Research shows that shoppers who are emotionally connected to a brand have 306% higher LTV than customers who are just satisfied with the brand. One powerful way to create that emotional connection? Leveraging surprise and delight marketing.

While surprise and delight marketing requires creativity, it also relies heavily on technical solutions to be effective at scale. Read the full piece to gain inspiration and technical best practices to surprise and delight at scale—we’ve highlighted a few key takeaways below.

The elements of surprise & delight

In the guide, we break down the three main components of successful surprise and delight marketing: good timing, no-strings-attached value, and a personal touch.

When brands can strike the right balance of all three elements for their unique customer base, the effect can be powerful. Together, these components can humanize brands, strengthen their relationships with customers, and build true loyalty that leads to higher LTV.

Best practices to surprise & delight at scale

While successful surprise and delight marketing might seem unexpected to the customer, it involves careful planning and automation by the merchant. Our guide contains five best practices your ecommerce store can implement to surprise and delight customers at scale.  

First on the list? Identifying the “universal milestones” for your customer base. This is crucial for capturing the good timing that is key for a successful surprise and delight campaign. Consider which moment might be most effective to surprise and delight your customers, be this a birthday, anniversary, or certain customer action (like signing up for a subscription).

Once you identify those milestones, you can put them into action, using data to inform your approach and beginning the process of automating, iterating, and testing to find the most meaningful experiences for your customer base. 

Read the full guide for the complete list of best practices you can apply to your own business. 

Inspiration to surprise & delight your customers

Looking for specific examples of ways you can surprise and delight your customers? Our guide contains three archetypes of businesses who surprise and delight their shoppers in different ways:

• The thoughtful gift-giver
• The considerate communicator
• The attuned rewarder

Check out the full piece to see how each archetype takes a different approach to their timing, benefits, and communication to inspire your own efforts.

Surprise & delight your customers to increase LTV with Recharge

Building the right tech stack is crucial for surprising and delighting your customers effectively and at scale. That’s why Recharge is proud to offer all the tools merchants need to deliver surprising and delightful experiences through built-in products and features:

• Loyalty: Create strong brand connections and deliver personalized benefits that increase retention, LTV, and brand affinity.
• Flows: Easily deploy A/B tests to set up targeted journeys based on endless conditions and optimize every touchpoint in your shopper journey.
• Recharge Analytics: Gain valuable takeaways on your shoppers and products to create enticing offers at the most opportune times.
• Klaviyo integration: Create custom messages that reward customer actions.

Read the full piece to learn more about surprising and delighting your customers with Recharge.

The post Surprise & delight your ecommerce customers with our new guide appeared first on Recharge.

As an ecommerce brand, reducing shopping cart abandonment is likely at the top of your list of business priorities. Yet, as online shopping continues to gain prevalence, so does cart abandonment—making it more challenging for you to forecast sales, manage inventory, and grow your revenue.

While certain types of cart abandonment may be inevitable, others may be within your control. But where to start? In this post, we’ll cover five key strategies to reduce shopping cart abandonment for your business, including implementing recurring payment options, simplifying the checkout process, and offering multiple payment options.

Why do customers abandon their shopping carts?

No matter how excellent your checkout process is, there will always be some shoppers who leave before completing a purchase—just like window shopping in a brick-and-mortar store. However, the majority of shoppers who abandon their carts do so because of a confusing, inconvenient, or unexpected checkout process. 

Common reasons for cart abandonment include:

• Checkout pages that are slow to load
• Technical glitches
• Confusing wording
• Security concerns
• Unexpected or high shipping costs
• Lack of a guest checkout option

5 strategies for reduce shopping cart abandonment

To encourage more conversions and reduce cart abandonment for your ecommerce store, focus on making the shopping experience intuitive and convenient in a variety of ways. By communicating clearly about the process and reducing any mental load for your customers, you can not only decrease cart abandonment, but also increase LTV.

1. Implement recurring payment options

One proven tactic for reducing friction in the checkout process is to implement recurring payment options, like subscriptions and paid membership programs. Because these offerings only require customers to input their payment information once, they can make it more convenient for shoppers to buy again without having to remember to reorder or go through the entire checkout process if they regularly order from you.

To facilitate a seamless buying experience with recurring payments, it’s key to choose a checkout provider with a proven track record of conversions. The conversion rates for Shopify Checkout—which you can implement with Recharge’s Shopify Checkout Integration—have been shown to outpace competitors’ conversion rates by up to 36%.

2. Simplify the checkout process

A complicated or cumbersome checkout process can cause confusion and frustration, increasing the risk that customers leave before they even purchase from you. To avoid this, focus on simplifying your checkout process in a variety of ways, from your ecommerce site speed to the number of pages on your checkout.

Consider strategies such as:

• Offering a one-page checkout
• Allowing guest checkout options
• Using autofill for forms
• Optimize your site loading speeds

3. Offer multiple payment options on your checkout page

These days, customers expect ultimate flexibility when it comes to the payment options for shopping online. If their go-to option isn’t available on your site, they may leave before they’ve made a purchase.

To avoid this, make sure your tech stack is set up to handle multiple payment methods and even multiple currencies, depending where your products are sold.

4. Effectively set expectations for your products

When it comes to cart abandonment, your communication matters. Be sure to properly set expectations for key factors that impact the decision to buy for the best possible chances of conversion.

