8 top tips to turn first time buyers into loyal customers this Black Friday 2023

​​Why you need to consider customer LTV this Black Friday

Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) is a highly important metric for e-commerce brands. This is especially true for brands with high customer acquisition costs - usually coming through paid social ads.

According to Shopify, 64% of e-commerce retailers say that customers acquired during Black Friday events have a lower lifetime value (LTV) than those acquired at any other time of the year. This is arguably unsurprising. Many e-commerce brands will have ambitious targets that are hyper-focused on new acquisitions and total revenue, yet little thought is given to retaining new customers after Black Friday events are over. 

If you're a brand thinking about long-term, sustainable revenue growth, customer retention should be a top priority. 

Research published by Retail Customer Experience shows that the likelihood of a repeat purchase increases every time a customer shops with a brand, rising from 17% after one purchase to 52% after six transactions. The question is, how do you convert your first-time Black Friday shoppers into long-term, loyal customers? Let's explore some options.

1. Personalize their unboxing experience

During the Black Friday frenzy, it's easy to forget about the customer experience. If your focus is hitting KPIs and increasing revenue, you miss a unique opportunity to deliver a memorable customer experience. Personalization goes a long way toward cultivating customer relationships.

A really simple but effective way to show customers that you care is to personalize their unboxing experience. Black Friday brings with it a sea of corrugated cardboard and brown tape. You can do something different. Add thank you cards, or something similar to personalize packages.

If a customer has made a purchase from overseas, why not add a thank you message in their native language? Instead of a standard cardboard box and brown tape, make every step of unboxing a memorable, branded experience. Use custom packaging, tape and even stickers to make your brand unforgettable in their minds. 

2. Give them a free gift or stickers

Free gifts are a fantastic way to surprise your Black Friday first-time buyers, making for a memorable shopping experience. Gifting something for free not only makes customers feel special, they perceive to be getting greater value from their purchase. 

Plus, it makes them more likely to come back and make a repeat purchase, especially just before Christmas.

Equally, trendy stickers are a great touch that customers can use to personalize things like their phone cases or water bottles, then they are reminded of your brand wherever they go. And, wherever they go, other people will see your stickers too, spreading the word about your brand. 

Your sticker must have a cool design, and not just a logo, so that customers have something unique to remember you by. 

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3. Give them a flyer with an affiliate code

First-time Black Friday buyers love to share their shopping experiences with friends and family. You can use this to encourage buyers to come back by offering discounts via an affiliate code if they 'bring a friend'. For example, 'Friends15 gets you and a friend 15% off next time you buy'.

You could add an expiry date to create a sense of urgency to use the code. Equally, you can share logical reasons to take advantage of an affiliate code, fast - for example, get discounts on great items before Christmas.

4. Smooth delivery and post-purchase experience

Delivery can be the difference between getting your first-time Black Friday shoppers back or them boycotting your brand for life. The key to smooth delivery is communication. Shipping can be unpredictable during Black Friday due to demand. However, customers are more lenient if they know what's going on with their packages.

If you can get goods to customers super-fast, they're more likely to be wowed by your service and buy from you again. But shipping isn't always that easy. Things happen that are out of your control. 

It's crucial that you don't go silent. If you're aware of potential delays, warn customers when they need to order from you to assure on-time delivery. Give them a deadline by which to order. This puts the ball in the customer's court to order on-time.

If packages are already in transit and there are delays, tell your customers. Nothing frustrates customers more than delivery delays and them having no idea about it. According to Modern Retail, 90% of shoppers say that receiving delivery information about a purchase would encourage them to buy from a brand again.

Equally, a shopper's experience should not end after delivery. Post-purchase communications make your customers feel valued and like they're being taken care of by a brand that really understands their needs. It's a great way to ensure that customers are satisfied with the products they have bought from you. 

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5. Follow up with them via email

To enhance the Black Friday post-purchase experience for first-time buyers, you should follow-up with them via email. Emails will keep your brand top of mind in the build up to other peak season shopping events like Singles' Day and Christmas. Plus, it helps to keep your first-time buyers in the know. 

Let's say you're launching a new product that you want customers to know about or you're extending your Black Friday event on certain items. Follow-up emails can ensure that new customers are some of the first to know about your new products and your extended Black Friday event. This helps to extend the buying cycle by serving as a reminder for them to shop.

Plus, follow-up emails give you an opportunity to cross-sell and upsell. Why not create post-Black Friday gift guides packed full of ideas for Christmas? 

Then there's the opportunity to ask for customer reviews. To add a little incentive, you can offer a small reward for shoppers who share about their Black Friday experience with your brand. 

When sending emails, they should be personalized by using names. Perhaps they have a birthday coming up. A great way to get first-time buyers back is to acknowledge their birthday and offer them a celebratory discount.

