The period after someone buys for the first time is a part of the comms journey a lot of brands barely touch. Nosy around any CRM and you’ll be lucky you’ll find more than a thank you note and a haphazardly created cross-sell that’s going to about 100 people per month.

There is so so so much room for creating an amazing comms experience here. People are at peak engagement with your brand and won’t just tolerate messages from you, but actively want them. Here’s a 7 step guide for how to do it properly.

1. Get People Excited

Don’t stop hyping up your product just because some has bought it. You want people so excited about it they’re refreshing their delivery order page every other second. Why is this important? People’s experience of products is shaped before they receive them. Start on the right foot and you’ll end up in the right place.

The best way to do this is by sending a message before fulfilment describing how someone's life is about to change - e.g. for supplements: ‘your joint pain is on its way out’, or for apparel: ‘ready to look fresh?’. If you can make this product specific and bring in images of what they’ve bought, even better.

2. Don’t Irritate Customers

People are full of mixed emotions after they’ve bought something. They’re excited, yep, but also nervous, unsure, doubting if they’ve bought the right thing. So don’t rile the beast and put people off your brand by sending the wrong messages at the wrong time.

The classic example here is sending review emails before they’ve received the product or had a chance to try it out. It’s not always easy avoiding this. Delivery timelines change. Stock runs out. So you need to make sure your ops teams and comms are always talking to each other.

3. Sell Something Else

This is where the real revenue boost from. Don’t be afraid to sell, sell, and sell again. People are happy to see other products from you (if it’s sent at the right time). The most effective way to do this is by choosing your top 3 acquisition products and cross or up-selling relevant products. Again, think carefully about timing here. You’ve got two main options.

1) Make your pitch before the fulfillment starts e.g. want to add this to your basket? We’ve seen this work well if the offer is spot on. And depending on your inventory/fulfillment back end it’s not always possible to make alterations post order.

2) Wait until people have enough time with their current product. If they like what they’re seeing, they’ll be way more open to buying again. They’ll have built up desire and will feel a stronger connection to your brand.

4. Give Em An Offer

If you want to take this a step further, give people a time limited offer. This works absolute wonders for fast tracking CLV boosts.

Set up a unique coupon code on your ESP and send a short email funnel ramping up the urgency. It makes a huge difference.

5. Remind People To Buy Again

I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but if you’ve got a perishable product, you need to be sending replenishment emails before they run out. Certain CRMs like Klaivyo have a predictive algorithm in place for this, but if not, simply work out when to send it by working out your AOF for that product.

6. Repeat For Returning Customers

Once you’ve sorted out your automations for 1st Time Buyers, do the same thing for returning customers. Cross-selling does become more complex here as people may have bought something you’re offering on their 1st purchase. So you may have to leave it to algo instead of manually choosing products.

7. Jazz up your transaction emails

This is an icing on the cake option. It can be fiddly, costly, and isn’t essential if you haven’t got the other points in place. But it will take customer comms experience to the next level. Plus, as these emails are the most engaged with across the entire lifecycle, it’s a great chance to begin to building that bond with new customers.