Areas to focus on include:

• Your product images—be sure to use high-quality photographs that clearly show what the product looks like and how it can be used
• Your product descriptions—make sure shoppers can easily understand and envision what they’ll be purchasing, and include key elements like dimensions when necessary

By properly setting expectations on your product detail pages in this way, you can reduce cart abandonment later on in the buying journey.

5. Clearly communicate your shipping & returns policies

Having a flexible and clear returns policy can be a key way to reduce barriers to purchasing. However, when shipping and returns policies are hidden on a website and lead to unexpected charges at checkout, this can lead to cart abandonment.

To prevent this, implement the following tactics:

• Clearly display your shipping costs upfront
• Explain when you offer free shipping (e.g. when a certain order minimum is met)
• Explain the ease of your returns process on your website

Improve your bottom line with an optimized checkout flow 

By taking a holistic approach to optimizing your checkout process, ecommerce merchants can not only improve their conversions, but also increase LTV. And when you continuously optimize your checkout process, and do so in a variety of ways, you can prevent lost revenue and boost customer satisfaction.

Looking for even more tools to help you reduce cart abandonment? Explore Recharge’s robust partner directory, where you can find integrations to help you with abandoned cart recovery and more.

The post 5 strategies to reduce cart abandonment appeared first on Recharge.

But customers churn for a variety of reasons, making it difficult for businesses to know where to begin. In this post, we’ll cover key strategies your store can utilize to reduce customer churn and improve the health of your business. 

What causes customer churn?

One of the biggest challenges for ecommerce businesses today is identifying causes of customer churn. In order to answer this question, it’s important to break churn down into two different categories—active churn and passive churn—as each has different causes.

Passive churn

Passive churn, or involuntary churn, occurs when customers stop doing business with you without actively making the decision to do so. Typically, this is caused by issues like a credit card expiring or payment details becoming out of date. 

Active churn

Active churn, or voluntary churn, is when customers make a conscious decision to stop doing business with you. This lack of customer satisfaction can be attributed to a vast array of factors, including:

• Budgetary reasons 
• Dissatisfaction with product quality
• Poor customer service
• An inflexible order management process
• Not enough product offerings that match the customer’s needs
• A confusing or cumbersome overall shopping experience
• Competitive pricing or promotions from competitors

Because the causes of active churn are so unique to individual businesses, it’s key to identify the unique churn drivers for your business so you can work to resolve them as quickly as possible. 

So—how do you identify those churn drivers and retain customers more effectively?

Using data analysis for churn prevention

Reducing customer churn starts with digging into the data. To learn more about preventing them from churning, you’ll want to pinpoint:

• Who is typically churning
• At what point they are churning in the customer journey
• Any feedback they can provide to add context to the data you gather

Identify at-risk customers to segment your customer retention strategies and prevent customer churn before it occurs. For example, if you find that your new customers typically leave your business after the third order with you, send those shoppers a special offer or a personalized product recommendation just before their second order so they are more likely to stick with you over time.

Note that while churn is important, a single metric won’t tell the full story of the health of your business. Always consider your customer churn rate in the context of other key metrics, like LTV, AOV, MRR, repeat purchase rate, and more. Measure it over time to identify larger patterns and seasonal trends in behavior.

5 key strategies to tackle churn reduction

A powerful churn reduction strategy should incorporate both passive and active churn mitigation techniques. It should also be both proactive and reactive to be most effective for different use cases. 

Looking for a place to start? Implement the strategies below.

1. Tackle passive churn with dunning

When passive churn occurs or is about to occur, customers need to know as soon as possible. That’s where dunning comes in. In this process, a company communicates to at-risk customers reminding them to update their payment details before churn occurs. Here, it’s critical to leverage automations for efficiency and accuracy.  

With Recharge, you can deploy built-in dunning features to automatically mitigate passive churn. For example, you can configure your settings in Recharge to automatically retry orders at an interval of your choosing, or use RechargeSMS to send customers a text message alert if their credit card fails. 

2. Prioritize proactive customer service

As you begin to identify patterns in your customer churn over time, you can channel your learnings into insights for your Customer Success team. Make sure they’re equipped with all the valuable takeaways they need to resolve any pain points, and allow them to prepare ahead with responses and action plans for key customer issues. 

3. Stay connected with customers after the initial purchase

Customer engagement shouldn’t end after purchase. To keep them with your business for the long haul—particularly if you offer subscriptions—you need to form a relationship with them, which means engaging with them meaningfully over time. 

You can do this in a variety of ways depending on what works best for your unique customer base and products. For example, you might choose to launch a brand community that offers meaningful and valuable content at no charge to members. Or, you might opt to regularly respond to and repost customers’ social media content that features you. 

4. Center the voices of your customers 

Metrics alone won’t tell the full story of why your customers are churning. To effectively retain your valuable customers, you need to center their voices—which means regularly soliciting their feedback and putting it to use.

One way to accomplish this is sending simple post-purchase surveys that ask shoppers if they are satisfied with their purchase. These surveys only take a few seconds to submit, but can give you more information to supplement any KPIs you’re tracking.

To gain a better picture, you can conduct more in-depth customer interviews that ask shoppers more specific questions about the products they purchase, their interactions with your website, and more. Consider incentivizing customers to complete these interviews with exclusive benefits, like a discount, to encourage participation.

Social media is also a great way to keep a pulse on what shoppers are saying about you—good or bad. Make sure that your Customer Support and Social Media teams connect regularly to share their learnings. 

