Fundamental Email and retention strategies for CPG brands

If you run a food and beverage brand online, then you’re classified as what’s called, “a replenishment business model.”

Top replenishment brands like Magic Spoon, Sanzo, Hello Fresh, and Firebelly Tea all have thoughtful retention strategies to keep customers coming back.

If you don’t have a retention strategy, don’t worry. We’ll give you all the secrets in this article so you walk away feeling confident about how to build a strat for your brand.

In this article, we’ll go over email marketing tactics used to:

• Optimize your retention strategy

• Build a loyal audience

• Convert more customers

To make things smooth, we’re going to break your email strategy down into three parts. 

1. Core Flows

2. Campaigns/Segmentation

3. A/B testing and optimizing for constant improvement

No fluff. Let’s dive right in.

1. Core flows

The first part of any email strategy is your core flows. 

This is your bread and butter. This is the ecosystem that your customers see when they subscribe to your list. This is the core of all of your email marketing efforts and will have a ripple effect on your other strategies.

Your core flows can be broken down into two parts:

1. Pre-purchase flows

2. Post-purchase flows. 

Your pre-purchase flows are meant to increase customer conversions and introduce customers to your brand. This includes flows like welcome emails, abandoned cart emails, and abandoned checkout. Any automated email your subscribers receive before they make a purchase. 

An example of an abandoned cart flow.

This is one of the most common pre-purchase flow

Your post-purchase flows are automated emails like your thank you flow, upsell flow, win-back flow, and more. 

These flows are designed to retain customers who have made purchases in the past. 

Now, you understand the purpose of flows and why they’re important. Let’s move on to campaigns and segmentation. 

2. Campaigns and Segmentation

Naturally what happens after people go through your flows, is that everyone will have different behaviors. Obviously, right? 

Well, we can categorize people based on their different behaviors and reactions to your flows, and send them campaigns to stimulate more action. 

There are dozens of different types of segments you can use but the most important ones you need to understand are these three:

• Unengaged (subscribers who have not opened emails nor made any purchases)

• Engaged (subscribers who have some engagement with your brand. So maybe they open emails or they bought one item before)

• VIPs (subscribers who are advocates of your brand. So people who have purchased more than once and consistently open your emails.)

Then we send each segment campaigns throughout the year trying to compel them to move to the next tier. 

So for your unengaged segment, you send campaigns to get them engaged.

For your engaged segment, you send them campaigns to get them to become VIPs.

For your VIPs, you send them campaigns to get them to remain as VIPs for as long as possible. 

Example of a campaign strategy with advanced segmentation.

And that’s only the beginning. Because you can create subcategories among these three segmentation examples. 

You can even create segments based on different products or variations of products in your store.

So, you can imagine that the possibilities are endless when you think about advanced segmentation and campaigns. 

3. A/B testing and optimization

Lastly, we have A/B testing. 

Now that we have a solid foundation with flows and advanced segmentation, your next step is to constantly a/b test. 

This is what makes email marketing a timeless asset to your business because you can constantly improve your strategy. 

A/B testing is when we test an original variable and compare it with a different variation. 

So we can a/b test different subject lines to see which one yields better open rates. 

And we can a/b test different offers in your emails to see which one yields more customer purchases. 

We can even A/B test features like design, body copy, headers, and the list goes on depending on how creative you can get. 

What now?

Email marketing is an essential part of your DTC strategy.

Specifically for CPG brands, you have an opportunity to build a loyal community of customers who are excited to return to your store and purchase your products.

You can first create a foundation with core pre-purchase and post-purchase flows. And send targeted campaigns to different segments of your list depending on how they’ve interacted with your flows.

Continue to A/B test to optimize your results. And you’re on your way to making at least 25% of your DTC MRR from email.

If you’d like to schedule a complimentary demonstration session, please visit our demo-call backing page for more information.

We’ll discuss your specific situation and give you a tailored plan of action so you can reach your goals with email marketing.