Get customers to buy again: make it good, onboard, remind

1. Where this move sits

Raising the number of purchases, getting people to buy more times, is the next of the ways to raise what a customer is worth, in the sequence used here. SOP 232 runs the whole list of those ways as an exercise. Whether what a customer is worth is really what holds your business back is settled first on SOP 225 — Pick your war and check lifetime value is the constraint.

2. First, make it good

Start with a plain point: if your aim is repeat buying, see that what you sell is good. In one example, a restaurant owner asks for the trick that brings diners back. Everyone has eaten a meal that was neither great nor bad, just mediocre, and no amount of marketing gets you to return for it. The vast majority of businesses, on this view, are just mediocre, and they want hacks, tips and tricks instead.

When what you really want is steady repeat buying and lower churn, there are three things that can do it, conceptual rather than tactical:

1. Sell to better people. Move up to a higher caliber of customer.
2. Lower the price relative to the avatar. This might sound kind of at odds with other advice here, but a lower price for the customer you serve cuts churn.
3. Cut what adds nothing. Ruthlessly remove the great bulk of what does not add value, because it is noise, and noise takes value away.

A better customer or a far lower price, for a small agency stuck with the wrong buyers, is section 3 of SOP 229 — Sell to richer customers and rewrite what you measure. Holding what customers get above what they pay, by giving more or charging less, is section 1 of SOP 138 — Keep value above price to hold customers.

3. How to make it good: take away the pain

Telling someone to make their product good leaves them asking how. The view here is that what follows is probably one of the best frameworks for it, and that it is how good products get developed. The same goes for services.

People buy results. Functionally, every buyer is buying an outcome. Nobody buys a service for its own sake, in the way nobody wants a drill: they want the hole in the wall.

A good product is the result with the suffering removed. So list everything that stands between your buyer and the result:

• What do they have to do that they would rather not?
• What must they stop that they would rather hang on to, if they could?
• Where are they held up, waiting on you?
• What risk do they have to carry, because of this purchase, to get what they want?

If you can take away all of the risk, make it incredibly easy and make it happen straight away, you have an amazing product.

Go and watch. Most people would rather not do this work, because it means following your customers around: watching how they work and seeing them go through each step themselves. You will probably find a great deal of friction, a lot of bad things you are currently selling them as part of the process, and you have to strip it out one piece at a time.

An example. The easiest one, which many people have lived: a leading smartphone, described as what remains once you take away everything that is bad about having a phone. Picture every use you have for one, strip out each part that is a pain, and an exceptional product remains.

4. Fewer, better things

Another thing you can do for more purchases and less churn is to keep to fewer, better things. This links to value per second rather than seconds of value, the idea at section 1 of SOP 131 — Run the keep-one and remove-one survey. As you go down your list of items, ask of each one whether it helps sell the customer on staying.

Deciding what to keep in the offer itself is section 7 of SOP 230 — Shape the front-end offer for lifetime value. Surveying customers on what to remove from delivery is SOP 234 — Audit delivery by who values what, then cut its cost.

5. Onboarding and setting expectations

Another way is onboarding and setting expectations. The moves are put at five or six; five follow. They are offered as the 80-20 of onboarding, things you can put in place right away. If you have no onboarding process for customers, whatever you sell, on this view you are missing out. It is claimed that there are statistics behind these moves, that they are backed by research and that they raise lifetime value; the research is not named. Not established on this page.

A quick win, whatever that means. Find some concrete victory that shows the customer it is working. It need not be the end goal. A gym example: someone who feels better after the first week has had a win, without having lost 20 pounds yet. Or a first ever pull-up, or managing 10 push-ups; whatever form it takes, what matters is an early win.

A personalized welcome. Something made for them, so they do not feel they are just a number.

A checklist for day one to day 14. This one is rated highly. Give people a list of what they need to do, because this is where, on this view, everyone falls off. The aim is activation.

Human contact, fast. Have a person reach them, if you can; depending on your price point, that is not always doable. If it is possible, make that human contact as fast as you can. The research is cited as saying at least 48 hours; one practice here is to ask how quickly you could manage it, the same day. An example: you tell them you are introducing them to a named person who will be on with them in a couple of hours, set for the same day, so the momentum keeps going. The reason given: the first 24 hours are when people decide how good what you sell really is. They buy, and they judge at once. SOP 284, section 4.4, puts the window at the first 48 hours and flags the difference.

Proof that people like them are succeeding. This one, on this view, is wildly underrated. Onboarding is a second sale, a continuation of the first. Once people have finally made the purchase, what they want to know next is whether they made the right call. The last step of a sale is to reinforce the decision. If three people are what you show them, and you want it tailored, find people like them who have just won, and make the proof as recent and as live as you can so it persuades even more.