5. Offer personalized incentives

To keep customers with your business over time, you must offer value to them beyond just your products and services. Many customers want that value to come in the form of time-savings, specifically through personalization.

By sending customers tailored incentives, product recommendations, rewards, or discounts, you demonstrate that you understand their preferences and are invested in keeping them with your business. This can go a long way in encouraging brand loyalty and repeat purchases.

Keep your existing customers happy & reduce churn with these strategies

Churned customers are a massive missed opportunity for any ecommerce business. To reduce customer churn rate for your business, leverage an array of strategies to reduce both active and passive churn. By being proactive, not just reactive, about your churn reduction efforts, you can benefit from increased customer loyalty, improved revenue, and more sustainable business growth over time.

The post Crunching the numbers: How to reduce customer churn for your ecommerce business appeared first on Recharge.

With every year breaking new milestones, one thing is certain: It’s key to prepare for the surge in orders. And in order to set your store up for success come the holiday season, now is the time to start planning.

Of course, to-do lists for the holiday season are always overwhelming—whether you’re a business or a consumer. In this article, we’re focusing on three technical strategies to lay the groundwork for a successful 2023 Cyber Week.

Use these 3 tactics for your best ever Cyber Week

Preparing for Cyber Week is both an art and a science. In addition to the creative marketing strategies necessary to set your brand apart, it’s also key to have the right technical strategies in place to ensure that you have all the functionalities you need for the busy season.

Below, we’ll cover three main areas to focus on to get the most value possible out of Cyber Week 2023.

1. Think like a gifter—and update your offerings accordingly

Throughout the year, it’s important to center your customers’ perspectives. However, this is never more true than during the holiday season. After all, people aren’t just shopping for themselves during this time—they’re also shopping for multiple loved ones. 

This raises the stakes of a good shopping experience, and creates not just one, but two potential loyal customers to return to your business if things go well. Here, it’s crucial to focus on the unique aspects of gifting, and the ways you can create positive experiences for both gift-givers and receivers. 

For example, do you offer customers the ability to gift a prepaid subscription so they can set up recurring deliveries for a loved one? And on the note of subscription gifts, Recharge’s gift a skipped shipment feature allows your customers to give a single subscription delivery as a gift instead of skipping it. The sooner you offer this functionality, the sooner subscribers can get familiar with it and take advantage of it over the holidays.

By setting up these types of technical solutions and features now, you lay the groundwork for your customers to win at gift-giving later in the year.

2. Provide the right assortment of products

When it comes to gift-giving, the product itself is just one factor. Will the product arrive on the recipient’s doorstep just once, or is it available on subscription? Is the product packaged with other similar items that pair well together? Factors like these can all impact the giftability and perceived value of your offerings.

Research shows that subscription brands experience monumental growth during Cyber Week. Our State of Subscription Commerce report found that in 2022, subscription merchants saw 41% growth in new subscribers across all the days between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. 

Offering the right products via subscription is crucial for Cyber Week success—but not every shopper will want to subscribe. If an item might work well as either a subscription or a one-time purchase, make sure shoppers can choose either option depending on what works best for their loved ones.

Finally, product bundling is a powerful way to add value for your customers. You can either offer curated product bundles—such as a special holiday assortment of your products, or a grouping of your bestsellers—to save shoppers time sifting through your catalog. Or, you can enable customers to build a box with the exact items they want in their bundle for ultimate flexibility. 

Offering your customers this type of flexibility can go a long way in encouraging both gift-givers and receivers to return to your business.

3. Nail your inventory & shipping strategies

One of the most stressful parts of holiday shopping is ensuring orders arrive on time. Many people often delay their holiday shopping until the final hour. Therefore, it’s critical for your business to plan ahead in this way even when your customers don’t.

Now is the time to start offering an abundance of flexible shipping options that get deliveries to their destinations in short order. Expedited shipping options are a no-brainer, but it doesn’t end there. Think about other ways you can offer your customers more options for shipping and delivery during the holiday season. For example, consider offering local delivery and pickup options for shoppers in close proximity. 

Another major factor to consider is your order fulfillment process. If one item in an order is out of stock, will the rest of it still ship on time? Implementing partial order fulfillment now can save both your business and customers a headache during the busy holiday season.

Plan ahead to stay ahead

By planning ahead for the holidays now, your business will be in the best possible position for Cyber Week 2023. Looking for other ways to maximize your holiday sales? Check out these tips for making the most of Recharge Analytics for the holidays, reducing your fraud risk during the busy season, and planning for upcoming holiday trends.

The post 3 technical strategies to implement now for a successful 2023 Cyber Week appeared first on Recharge.

In fact, according to our annual State of Subscription Commerce report, new subscribers grew 41% for subscription merchants between Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2022. Those few days are crucial for setting up recurring revenue that continues to come in throughout the year from loyal customers. 

To prepare for such an influx of purchases and new online shoppers, ecommerce merchants need to plan ahead. In fact, now is the time to start preparing your marketing efforts for any ecommerce holiday sales.

Looking to ensure a successful holiday shopping season for your ecommerce store? We’ve got proven tips and strategies to maximize the quality and quantity of your online sales during the major shopping holidays.

5 key tactics to add to your ecommerce holiday checklist

Preparing for an influx of holiday shoppers impacts multiple areas of your business, from your analytics to your site design to your customer support efforts. As you’re looking ahead to the holidays, consider these five strategies to make the most of your sales during the busy season.

