How to win customers back: a success story

A specialist skincare company won back 30% of its inactive email subscribers through email.

Crabtree & Evelyn had a strong Christmas one year and became a gift everyone in Hong Kong knew about, because the gift sets they offered were extremely popular — seasonal, practical, available in a wide range of combinations, and well put together.

The following July, Crabtree & Evelyn ran an email campaign called “We Miss You”, targeting customers who had not had much time to open Crabtree & Evelyn email over the previous two months (April and May). The goal was to wake this group up, bring them back into the fold, and get them shopping again. At the same time the customer team cleaned the list, keeping the customers worth following up and no longer spending time serving those who had drifted away. Reorganising the list matters too, because a responsive list helps build the sender’s reputation.

The email design was simple and effective: “IS THIS GOODBYE?” over a lavender banner photo, followed by gently worded copy expressing sadness that the reader had not been opening, and hope of hearing back from them. It then politely asked the reader for a call to action.

Lower down the email were three response options: stay and keep subscribing to the newsletter; visit the site and update your details; shop and get free delivery.

The email was warm, carried a gift, stated its purpose plainly, and gave readers a choice of action — and more importantly, its content led readers toward exactly what Crabtree & Evelyn hoped for: staying, and shopping.

After a period of running it, this email recovered 1,054 contact records.

Email marketing is an important tool for opening, building, maintaining and restoring customer relationships.