It’s not uncommon for an existing client to consult with me on other marketing initiatives, especially as they relate to integrating search marketing into their other marketing initiatives.

An E-Commerce client had retained my services for SEO, PPC and Analytics consulting and together we identified a need to reach out to previously active customers that had not visited the site in a while.

Our Hypothesis

We wanted to test the theory that previously high-volume, high-value customers that strayed could be retained with an active retention marketing program.

The Methodology

We mailed letters and coupons to 500 customers that had not purchased from the site in 6 months, but had previously placed 3+ orders exceeding the average order value within the preceding 24 months. Customers were segmented into two groups:

1. Group 1 was encouraged to visit a special landing page on the site for valuable discounts on their next purchase.
2. Group 2 was sent printed coupons with Promotion Codes that we could track through the e-commerce system.

The Results

• Within 3 months of the mailings, we received 87 total orders from 66 (13% of the original list) of the former customers.
• Of the 66 former customers that were retained, 16 placed multiple orders within 3 months.
• Including the4 initial 3 month period and the following 6 months, those 66 customers went on to place a total of 153 orders, with repeat orders being placed by 30 of them (45% of the retained customers).
• If you count customers who got the retention letters but waited more than 3 months to place their first order after receiving the letter, we got orders from 97 customers (19% of the original list).
• The average order value from the retained customers exceeded the site’s average order value by 10%.