Insights

Grow Ecommerce Subscription Sales with PostPilot’s Recharge Integration

Mar 9, 2023

Subscribers are some of the most valuable customers for ecommerce brands.

The revenue from subscribers is more predictable and the consistency makes supply chain planning easier. Most important: subscribers buy a lot. According to a Wharton School study, customers that become members purchase more, even on top of their subscriptions.

But the reality is, subscribers churn. Some simply move on. Others forget to renew, overlook how much they can save, or have accumulated more product than they can use.

Smart businesses invest in bringing those lapsed subscribers back. It’s far cheaper to win back past subscribers than to acquire new ones. And that means higher profits as well as sales.

Re-engaging past subscribers just got easier with PostPilot’s new integration with Recharge. We’re really excited about this—here’s why.

Postcards Work Better Than Email

When customers churn, email is often the first remedy brands turn to.

But between spam filters, unsubscribes and just general email overwhelm, it can be hard to get customers—even loyal ones— to see and pay attention to your messages.

There are no spam filters on IRL mailboxes, and many people actually like getting mail. As a result, postcards have a nearly-perfect open rate, and a much stronger engagement rate than email.

The new integration makes it easy for Recharge customers to add automated postcard winbacks to their marketing portfolios. The returns can be huge: Ecommerce agency Rock City Lab used postcards to generate a 28x ROAS for one of its clients.

Automate Flows for Hands-Off Profits

PostPilot and Recharge customers can now automatically send a personalized postcard when a customer’s subscription ends.

Some brands may want to send that nudge right away. Others might want to give email a try first, then send a postcard follow–up within a certain time frame, like 30 or 60 days.

Postcards generally have a much higher conversion rate than emails. When Ben Semmar, CEO of Rock City Lab, sent a postcard campaign to lapsed subscribers for a supplements client, it saw a 5.87% conversion rate, 10 times what they’d gotten from email.

Elements of Successful Subscription Winbacks

Postcards are most effective when they’re well designed. They should feature simple, striking graphics, and a clear call to action.

Remind them of what they’re losing by not re-enrolling:

Don’t lose that muscle
Get back to sleeping better
Get back on track

Subscriptions typically have savings built in, so you may initially just want to reiterate that your membership is a great deal. But if those first efforts don’t work, it can pay to layer in an additional discount or freebie.

PostPilot’s easy segmenting and 1-to-1 customization mean you can create different campaigns for different kinds of customers, address them by name, mention their favorite product, and include individual discount codes so they can’t be re-used.

Send a VIP Thank You

Another use case for postcards and subscriptions: Thank customers for coming on board.

You can set up a campaign that automatically triggers a thank-you note to send when someone starts a subscription. It can be a simple, personalized thanks from the CEO. Or, make high-value customers feel extra-special with a handwritten note. PostPilot offers robot-written postcards that look like they were penned by humans.