1. Optimize your website 

During the holidays, it’s especially important that shoppers are able to navigate your site with ease. Whether they’re a returning customer purchasing a gift for a loved one or a prospective customer considering buying from you for the first time, it’s key to make sure your website is easy to navigate.

Elements to focus on include: 

• Ensuring fast page loading times and site speed
• Optimizing your website for mobile and social commerce
• Streamlining your checkout process, simplifying it as much as possible
• Offering both subscription and one-time purchase options for certain products

2. Add flexibility to the user experience

Whether a shopper is purchasing an item for themselves or a loved one during the holiday season, it’s crucial to make the purchase experience flexible. This is especially important for subscription merchants, whose customers require even more flexibility due to the built-in recurring relationship.

Consider creating a landing page for your subscriptions that explains the various ways they can be modified, like swapping flavors, rescheduling deliveries, or changing the quantity of an order. By making your subscriptions flexible and clearly communicating this upfront, you reduce barriers to purchase.

Additionally, having a flexible returns process (and communicating it clearly) can help encourage customers to purchase and reduce any perceived risk associated with purchasing from a new store. 

Finally, consider adding flexibility by empowering subscribers to gift a subscription order that they would have otherwise skipped to a friend. Not only does this help you retain the revenue of the order, but it also presents an opportunity to gain a new potential customer.

3. Plan holiday promotions & product bundles

When shopping for gifts, customers are constantly seeking out holiday deals and promotions from their favorite brands. Give them a great reason to return to your site or visit it for the first time with exciting product offerings and deals. 

While you can create new or limited-edition products specifically for the holidays, offering product bundles is an excellent alternative. This way, you can package together an assortment of your bestselling products, or curate a box of them based around a certain theme—making an ideal gift that a customer can easily purchase. 

Other ideas to consider include:

• Creating product collections that group together excellent gift options by different price points
• Including compelling holiday visuals, banners, and other messaging
• Showcasing special, holiday-themed content on your blog or social media accounts
• Offering free gift wrapping for orders that reach a certain minimum threshold
• Providing limited-time discounts to shoppers who purchase within a certain period

4. Enhance customer support & engagement

During the busy holiday season, it’s important to have several support structures in place to help your customers address any confusion or frustration they may have. Consider providing multiple different communication channels for customer questions, such as live chat support, chatbots for certain questions, and phone support. 

Additionally, be sure to have self-service customer support options so shoppers don’t have to engage your team to solve any issues they may be having. Make sure your product detail pages are clear and easy to understand, and consider creating an FAQ page to address any common questions. 

The faster your shoppers are able to resolve any issues they may have, the more likely you are to gain a valuable holiday sale.

5. Analyze your results & make adjustments

To gain maximum insights about your holiday sales and hone your strategies for next year, be sure to continuously monitor and analyze any KPIs tied to your specific company goals for the season. By using analytics to identify patterns in product performance and customer behavior, you can better understand what’s working well and what may need to be adjusted for future improvement. 

Plan ahead for your best holiday shopping season

Don’t miss your opportunity to boost sales during the holiday season. Plan ahead for upcoming holiday dates, start early, center your customers, and hone in on your analytics. By taking a multifaceted approach to holiday preparations, you can make the most of your busy periods and set up your business for maximum recurring revenue.

The post 5 proven strategies for successful ecommerce holiday planning appeared first on Recharge.

Many merchants are converting from other checkouts to tap into Shopify Checkout’s numerous benefits, including improved checkout conversions and deeply integrated data. And recently, Shopify announced that beginning in October of 2024, subscription apps that are not integrated directly with the Shopify Checkout will no longer be able to accept or process subscription orders. 

Since 2020, Recharge has partnered with Shopify to offer a version of the Recharge checkout that leverages the Shopify Checkout and Shopify’s Subscription APIs. To date, over 9,000 merchants and counting use the Shopify Checkout for Recharge.

Looking to make the switch for your ecommerce store? Our dedicated Checkout Conversion team is here to support you every step of the way. In this post, we’ll share more information on the conversion process, including the technical requirements you need to know.

What are the benefits of converting to Shopify Checkout?

The Shopify Checkout offers numerous benefits for merchants, including: 

• Increased checkout conversion rates 
• A native checkout that supports subscriptions
• Deeply integrated data within the Shopify admin
• Robust opportunities for customization

Recently, Canadian Health & Wellness brand Bird&Be migrated to the Shopify Checkout Integration to improve the checkout experience for customers. Now, their updated checkout is easier, more convenient, and more flexible for shoppers to use. 

For example, they improved their payment flexibility for customers by taking advantage of Recharge’s multi-currency feature, ensuring that shoppers could make purchases in their currency of choice. 

What are the steps to converting?

There are two main steps to converting from the Recharge Checkout to the Shopify Checkout Integration for Recharge, plus a third step if you have existing subscribers.

1. Store assessment by the Recharge Conversion Team

First, a member of Recharge’s Conversion Team will conduct an assessment of your current Recharge Checkout setup to pave the way for a smooth conversion process. This process may take a few business days, or slightly longer if your store has a large amount of customizations.

During the assessment, the team will consider factors such as:

• Your payment processor
• Your customer portal theme
• Any third-party integrations you use
• Any custom coding
• Your shipping settings and configurations
• The number of products you sell 
• And more

After the store assessment has been completed, the Conversion Team will provide you with recommendations. This will include guidance on any customizations your store requires and notes on any current store settings that may not be compatible with the Shopify Checkout Integration.

