We’ve all been there, you roll out of bed in the morning and crawl to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee only to find out that you ran out yesterday and in your sleep stupor you forgot to make a mental note to buy more. When this happened to me last week, two thoughts immediately jumped to mind. The first, I should work on my organizational and note taking skills. The second, life would be so much easier if I was somehow sent a reminder when I was starting to run low. Retailers with consumable products are in a unique position to do just that. Having the ability to send a reminder email to customers based on the intended lifecycle of a product or even an individual customer’s usage is a game changer for the Food & Beverage, Health & Drug, and Beauty & Skincare industries.
Automated replenishment emails are an extremely effective way to keep customers loyal to your brand and are essential to staying top of mind.
CoffeeForLess – Helping to Keep Their Customers Caffeinated
The email shown above is an example of a replenishment email that is sent out by CoffeeForLess, a leading online coffee and tea retailer. For customers who have purchased from their site three or more times, CoffeeForLess, automatically triggers this reminder email based on the individual’s purchasing cadence. The blank space in the email is automatically filled with an image of the product that was purchased and links directly to the product page to help customers re-order quickly and efficiently. For customers who have purchased less than three times, CoffeeForLess has a version that is triggered based on the average product lifecycle.
To date these emails see a 35% open rate and a 5% click rate and have brought in over $150,000 in additional revenue.
Annmarie Gianni Skin Care – Keeping Skin Toned One Replenishment Email at a Time
Annmarie Gianni Skin Care is an online skincare retailer whose goal is to provide a clean, natural skincare experience using natural, organic, and wild-crafted ingredients. Like CoffeeForLess, they created a replenishment campaign based on predicted order date for customers who have purchased from them three or more times. This email sees a 54% open rate and 6% click rate. When asked about retention marketing and automated emails, Kevin Gianni, Co-Owner of Annmarie Gianni Skin Care, stated, “the value of using software like Windsor Circle, is that we don’t have to bog down the editorial team to think of how we can sell more product – it’s already selling. I don’t have to think about whether it’s working because it always is.” Annmarie Gianni Skin Care has set up over 70 automated emails to touch customers at every stage of the lifecycle and create a custom, personalized experience for each and every customer.
Artbeads.com – The beading community will never run out of necessary supplies
Artbeads.com, the world’s largest online beading community, is also committed to creating a specific, personalized experience for each customer, and they use data to do it. Arttbeads.com created replenishment campaigns for their products based on projected usage rate. So far, these campaigns have seen a 53% open rate.
To date, Artbeads.com has made over $1 million in additional revenue from data-driven lifecycle marketing. When asked about their retention strategy, Cortney Wright, Vice President, Artbeads.com, said, “retention is very important to us. Once we get customers to make their second purchase, they kind of fall in love with the experience and continue to buy from us. We create personalized campaigns based on individual customer qualities so each customer feels special and wants to remain a part of our community.”
While data-driven marketing is key to retaining customers, automated replenishment emails are an incredibly lucrative and effective way to build brand loyalty, drive revenue, and make sure your customers keep coming back. Windsor Circle’s Replenishment Automator allows retailers to create replenishment emails based on individual purchase history or aggregate customer data. With features such as basketing capabilities, frequency capping, and dynamic product recommendations, creating a replenishment campaign is only a few clicks away.