If you sell a product such as cosmetics or supplements that will be used up after a certain amount of days, you could also consider getting in touch with your customer to ask if they want to replenish.

To make following up with customers easier, setup automated email flows to ensure that each and every one of your new buyers gets an enjoyable, valuable and personalized experience. 

6. Try using subscriptions

Subscriptions are great for products that are likely to be repurchased at certain intervals because they remove the hassle of having to reorder. For example, if you sell cosmetics or supplements, having a subscription would mean that customers would automatically receive replenishments every three months.

You can use Black Friday as an opportunity to get new customers signed up to your subscription service by offering them the first three months at a discounted rate. This would help to initially win them over, then you can switch to the regular price after the three months ends.

However, it's one thing to get customers signed up for a subscription with a juicy entry offer. Keeping them interested once the discount ends is another thing. You need to make customers want you.

One tactic you could use to keep people on subscriptions is to have a reward points system. As customers accumulate reward points for sticking with their subscription, they are building up to receiving a free gift. If they cancel, they would lose the opportunity to claim their free gift.

A subscription model is beneficial to your customers and to your brand. For customers, a subscription means:

1. Value for money
2. Convenience 
3. Discovery 

For your brand, it means:

1. A consistent revenue at regular intervals
2. The option for tiered pricing
3. Flexibility to adjust pricing
4. Greater insight into consumer habits
5. Brand loyalty

7. Foster community around your brand

In the hustle and bustle of Black Friday, a really effective way to hold the attention of your first-time buyers is to bring them into your community. Invite them to follow you on your social media channel.

If they share the Black Friday deals they got from your brand on their social channels, be interactive and reshare what they're posted. This is a great way to build community around your brand, while giving you the opportunity to leverage user-generated content. 

Creating new content can be time-consuming. Instead, you can curate content that's being created by real customers to circulate on your social media channels and more.

According to Chris Christoff, the co-founder of Monster Insights:

"Active engagement with your audience is a cornerstone of a brand-based community. Consumers want to support businesses that have a distinct brand identity and presence. By engaging with people on social media, offering help to people with questions, and participating in community events, you'll get more people mentally invested in your company."

Customers trust each other the most, and it's best to let them do the talking of course. To build sustainable engagement post Black Friday, why not highlight authentic customer stories?

This kind of authenticity will humanize your brand, helping you to build real connections with your customers - even new ones. Fostering a community culture will serve to strengthen the relationship with those who buy from your brand, which increases customer loyalty and trust.

Show new customers that you stand for more than just buying and selling. Demonstrate that you are invested in building a strong bond between your brand and customers. This will help you to convert followers into repeat customers, and better still, brand advocates who will spread the word about your products, adding more customers to your community.

8. Create a loyalty program

While Black Friday presents a unique challenge due to its focus on short-term sales, converting these one-off buyers into repeat customers rather requires a long-term vision. A loyalty and rewards program, offering consumers ongoing value alongside seasonal incentives, is a great solution to balance these two contrasting objectives. 

Through a points-based system, customers can earn rewards for every purchase, which encourages them to return. Yet it's not just about transactional loyalty. 

Consider offering experiential rewards, such as early access to new products or exclusive VIP events. This not only enhances the shopping experience. It also nurtures a sense of exclusivity and long-term commitment. Most importantly, it sets your brand apart from competitors who only offer one-off discounts.

Then, adding interactive and gamified elements in your loyalty program, such as leaderboards or VIP tiers for example, can further enrich customer participation. These mechanisms transform it from a simple transactional relationship into a truly interactive experience.

To sustain the initial momentum, maintain consistent communication after Black Friday. Propose exclusive offers and rewards that extend beyond the holiday season to keep these newly acquired customers engaged.

Make sure your peak season runs smoothly with Hive

Peak season events, like Black Friday, give you a lot to think about. You need to make sure you've got your blindspots covered. Hive is here to help.

Preparation is key, and Hive can help you get organized with delivery and post-purchase this peak season. Having our backing eases the pressure on you to think of everything. 

Because delivery times and the post-purchase experience matters to customers, and to your brand when it comes to retention, you need peace of mind that your peak season preparations are in safe hands. 

We serve as an extension of your brand, taking care of order fulfillment and more, to ensure that you are freed up to focus on selling.

Our knowledge and experience of managing Black Friday demand gives you the support you need to make your sales event a resounding success, and keeps customers coming back for more.

Offering proactive restocking, sustainable packaging and delivery solutions, flexible fulfillment, an interactive post-purchase app to help you manage your marketing and more, Hive is an all-in-one solution that equips you for Black Friday, holiday seasons and beyond. 

Join 160+ e-commerce companies who have already partnered with Hive and kick off your peak season right.

Need more support getting ready for peak season? You can download our full Black Friday Playbook here and get all the insights you need for a successful Black Friday and beyond.