2. Storefront and store settings conversion

Next, Recharge’s Checkout Conversion Team will update your store settings, plus complete a refreshed installation of your subscription widget. This step of the process ensures that your settings are configured for the Shopify Checkout Integration.

This step includes the following processes:

• Updating your store permissions 
• Enabling a payment processor
• Creating selling plan groups 
• Installing the subscription widget

Finally, once the process is finished, complete our post-conversion and migration checklist to ensure everything is running smoothly with your new setup. 

3. Migrate your existing subscribers

Once your storefront and store settings have been updated by our team, your new subscribers will purchase their subscriptions for you via the Shopify Checkout, and their orders will be processed by your eligible payment processor. 

If you have existing subscribers, however, their subscriptions will continue to process in Recharge via your legacy payment gateway.

To prevent this and ensure that all of your existing subscribers’ recurring orders are processed through Shopify, you can leverage Recharge’s safe, reliable existing subscriber migration process. This includes:

• Adding your legacy payment gateway to your Shopify admin
• Scheduling a time for Recharge to perform your existing subscriber migration
• Updating (by the Recharge Team) your existing customer data to Shopify’s standards

Where can I learn more about the conversion process? 

Looking for more details on the conversion process? Check out our frequently asked questions, and review the technical details and requirements for converting to Recharge’s Shopify Checkout Integration.

The post Step by step: Converting to Recharge’s Shopify Checkout Integration appeared first on Recharge.

The reason that the term “loyalty” is tossed around so much makes sense. After all, when brands earn that coveted status as a trusted presence for their customers, it can have a massively positive impact on the health of the business. This can mean not only increasing customer satisfaction but also boosting average order value, customer lifetime value, retention, and recurring revenue.

Free loyalty programs, in which brands reward customers for certain shopping behaviors, are an integral element of loyalty marketing. However, to stand apart from competitors and further customer relationships, these programs need to feel authentic, valuable, and tailored to shoppers’ needs.

In this post, we’ll cover three marketing strategies that ecommerce brands can keep in mind when building out their customer loyalty program. We’ll also go over examples of what this could look like for your own loyalty program.

What is a loyalty program?

As opposed to paid membership programs, loyalty programs (also referred to as rewards programs) are free to join. Think of a punch card at your local coffee shop, or a credit card that allows you to earn points toward cashback with every dollar you spend. 

Typically, customers earn points for certain shopping behaviors, like spending a certain amount, making a set number of purchases, or signing up for a subscription. They can then spend these points on future purchases.

Beyond loyalty points, these programs can also offer customers other unique benefits when they spend money with the business. These perks can include free shipping, discount codes, complimentary gifts, and more.

By rewarding existing customers for making repeat purchases, these programs build customer loyalty. This type of exceptional customer service allows the brand to better retain customers, boost the customer experience, and increase revenue. 

Meanwhile, because these programs are free to join, they allow merchants to access deeper insights about a vast array of their customers. These insights can then be used to inform the businesses approaches to everything from marketing to product development.

3 ideas to kickstart your ecommerce loyalty program

While countless brands offer loyalty programs, only a few may stick out in a customer’s mind enough to become a regular part of their shopping routine. Therefore, a successful loyalty program hinges on its ability to provide unique value to customers.

Now, let’s dive into three key ways you can provide that value and encourage customers to return to your business.

1. Offer personalized rewards

According to a report by Accenture, 91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands who recognize and remember them, and provide them relevant offers and recommendations. This type of personalization can be especially useful in a loyalty program, as it demonstrates that you truly understand and appreciate the customers that return to your business. 

While loyalty points are a popular way to incentivize customers to take advantage of a loyalty program, this isn’t the only type of benefit you can offer. And when your program rewards customers in the ways they most want to be rewarded, you’re more likely to retain them.

Ideas for personalized rewards could include: 

• Custom discounts to celebrate a milestone (such as a birthday)
• A certain number of loyalty points awarded on a customer’s one-year anniversary with your brand 
• A free gift after a certain number of purchases, tailored to the customer’s previous order history  

Tailoring your rewards to your unique shoppers can go a long way in boosting customer loyalty. It can help illustrate that there’s a human behind the brand who appreciates them and is investing in delivering valuable experiences—making you more likely to retain customers.   

2. Incentivize referrals

Loyalty programs don’t just have to encourage repeat purchases. They can reward all sorts of valuable customer actions—and few things are more valuable than a referral from a current customer. 

When shoppers haven’t tried your products or services yet and need an extra boost of confidence before making a decision, a recommendation from a friend can help give them the nudge they need. According to Hubspot, 90% of people believe brand recommendations from friends. 

To use your loyalty program to encourage word-of-mouth referrals, you can list referrals as one of the benefits that can earn your customers rewards and other points, as Bumpin Blends does in the example above. 

You can also do this independently of a loyalty program or as a complementary effort. For example, you could offer:

• 1 free month of a subscription when a customer refers a friend to subscribe
• A unique referral code for each customer that they can send to their friends and family to receive a discount on their first purchase
• A certain amount of store credit for every person they refer 

Not only does this help you gain new customers and boost loyalty of existing customers—it also helps you identify your most valuable customers and best brand advocates. These individuals, the ones who are most likely to refer others to your store, are worth a great deal to your brand, making them ideal sources of feedback that you can use to hone your business strategies. 

