5 tips for improving your 1st to 2nd order flow
Boost retention and
Hi there,
Recently Lola Hylander and I analysed Wild Deodorant’s 1st to 2nd order flow. We’d been sucked in with the offer of a free travel deodorant and with Wild being a highly respected D2C brand in the UK, we were sure the flow would blow us away.
Here’s how they approach it:
It just felt like a lot of missed opportunities if we’re honest. We have a full breakdown on Medium, but there are a few key practical tips I wanted to give you. I’ve analysed a good 30-40 1st to 2nd order flows for D2C brands (if not more) and I keep seeing these same mistakes. So here are four tips based on mistakes that even a brand like Wild is making:
More value-adding content to help them on their journey and get them into the habit of using the product. Don’t assume they know how to use your product or get the most out of it. Ask your customer care for common questions to cover here.
More social proof and reassurance of their choice, e.g. UGC, reviews, etc. We assume someone is bought it because they’ve bought once, but they are still getting to know you and building their trust in your brand.
Get the most out of your order confirmation and shipping email. Often brands use the standard setup here, and even if they don’t, like in Wild’s case, they don’t maximize the ease of checking shipping status and managing shipping expectations. These emails get such a high open rate, so make sure they also get the potential customer excited about their product.
Be very considerate of when you push the next sale and transparency about pricing. Wild was pushing their shower gel before they’d even pushed their full-size deodorant, even though I’d only bought the travel deodorant at that point. Make sure you also don’t hide your pricing, but instead try to create some excitement and/or urgency about buying again.
Avoid sending campaign emails in the first 7-14 days. This is personal preference but I usually recommend avoiding any other emails just after they’ve bought (same for new email subscribers). You want to have a controlled initial email flow to make sure they are receiving the best possible content to get them to purchase either for the first time or again.
And if you have a quiz or some indicator as to why they bought: personalise the post-purchase flow! Even if you’re still small, one or two personalised emails on why they’ve bought can go a long way. You can even add a post-purchase survey asking them which of the 3-4 most common reasons led them to buy.
If you want to read an in-depth review of each of the 7 emails in this flow, including pros and cons of each and more tips on how to improve your 1st to 2nd order rate in the post-purchase flow, click here.
Recommendations
A shameless self-promotion here, sure, but I’ve got a detailed article on why 1st to 2nd order rate is a metric that too many brands are skipping out on, including my special formula to calculate it below.
-
Don’t assume because you’ve got them to buy once they’ll come back. Getting your 1st to 2nd order rate up even just a bit goes a long way in improving your lifetime value and email can play a key role in this.
You need to make them feel Wild about those first few emails,
Daphne