You’re going to lose about 25 percent of your email list this year. Let that sink in.

What can you do about this? Get your re-engagement postcard sequence ready. Seriously.

When you lose access to a subscriber’s inbox, show up in their mailbox. Simply sync email workflows with direct mail to keep your customers engaged across channels.

Why do customers stop engaging with your brand?

Before launching a win-back campaign, marketers should first understand what was the cause of losing their active customers.

Here are the main reasons for losing customer loyalty and turning a former active customer into a dormant one:

• It was a one-time purchase (e.g. a gift) – meaning, they didn’t lose interest in your products and services, but rather weren’t planning on becoming a long-time customer in the first place. However, if you analyze their purchase history and the dates, you could come up with more offers to become their favorite place for gift-shopping. You should also give them an easy way to recommend your products and services to a friend or a family member for whom they shopped in the first place.
• Bad experience (i.e. one-time bad customer experience with your business, bad service provided by one of your employees or maybe your company failed at some deliveries) – if this was the reason, you should probably consider an apology letter and something nice to make up for their bad experience as the first step of your win back strategy.  
• Misaligned expectations – you had some changes in your product or services and didn’t inform your clients about it, so your products no longer match their expectations.

If you want to win your customers and their loyalty back, first of all, you’ll need to address that reason and eliminate the faulty issues, if any. Then, let them know that you learned your lesson and you want them back – for example, send them a ‘we want you back’ postcard.

Studies have shown that an average email campaign has a response rate of 0.12%. Direct mail catalogs or postcards, on the other hand, can get a response rate of 3.4%. So while multi-channel and cross-channel matter, don’t overlook the most effective retention and reactivation marketing channel – that is, a personalized physical direct mail that will get you a much better reengagement result.  

Wondering what effective re-engagement, ‘we want you back’ postcards look like? Here are 5 examples to inspire your next automated postcard marketing campaign:

Win Back Postcard Example #1: The Hard-to-Resist Freebie

When you’re hitting up inactive customers who stopped engaging with your brand, go big. That’s exactly what Bite Squad did with this ‘we want you back’ postcard.

Bite Squad integrated Inkit with its CRM to pull a database of lapsed customers who hadn’t ordered within two months, randomized and mailed. The postcard netted an 18% redemption rate for the restaurant delivery service.

Pro Tip: Integrate Inkit with your CRM to trigger re-engagement postcards as soon as a customer becomes dormant or unsubscribes.

Win Back Postcard Example #2: The Personalized Rewards Reminder

NatureBox recently worked with Inkit to send its customers a highly effective re-engagement postcard. The mailer reminded customers of their store credit (earned via a customer loyalty program). And a limited-time bonus offer encouraged customers to redeem the credit soon.

The ‘we want you back’ postcard design was personalized with each recipient’s individual store credit balance.

The loyalty angle makes this win back postcard very effective. Consumers generally do not want to let loyalty rewards go unused. A personalized store credit reminder packs more punch than a promotional offer alone.

Win Back Postcard Example #3: The Repurposed Email Campaign

Some of the most successful re-engagement postcard campaigns begin as win back email campaigns, including the NatureBox promo discussed above.

Repurposing a great email promotion as a win back postcard is simple and effective. This is a strong strategy when your offer is proven, but you’re having trouble with your open rate. It will also save you time on the creative side.

Direct mail is more personal and has a longer-lasting effect on customers if compared with an average email. Of course, it doesn’t mean that all people without exception read the leaflets they receive in their mailboxes from top to bottom. But it’s more likely that your potential customers will notice and absorb at least some parts of your message if they receive a physical postcard in their mailbox.

Consumers usually pay more attention to their direct mail pieces and rarely throw them away upon receiving. They would rather put a postcard aside to read it later or save it for the future if they’re not immediately interested in your win back offer. That is why direct mail postcards are recognized among the best marketing channels for e-commerce and customer reactivation.

Pro tip: Combine your online and offline marketing efforts for better results. Use a personal touch by sending a win back postcard, but make your offer easy to use with a QR code containing a digital coupon.

As the entire e-commerce industry faces the growing issue of crowded inboxes, why not try a new channel to reach your customers?

Win Back Postcard Example #4: The Special Event Notice

If you have a big event coming up, consider sending a ‘we want you back’ postcard to disengaged segments. With high readability and impact, your re-engagement postcard is likely to be noticed while your emails go unread. One of the ways to attract your lapsed customers’ attention is to insert a good-quality picture from the event they visited in the past and invite them to a similar future event.  

Pro tip: Limit text and use colorful, bold graphics to make sure your notice stands out in the mail pile.

Win Back Postcard Example #5: The Website Traffic Driver

Direct mail works best as part of a larger multi-channel marketing strategy. Your goal for a re-engagement postcard might be to funnel people back online and increase engagement there. With high open rates, postcards can be a reliable driver of web traffic.
For example, this postcard encourages sign-ups for email alerts.

Here are a few more ways to use win back postcards to re-engage segments online:

• Tease information on your website or blog
• Promote mobile app downloads
• Encourage contest or petition sign-ups
• Drive social media follows
• Offer a coupon for online purchases
• Use postcards as game pieces in a gamification strategy
• Attract customers with value by promoting free online tools
• Promote membership in a customer loyalty program (The North Face postcard below)

This is the reverse of The North Face event mailer discussed earlier. It offers a discount for their upcoming sale, but only if the recipient goes to the company’s website and signs up for a customer loyalty program.

Winning back your customers and ongoing customer retention should be a part of your overall marketing strategy. Inkit makes the direct mail process easy for your business by providing integrations with apps and web services you use every day.

With Inkit’s direct mail automation software it’s much easier to create effective win back campaigns and set up your entire customer nurturing program, from the customer onboarding and ‘thank you’ direct mails, to ‘we want you back’ reactivation postcards.

Feeling inspired? Get started with Inkit’s basic plan today and start winning back lost customers. Schedule a demo to try Inkit’s direct mail automation software today.