3. Encourage engagement

Time is precious, and taking time to engage with your brand can be a sign that customers are invested in you. The very act of participating with your loyalty program is engagement in and of itself—so be sure to make the most of it with clear messaging. Explain how the program works on a separate landing page, and display points earned in the customer portal or on the checkout page. This way, your customers know exactly how they can earn future rewards and may be more likely to continue their participation.

Actions like engaging with you on social media, via surveys and feedback forms, on a community form, and in person are other signs of engagement. Hearing directly from your customers is invaluable for your business—make sure they feel heard and appreciated when they reach out, and put their communication to good use by tracking feedback over time.

Within your loyalty program, you can offer customers points in exchange for certain engagement actions, like following your brand on social media or writing a review. 

Beyond the program, you can also cultivate loyalty through engagement in key ways, such as: 

• Interacting with your customers in any online community forums you manage
• Reposting or responding to customer comments directly on social media
• Offering spaces for in-person engagement and connection, such as special events

Build valuable, unique customer loyalty programs 

Your repeat customers are the MVPs of your brand. And, when created effectively, a rewards program has the power to grow your base of repeat customers, boost your brand awareness, and scale your business.

Depending on your unique business and customer base, your program could employ a variety of different strategies, including customizing rewards, encouraging referrals, and building customer engagement. By tailoring your strategies in this way, you can create personal relationships with your shoppers that boost brand loyalty and provide deep insights to grow your business.

The post 3 crucial marketing strategies for your customer loyalty program appeared first on Recharge.

In this post, we’ll cover why building an LTV strategy is so important for growing and scaling your business in a sustainable way. We’ll also explain the key tactics that top ecommerce merchants use to increase their LTV, along with real-life examples to inspire your own efforts.

4 tactics for a best-in-class customer lifetime value strategy

Increasing your average customer lifetime value depends on having strong customer relationships. Those relationships can require a range of tactics for different businesses, depending on your product vertical, price range, mission, and other factors. 

Regardless of the strategies you choose to boost your average customer value and increase customer retention, it’s key to combine multiple tactics. This way, you can more effectively reach different segments of your existing customer base and improve their experiences with a multi-pronged approach.

1. Offer recurring purchase options

One of the most powerful ways to keep customers coming back is offering recurring purchase options, like subscriptions and paid membership programs, which build repeat transactions into their business models. Depending on the products and services you offer, one or both of these options could be a fit for your brand. 

In fact, for certain businesses, combining the two models can provide even deeper opportunities for increased LTV. If a segment of a subscription business’s customer base is interested in receiving more perks and benefits for a recurring fee, adding a membership program can increase customer satisfaction and open up another stream of recurring revenue.

Best practices for increasing LTV through subscriptions and memberships include: 

• Offering select items as both subscriptions and one-time purchases—this is particularly helpful for customers who want to try an item once before committing to a subscription
• Creating a landing page that emphasizes the benefits and process of your subscription program
• Researching the membership perks and benefits that matter most to your customers, be it discounts, exclusive access to content, or something else
• Making it easy for customers to manage their subscriptions independently with actions like product swaps, order skips, and even cancellations 

2. Personalize the customer experience

These days, personalization isn’t an added bonus for customers—it’s the expectation, and a requirement for them to stick with your business long term. After all, by personalizing your recommendations and communications with shoppers, you save them valuable time and energy searching for the items they need. 

This is more than just marketing efforts—personalization shows that you deeply understand customers’ preferences and are invested in helping them meet their needs. All of this can result in increased trust in your brand and higher LTV.

To encourage higher LTV with personalization, you can:

• Cross-sell and upsell relevant products to an existing customer based on their previous purchase history or items currently in their shopping cart
• Offer build-a-box options or customizable product bundles that shoppers can tailor to their preferences
• Segment your customer base and provide different groups with offers that are customized to them—for example, offering your membership customers an exclusive discount for renewing their membership in the next billing cycle

3. Surprise & delight customers

Surprise and delight is a marketing concept that focuses on both retaining and acquiring customers by going above and beyond their expectations. Through surprise and delight marketing, brands provide shoppers with unexpected gifts, rewards, or experiences that increase customer LTV and satisfaction.

Two factors are most important when it comes to surprising and delighting customers: timing and the rewards themselves. Providing customers with meaningful perks or gifts when they least expect them makes those gifts feel all the more impactful, strengthening customer relationships.

4. Continuously track, improve & innovate

Any strategies you use to increase LTV should be paired with ones to analyze and track your efforts. This way, you can gain a clear understanding of which tactics are working and which aren’t, then hone your efforts accordingly. 

Beyond LTV, metrics to track include:

• Average order value
• Retention
• Churn
• Repeat customer rate
• Average customer lifespan

Alongside any metrics, it’s key to collect customer feedback to provide greater insight into the health of your business. To boost LTV, consider:

• Conducting surveys after customers unsubscribe, asking them why they chose to leave
• Meeting with your CX team to learn more about repeat topics in their chat, email, and phone conversations 
• Launching simple surveys that ask customers if they are satisfied with their purchase

Whichever metrics and modes of feedback you choose to monitor, continuously tracking your efforts is key. This will allow you to measure the success of individual campaigns as well as overall patterns in your performance over time. 

Increasing lifetime value is a continuous process

Building a best-in-class LTV strategy isn’t a one-and-done task. It’s a constant process, and one that should continue to evolve over time as your business and customer base grow. 

By approaching this metric from a variety of different angles, measuring it with multiple metrics, and collecting customer feedback around it, you can gain deep insights into your business performance. With this knowledge, you can continuously optimize your strategy over time to deliver better experiences for your customers that keep them with your business longer.

