340 million monthly active WhatsApp users spend an average of 38 minutes on the app every day.
• Almost 175 million people message business accounts on WhatsApp every day.
• Users check WhatsApp at least 25-27 times a day, making it more likely for them to read your messages, and increasing brand recall each time they see your chat, even if the conversation is over.
• Additionally, customers engage the most on WhatsApp and read 80% of messages within 5 minutes of receiving them, making them great for time-bound offers and promotions.
• Finally, WhatsApp Business has an open rate of 99%, while email and other traditional marketing methods reach only 5-10% in open rates.

Tips for Ecommerce Brands to Run Successful Reorder Campaigns on WhatsApp

Despite all these ways that D2C brands can benefit from customer retention, only 18% of e-commerce businesses actually focus on it.

Are you determined to distinguish yourself? Here’s how you can leverage reorder campaigns on WhatsApp.

Personalise your customers’ experiences

Personalisation goes far beyond simply using your customers’ names while talking to them. It means personalising the products you show them.

74 % of shoppers get frustrated when they see products that are not personalised, and drop off your website.

The best way to implement personalisation is by opting for a guided selling model. This model redirects customer queries to a live chat or WhatsApp chat.

A smart, automated conversational agent asks customers pertinent questions about their needs and preferences to determine the products most likely to convert them. It then recommends products based on these preferences, along with information on how to use the product, its side effects, discounts on that item, and much more, to encourage your customers to complete their purchase journey. 

A guided selling model also allows your customers to track their orders with a single click, retrieving stored information without asking them to re-input their order id.

Based on the data you collect, you can keep recommending similar products to your customers, increasing their likelihood of becoming repeat customers.

Learn how to implement guided selling for your brand here, and check out how Man Matters employed guided selling to increase its conversions by 3x.

Pre-empt and answer your customer’s pre and post-purchase queries

83% of shoppers require some form of support before making a purchase. 

Support usually means clarifying pre-purchase queries about the range of products that suit your customers’ needs, shipping and delivery times, product ratings and reviews, and so on.

Make customer support easily accessible through WhatsApp chat, and use automation to respond to queries promptly and intelligently.

A guided selling model can guide a customer through every stage of the purchase funnel, flattering their choices, assuaging their fears, and building trust in your brand by displaying photos of the product and customer reviews.

How does this increase your customer retention rates? 96% of customers choose to be loyal to companies that deliver exceptional customer experiences.

And repeat customers who have great customer experiences become more loyal with each repeat order, thus reducing your CAC and increasing your revenues from repeat orders.

Make ordering seamless

Most customers prefer buying through interfaces most familiar to them – and now, that is WhatsApp.

Did you know you can actually get them to finish ordering, right on Whatsapp itself?

If they have felt confused after exploring your website, you don’t have to send them back there to complete their purchase and increase chances of drop-off.

Additionally, keep providing your users easy redirections – for instance, after showing them how your product works, display a “buy now” option to allow your customer to make the purchase with one click, without having to go back to the main menu to check what option “buy now” was.

Leverage 2 Types of Reorder Campaigns on WhatsApp

Finally, you can put all these tips in action by creating an incredible reorder campaign on WhatsApp.

This can happen in two ways – 

Reorder campaigns Based on Restocking

If you sell products that need to be replenished from time to time, you can send your customers WhatsApp notifications just before they run out of that product. 

With LimeChat’s Klaviyo-like flow builder for WhatsApp, you can do a one-time, quick setup to automatically trigger notifications after an estimated product lifecycle.

Go beyond the basics and hyperpersonalize your messages based on single or multiple items in cart, different product lifecycles, etc.

Reorder Campaigns based on Cross-Selling:

Cross-selling complementary products is an effective way to induce your customers to place repeat orders. 

For example, customers who only buy a face serum from you would later also be interested in buying a complementary moisturiser or face mask from you, and if you send them notifications about such products, they are very likely to click on the “buy now” option.

