Bring new life to your post-purchase emails with user generated content
Post-purchase emails are a great opportunity for you to boost buyers’ excitement, build a long-lasting connection with your customers, create a loyal community around your brand, keep your cross-selling and upselling natural while offering personalization, and so much more. In this last post in our series about how to improve email marketing performance with user generated content (UGC), we’ll share how to achieve all of the aforementioned lucrative goals while maintaining the primary message of an order confirmation email which is transactional detail.
Check out the previous articles in this series:
Using user generated content in your community dedicated email: the why and how
Enrich your newsletter campaigns with user generated content
Why do your post-purchase emails need user generated content?
Here are three main reasons why displaying UGC can help you make a big difference in your transactional email:
Increase engagement through inspiration
However convenient and easy it is, online shopping still remains uncertain at some points, especially as shoppers aren’t able to touch and feel a product as they would in a physical store. Having said that, people trust people. It's an old saying, but it couldn’t be more true, and you can take advantage of that to add a layer of social proof from other customers who have previously bought your product to your order confirmation email. This in turn reassures your customers, providing you more opportunities for retention and loyalty.
Showcasing visual social images allows you to boost a sense of community and gain trust that will eventually translate into more clicks and sales.
Douchebag knows what their customers expect from this email (see below). That’s why they not only recap the purchase with important information including order date, product description, quantity, price, and delivery time, but also a collection of inspiring, stunning photos from other customers.
Activate your audience to create more content
Content creation is always a big challenge for marketers, but once you start working with UGC, that's seldom the case anymore. Here is a small tweak that helps get plenty of authentic content in no time: promote your branded hashtag and encourage your customers to show off your products. This allows you to get plenty of UGC in a snap. Check out how to set up a Flow in your order confirmation email.
Here’s a straightforward example of an activation campaign through a hashtag from Sanitairwinkel specializing in all bathroom-related products:
Make boring confirmation emails more inspiring
Order confirmation emails can play a very important role in customer loyalty and retention. So, if you have awesome photos from your real customers, why not use them in that email? Breathe new life into your regular transaction emails by showing off your products in an authentic way.
For example, check out this simple yet subtle idea from French DIY and fabric brand Mondial Tissus. Thanks to UGC, this DIY brand can showcase its products in action without any additional effort. They also inform their customers how to get featured on their website with the promoted hashtag. Mondial Tissus also adds social media buttons at the bottom of this email that help increase their social traffic and get loads of new followers for free.
More examples