The post From first-time buyers to loyal customers: Creating a best-in-class LTV strategy appeared first on Recharge.

For brands that offer recurring purchases, the stakes are even higher. Miss the mark with checkout for a prospective subscription customer, and you don’t just lose the value of one order. You sacrifice a potentially long-lasting customer relationship and the lifetime of recurring revenue that comes along with it.

Looking for inspiration on how to take your checkout process from good to best-in-class? In this post, we spotlight three merchants whose checkouts stand apart from the competition. All of these stores use Recharge’s Shopify Checkout Integration to power their experiences. 

We’ll cover the ways in which each brand goes above and beyond with their checkout, and explore the ways you can get started with Recharge’s Shopify Checkout Integration today.

Benefits of the Shopify Checkout

When it comes to checkout providers, many top brands today look to Shopify Checkout to power this crucial step in the customer journey. After all, research shows that Shopify’s checkout converts up to 36% better than other leading checkout providers. 

For merchants, Shopify Checkout offers numerous benefits, including: 

• Improved checkout conversions
• Native checkout, which supports subscriptions
• Deeply integrated data via the Shopify admin
• Robust opportunities for customization

Merchant inspiration: 3 stores with exceptional checkout experiences

Looking to visualize what an extraordinary checkout experience could look like for your business? Now, let’s walk through three key examples of merchants whose checkout experiences are seamless, personalized, and convenient for customers. All three of these merchants use Recharge’s Shopify Checkout Integration. 

AutoBrush’s convenient cross-selling

AutoBrush’s U-shaped electric toothbrushes and other dental hygiene products are dentist-approved and designed to make oral care simple and effective. They not only accomplish this through their products themselves, but also through their nurturing purchase journey, including their checkout process.

With a mix of subscription and one-time purchase products, cross-selling is key to ensure that AutoBrush customers receive exactly the items they need to complete their dental care regimen. Before customers complete a purchase, AutoBrush offers cross-selling options via a “Don’t Forget These” module that provides a last chance to buy items like toothpaste, brush heads, and more. 

Additionally, AutoBrush’s checkout page is customized with a few crucial pieces of context for customers. At the top of the page, they remind customers that they will receive free shipping for life while staying subscribed. Farther down the page, they also communicate key reminders of their value for customers, including flexible subscription management options and a 30-day money back guarantee. 

All together, this experience reassures customers about their purchase, reminds them of the brand’s unique value, and clearly communicates what shoppers are signing up for.

Gnarly Sports Nutrition’s subscription upgrades

Gnarly Sports Nutrition specializes in nutrition products—such as supplements, hydration mixes, vitamins, and more—for outdoor athletes. Through their products and brand experience, they aim to support athletes of all performance levels participating in a diverse array of activity types.

Ensuring a simple and intuitive online shopping experience is crucial for Gnarly Nutrition, whose customers purchase items both as one-time products and via subscriptions as part of a regular routine. Their checkout supports this goal, with easy buttons to upgrade from a one-time purchase to a subscription for a discount. This makes it convenient for customers who are interested in a recurring purchase option to find it before completing the purchase.

Bird&Be’s flexible payments experience

Bird&Be is a DTC Health & Wellness brand that offers at-home fertility tests and supplements via subscriptions and one-time purchases. Their products, mission, and overall experience aim to empower and support people with all the information and resources they need on their fertility journey.

Fertility journeys can already be overwhelming and confusing for many people. Therefore, it’s especially crucial for Bird&Be that their entire customer journey is intuitive and convenient for customers rather than adding to that overwhelm—and their seamless checkout is a key part of this.

Having recently migrated to Recharge’s Shopify Checkout Integration, Bird&Be’s checkout prioritizes flexibility, ease, and convenience for shoppers. One key area that they accomplish this is by empowering their customers with flexibility of payments via Recharge’s multi-currency feature, ensuring that customers can pay in their local currency and removing a barrier to acquisition and retention.

Migrating to Shopify Checkout with Recharge 

Interested in harnessing the power of both Recharge and Shopify to build lasting customer relationships? Since November 2020, Recharge has partnered with Shopify to offer our Shopify Checkout Integration (SCI) using the Shopify Checkout and Shopify’s Subscription APIs.

Looking for more information on the integration process? Our dedicated team of migration specialists is here to support your journey and equip you with all the information you need on benefits, upcoming deadlines, and more.

The post 3 game-changing merchants using the Shopify Checkout appeared first on Recharge.

In this post, we’ll explore why the LTV:CAC ratio is so significant for DTC ecommerce brands, and cover key strategies for optimizing it.

The relationship between customer lifetime value & customer acquisition cost

LTV measures the amount of money your average shopper spends over their entire customer relationship with you, while your CAC measures the average amount your business spends to gain a new customer. 

Picture these two metrics on either side of a balance scale. While having a high LTV is important, it also needs to be relatively higher than your CAC. Your goal is to have LTV outweigh CAC as much as possible to ensure that more money is being brought into the business by your existing customers than is being spent to acquire new customers. 

In other words, looking at just one metric or the other misses a crucial piece of context that helps tell the full story of your brand’s profitability. By tracking this ratio over time and taking steps to optimize it effectively, businesses can:

• Maximize profitability
• Improve the customer experience
• Sustainably grow and scale 
• Optimize their approach to product development
• And more

Generally speaking, having an LTV:CAC ratio of at least 3:1 is recommended for ecommerce businesses.