Reorder campaigns on Whatsapp Best Practices:

Send personalised win-back campaigns to loyal WhatsApp user cohorts using:

1. Reorder and upsell campaigns – Use data about your customers’ needs and preferences, and past history, to notify them when their stock might be running out, and to sell similar products. 
2. Smart follow-up workflows – Automate follow-ups using the most impactful templates, and send them at the optimal time to maximise the likelihood of your customers reordering from you.
3. One-click purchases – Make your customers’ purchase journey frictionless by sending them reorder notifications, redirecting them to payment details with a single click.

Send personalised engagement to your customers based on their previous purchasing behaviour using:

1. Personalisation based on drop-off point – Use data collected by an intelligent, Level 3 chatbot powered by AI to segment customers based on their drop-off points. Deploy engagement techniques targeted specifically at these segmented drop-off points to efficiently re-engage the largest volume of customers.
2. Personalized discounts based on brand loyalty – Reward loyal customers with special promotions, brand memberships, and discount vouchers to build further loyalty. 
3. Personalisation based on past preferences and targeted marketing

Additionally, you should:

1. Offer flat discount to pique their interest and convince them to buy
2. Add clear reply buttons to make it easier for customers to take an action
3. Use industry-approved, high-performing reorder templates

How can LimeChat’s Retention Campaigns on Whatsapp Reduce CAC by 30%?

LimeChat is powered by the most recent advances in AI and machine learning, allows your conversational assistant to understand a shopper’s questions, intent, and emotions.

It then creates personalised responses for each critical stage of your customers’ journeys, delivering a precise, memorable experience on par with the best in-store experiences.

In our Whatsapp Marketing Retention Campaigns, here are a few key ways we stand out:

A comprehensive list of top-selling products

We will share with you a list of your top 50-100 products. All you need to do is simply add the discount (which you can give on each reordered product) and your product lifecycle of each product in the list!

Buttons to encourage customer actions

Engage customers in 2-way communication by adding relevant buttons to gamify the experience for your customers. Feedback and responses are powerful and our campaigns leverage that to create an enging shopping experience.

Cart customization

If the customer’s cart has multiple items in their carts, through LimeChat, you can give them options to order the entire cart or customize it!

Giving users the ability to edit both the item and quantity of the item in the cart, makes it more flexible for them. Once they have selected the item and its quantity, the address is again fetched along with the option to checkout, making the entire process hassle-free.

Functionality for different product lifecycle use case

Suppose someone orders 5 items and 3 of them have 30 days of product lifecycle and 2 of them have a 45 days of product lifecycle. The customer will receive two reorder messages, one after 30 days (with 3 item) and the other after 45 days (with 2 items).

Remove freebee or free products

Products that have zero price in the original checkout are removed from the reorder cart, making the process seamless.

Functionality for out of stock items

LimeChat checks the inventory count before sending the notification. If the count is 0, the notification for that particular product is not sent.

Along with these, we also have

A single dashboard to manage all your channels

LimeChat provides a centralised dashboard for managing all of your support tickets from all of your channels, including live chat, email, WhatsApp, and Facebook. Using a single inbox, you can better manage your customers’ queries and post quick solutions.

Personalization like never before

LimeChat provides a 360-degree view of your customers’ purchasing journey, allowing you to tailor a more personalised shopping experience.

The platform allows you to analyse previous interactions with your customers, which serve as actionable data for your marketing and support teams — you can retarget customers in real time by informing them about promotional discounts, hot products, products going out of stock, and so on, based on these actions.

Automation to scale your Brand

It enables you to scale your customer support with human-level automation that is applied throughout the buyer journey. As a result, you can respond to your customers’ pre- and post-purchase inquiries more effectively.

LimeChat can tap into the power of technology and the human touch with the help of automated campaigns and the ability to hand off campaigns to live agents.

We’ve helped leading brands like Man Matters, UrbanGabru, andMe and many more achieve 3x conversions through abandoned checkout recovery and win-backs with WhatsApp marketing.

Curious to know more? Book a free demo now.