Beside the onboarding pages. Onboarding aimed at the point where customers start to stay is SOP 139 — Onboard customers to the activation point, and finding that point is SOP 129 — Derive the activation point. Personal over group and custom over generic, and reselling the value of the purchase, are on SOP 139 too. The day-one-to-14 checklist, a same-day human contact and proof from customers like them are not on SOP 139; quick wins in the first experience also appear in section 6 of SOP 148, the page on steadying a business with its first small team.

6. Long-term nurture: remind them to buy

If you want repeat purchases, keep reminding people to purchase. In one business, it is thought, a single email brings in a lot of sales. If you are in e-commerce, the figure offered for email's share is like 50 percent of sales when it is done well, depending on how fast you are growing. And email is free.

Picture it as a line of communication over time. Along it runs a small, steady cadence: you give value on a regular basis, with soft calls to action. That line is the long-term nurture.

7. Promotions a few times a year

On top of that line come the quarterly promotions: a small spike a couple of times a year when you put out a stronger, more deliberate offer. These are your fast-cash offers. The view here is that about two to four a year is the sweet spot to consider, unless each avatar gets its own offer, in which case you would raise the frequency. This is where splitting your email list into segments becomes really handy.

This compares with the fractal point and with the question of whether to have a downsell: the hours you would put into building a downsell could go instead into setting this up once; the claim is that you will earn more.

Running the campaign itself is SOP 81 — Run a fast-cash campaign, and its 90-day cadence is section 8 there. Whether to build a downsell at all, and what to sell in its place, is SOP 228 — Weigh a downsell against raising the core price.

8. Fix a business from the back

An aside. One practice here is usually to fix a business back to front. Walking through a business, that practice usually has to start with what it sells and what its gross margins are. The reason: there is no point working on marketing and sales if that is about to change. Sometimes a change to the offer, the gross margin or the price point runs all the way back to the front: once you know what you are selling and to whom, the rest follows from it.

Setting a gross margin goal and closing the gap to it is SOP 226 — Set a gross margin goal and close the gap three ways.

9. The pyramid

These pull together as a pyramid.

A community. If you can, bring every customer into a community; the reason given is that it keeps you top of mind. They can interact with each other and give each other value. Connecting members to each other is SOP 141 — Connect members to each other.

The promotions. The punctuated fast-cash offers you run quarterly, or twice a year, or whatever suits.

Soft reminders. Keep reminding people, lightly and often, of what you give them: here is something; if you have had this in mind, come and take a look; maybe now is a good time. It does not have to be anything dramatic. Simply keeping the offer available, on this view, makes a huge difference.

All of these raise the number of purchases.

10. What this page does not decide for you

• The 48 hours. The research cited says "at least 48 hours", and the aim offered is then the same day. Whether the 48 hours is a floor or a limit is not established on this page.
• The research behind the onboarding moves. They are said to be backed by research; it is not named. Not established on this page.
• The e-commerce share. The figure offered, with "like" and "depending on your growth rate". This page gives no figure for any other kind of business.
• How much more often to promote. This page gives no figure for how far to raise the cadence when each avatar has an offer of its own.
• How far to lower the price. This page gives no figure for how much lower the price should sit relative to the avatar.
• Where the community sits in the pyramid. The layers are named in the order given here; which one forms the base is not established on this page.

11. The checklist

Step	What to do
Make it good	Sell to better people; lower the price relative to the avatar; cut what adds no value
List the pain	What buyers must do, give up, wait for and risk to get the result
Watch them	Follow customers through each step and strip out the friction piece by piece
Fewer, better	Ask of each item whether it helps sell the customer on staying
Quick win	An early, concrete sign that it is working
Welcome	Something personalized, so they are not just a number
First days	A checklist from day one to day 14
Human contact	If you can, a person reaches them fast, the same day if it is possible
Proof	If you show three people, choose customers like them with recent wins
Nurture	Give value on a steady cadence with a soft call to action; email is free
Promote	Fast-cash offers about two to four times a year, the sweet spot offered; more if each avatar has its own offer
Community	If you can, put customers in a community
Remind	Keep the offer available with a light, regular reminder

12. What this page does not cover

Cutting what delivery costs is SOP 234 — Audit delivery by who values what, then cut its cost, and the parts of the front-end offer are SOP 230 — Shape the front-end offer for lifetime value. Upselling more of what customers already buy, or a better version of it, is SOP 236 — Upsell more of it, more help with it, or better.