Factors that impact your LTV:CAC ratio

To understand the forces that impact your LTV:CAC ratio, it’s important to consider the variables that affect each metric individually. After all, there are a vast number of potential strategies to optimize your LTV:CAC ratio, and choosing the right ones all depends on the issues you’re facing.

Factors that impact LTV include:

• How frequently your customers purchase from you
• Whether or not you operate on a recurring business model 
• How high your customers’ average order value is
• How long your customers stay with your business
• Your average revenue per customer 

Meanwhile, factors that impact CAC include:

• Your marketing and sales expenses 
• Advertising costs
• Support costs
• Production costs

6 strategies to optimize your LTV:CAC ratio

Now, let’s dive into specific strategies you can use to optimize your LTV:CAC ratio. Depending on your business needs and performance trends, you may find that some or all of these strategies are a fit for your brand.

Regardless of the strategies you choose, it’s important to calculate your LTV:CAC ratio consistently, analyzing it over time. This way, you can more effectively assess whether the strategies you’re testing are working, and identify any new successes or issues in performance. 

It can also be helpful to benchmark your LTV, CAC, and LTV:CAC ratio against industry standards to see how your performance compares to your competitors.

1. Launch recurring purchase options to increase LTV

Recurring purchase options, such as subscriptions and paid membership programs, offer built-in ways to keep customers with your business over time. The key is to identify which options are best suited for your products and customer base.

• Do you offer items that are consumed or used up regularly? If so, subscriptions may be the best fit for your store. 
• Is there a subset of your customer base that is interested in paying a fee for access to extra benefits, like discounts and exclusive content? If so, you may want to consider a paid membership program.

Many brands even choose to offer both subscriptions and membership programs alongside each other. This allows them to tap into multiple streams of recurring revenue, increase LTV, and offset marketing costs—and, in turn, improve their LTV:CAC ratio.

2. Cultivate community to increase retention & word-of-mouth referrals

Thoughtful community building offers a wealth of benefits for ecommerce merchants that can improve the LTV:CAC ratio. Brand communities boost loyalty among existing customers, leading to more purchases, higher LTV, and better retention—but the benefits don’t end there. They can also turn regular customers into brand advocates who are more likely to spread the word about your brand and recommend you to friends and family. These word-of-mouth referrals can be especially powerful in reducing your customer acquisition costs and attracting the most profitable customers to your business. 

When building brand communities, focus on areas where you can deepen your engagement with your customer base. For example, you may consider launching an online community forum, where customers can converse with each other and with your brand about various topics related to your mission. 

3. Cross-sell & upsell to increase LTV

Personalized product recommendations are key for increasing the value of your customers’ orders, improving the customer experience, and introducing them to new items they may be likely to purchase again. The goal is to tailor your recommendations to your individual customers as much as possible.

Cross-selling and upselling are both natural pairings for subscription brands, as they allow you to offer your customers upgrades to their existing orders or additional products to pair with them. When these recommendations are personalized effectively, your customers may be more willing to purchase these items again and even consider buying them as a subscription, increasing your LTV.

4. Provide a smooth checkout process to reduce churn

Reducing your churn is a key strategy for increasing LTV and maximizing your revenue. And key to preventing your customers from churning is providing a smooth and seamless checkout process. 

To provide the best possible checkout experience for your customers, consider the following tactics: 

• Consider one-page checkouts for a quicker experience
• Ensure fast page loading speeds
• Enable customers to purchase in multiple currencies
• Offer multiple payment options for added flexibility
• Clearly communicate any shipping costs before checkout to avoid unexpected surprises

5. Consider referral programs to reduce your CAC

Like brand communities, referral programs are an excellent way to spread brand awareness and acquire customers through your current shoppers. Over time, a well-built referral program will offset or reduce marketing spend for your business. 

Encourage your current customers to refer your brand to others with benefits such as:

• Product discounts
• A free gift
• Points earned toward future purchases 
• A free upgrade to a more premium version of their subscription

6. Invest in content marketing for sustainable business growth

For healthy, long-term business growth, content marketing is a key area of focus for DTC ecommerce brands. This strategy focuses on providing your customers with relevant, engaging content that enhances the value of your brand, product, and services—and it can pave the way for increased LTV and greater brand awareness.

To use content marketing to optimize your LTV:CAC ratio, focus on building out a holistic content strategy for both attracting new customers and adding value for your current customers. Types of content to consider include:

• Web pages that are optimized to rank highly in search engines based on keywords your target market is interested in
• Educational blog posts that delve deeper into topics related to your mission
• A podcast to entertain your audience, featuring guests that are well-known in your industry
• Social media posts that engage with popular voices in your industry and share relevant topics and ideas with your audience

A properly built content strategy will pay dividends long into the future. What’s more, the success of your content marketing can continue to build over time.

Prioritize your target audience to improve your LTV:CAC ratio

These days, acquiring customers is becoming more and more expensive, which can cause your profitability to suffer. But by honing in on the strategies that will minimize your CAC while maximizing your LTV, you can create outstanding customer experiences that keep shoppers returning to your business.

Regardless of the strategies you use, be sure to calculate customer acquisition cost, lifetime value, and LTV:CAC ratio over time, analyzing the effectiveness of any strategies you use to improve your efforts consistently. And for the most powerful approach, pair well-matched strategies together for even more impact and higher customer satisfaction.

The post The importance of LTV:CAC ratio for DTC ecommerce brands appeared first on Recharge.