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Q4 is Underway
The TL;DR:
Let’s Chat D2C: Memberships
What I’m Thinking about this Week: Why do brands NOT have a post-purchase cross-sell offer?
The D2Z Podcast: I sat down with Billy McClennan, Director of Partnerships at Gorgias, to chat about leveraging customer service to improve retention and increase LTV.
App Highlight - Cohley: Automate testing of your images in Klaviyo cart and browse abandonment flows.
Book of the Week: Atomic Habits - An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones.
Shopify Unite: I’ll be in Toronto this coming week for Unite. Let me know if you’re in the area and want to get together!
Random tip: Have a mindset of continuous improvement.
Let's Chat D2C: Memberships
Everyone is talking about memberships right now, so let’s dive in.
What is a Membership program?
A membership program is a “product” that customers purchase that typically renews monthly or yearly to receive valuable benefits such as free shipping, special discounts, etc. The membership program you’re probably most familiar with is Amazon Prime.
Is it a Loyalty Program?
No. Loyalty programs are free programs that customers opt in to or automatically enroll in after purchasing. Membership programs are PAID.
What are the Perks of a Membership Program?
While entirely up to the brand, these are a few of the benefits I’ve seen leveraged:
Exclusive or early access to products
Shopping credits
Member-specific pricing
Free shipping
Member-only events
Exclusive digital content
Priority customer support
And more!
My Take
While membership programs can result in increased AOV/LTV and provide a unique way for your most loyal customers to connect and support your brand, it does require investment from the brand to make sure the membership is worth it to the customer.
If your membership program only offers free shipping, you should consider how to provide more value to get the maximum ROI from it.
How can you Get Started? Inveterate & Recharge Memberships
Inveterate is a new Shopify App that allows merchants to create memberships, and Recharge is Alpha testing its memberships product.
Next week, I’ll dive into the differences between the two.
What I’m Thinking About This Week: Why do Brands NOT have a Post-Purchase Cross-Sell Offer?
It’s free additional revenue. I can’t tell you how many stores I check out on that don’t have anything after my purchase goes through except a standard order confirmation page.
How it Works
As soon as the payment is processed, a screen pops up with a limited-time offer for that customer, typically 20% off an additional product. I like to say that the offer expires in 5 minutes and includes a countdown timer to increase the urgency. If the customer doesn’t take advantage of the offer, no harm, no foul - the order still goes through. If the customer takes advantage of the offer, the product gets added to the existing order with one click.
Why You Need It
It’s an immediate AOV and LTV booster. Let’s look at an example store. XYZ store’s metrics are, on average, this per month:
10,000 orders
$75 AOV
$750,000 in revenue
Now, let’s take a look at XYZ store’s metrics, assuming 10% of customers take advantage of a cross-sell offer that adds just $20 to their order:
10,000 orders
$77 AOV ($2 or 2.66% increase)
$770,000 in revenue ($20,000 or 2.66% increase)
It’s free additional revenue!
How to Implement
At Electriq, we leverage Rebuy to implement this functionality on all of our client’s sites. You can leverage their AI recommendations engine to show a product that the customer will be most likely to add to their order (recommended), or you can set your own rules around which products to show when.
This Week's The D2Z Podcast
#31 - Leveraging Customer Service for Retention & Revenue
🎧 Listen Now 🎧
In this week’s episode, I sat down with Billy McClennan, Director of Partnerships at Gorgias, the leading Customer Service platform for Shopify brands. Specifically, we explored:
💰 Driving revenue and retention with customer service
📲 Automation to improve the customer experience
😎 Building self-service processes
🚀 The different modes of customer service and our preferences
App Highlight - Cohley
❓ What is It: Cohley is a platform that allows brands to generate and test custom-branded content via their marketplace of vetted creators. I specifically like to leverage their Klaviyo integration and don’t leverage their marketplace for content (not that it isn’t good, we just don’t offer that service at Electriq).
🏅 Differentiator: There’s no other product like it (at least not that I’m aware of).
💰 Starting Price: Custom
🚀 How we use it: Cohley’s Klaviyo integration allows us to automate testing of the images used in the cart and browse abandonment emails by identifying the winning assets with the highest click-to-open rates and orders down to the product level.
Book of the Week - Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
I’m not big on self-help books as I often find them to be self-serving and too steeped in motivational platitudes than any actionable takeaways. Atomic Habits was a great read that provided a different perspective on improving yourself and a proven framework to start building positive habits.
Key Takeaways
This 4-step model drives all habits: (1) Cue triggers a (2) craving, which motivates a (3) response, which provides a (4) reward, which satisfies the (2) craving and, ultimately, becomes associated with the (1) cue.
Habits are the compound interest of tiny self-improvements. If you get 1% better each day, you’ll end up with results nearly 37x better after one year.
Time magnifies the margin between success and failure. Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time your enemy.
Systems > Goals. Goals are about the results you want, while systems are about the processes that lead to those results.
How to Create a Good Habit:
The 1st law (Cue): Make it obvious.
The 2nd law (Craving): Make it attractive.
The 3rd law (Response): Make it easy.
The 4th law (Reward): Make it satisfying.
One of the more interesting concepts I learned about is how goals restrict happiness by leading to the “Once I reach my goal, then I’ll be happy” mindset. Goals also create an either/or conflict whereby you will either achieve success, or you’ll fail.
Upcoming Events
You need to optimize your site's pre-purchase journey before the holidays, but don't neglect the post-purchase experience! Q4 is typically the highest volume of new customers you'll get. To maximize the effectiveness of Black Friday Cyber Monday, your post-purchase journey needs to convert these would-be one-time buyers into long-term customers. The name of the game is retention and LTV!
I'm presenting a DTCX masterclass, Nailing the BFCM Customer Journey Pre and Post Purchase, on Tuesday, October 11, at 3:00 PM EDT.
I'll be joined by:
Kathryn Browning, Senior Marketing Manager at Justuno
Derek Booth, Director of Strategic Partnerships & Business Development at Justuno
Andrew Keller, Customer Success Manager at Postscript
Lea Algazy, Techincal Partner Manager at Postscript
Mat Bingham, Head of Technology Partnerships at Okendo
Lindsay Kolinsky, Partner Marketing Lead at Okendo
Hope to see you there! 🙂
Shopify Unite
I’ll be in Toronto this coming week for Unite. Let me know if you’re in the area and want to get together!
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