Free surprise inside! Whether it’s Cracker Jacks, a musical jack in the box, or the toy at the bottom of your Happy Meal, have you ever not been thrilled by the free surprise awaiting you inside? It doesn’t matter that the surprise itself is often underwhelming, the suspense and anticipation itself is enough to make any of us rip off the lid and dig for our reward.
The same goes for your eCommerce rewards emails. If you can offer people a free surprise by clicking on your email, you will gain the benefits of building anticipation as well as goodwill by giving your reader a small treat.
What Kinds of Rewards Should You Give?
When offering a reward, consider some of the following options:
- Offer a “lifestyle” item that compliments your core product line. For instance, if you sell trendy men’s clothing, offer an ear buds holder. It’s inexpensive but useful, and is of great benefit to your buyer persona whose expensive headphones are constantly getting tangled.
- Choose a product that works well as a gift. If you offer something that your customer or subscriber would want to share with someone they love, you will also be spreading your brand’s reach.
- Require the user to pay for shipping to claim the gift. Encourage upsells along the way, so that the majority of shoppers start with the free gift and leave with other products in their cart.
- Bundle it as a “buy something over $x to receive the gift” offer. While this makes the gift less free, it might be a good option depending on the expectations your subscribers currently have. And you still have the elements of surprise and generosity working for you.
How Not to Get Crawled (and ripped off) by Coupon Sites
Of course, you could just set up a “no follow” in your robots.txt file and only send the rewards page to people on your email list, thereby making it more hidden from people or programs that aggregate free/discounted products across the web. But what fun would that be? You want people to discover your rewards page, be motivated to join it, and spend time there. You want to make it very public; you just don't want it to be free. After all, you’re running a business and depend on the exchange of value.
Here’s how you could create a customized, private rewards page for registered users, while displaying a general opt-in page to those nasty coupon scrapers and beloved new visitors (note: the process outlined in the example below requires Smart Content modules from HubSpot, but could be accomplished with any other dynamic content software solution):
This is the page shown to first-time visitors of the Aquin Yoga site and to anyone who hasn’t signed up for rewards and deals from the Aquin Yoga store. The call to action (arrow added for this article) encourages visitors to register.
To make the content smart so that it changes dynamically, click the Make Smart link:
By creating a smart rule, we’re able to offer a little something to our loyal subscribers, even personalizing the web page to include their name. If you want to take this a step further, you could create multiple smart rules based on the different profiles and personas you have in your database.
Example of a smart content offer only for subscribers
Final Result
When someone visits your site, either by clicking your “Free Surprise Inside” email you send them or some other channel, they will see the personalized version of this page with your targeted offer for subscribers only. And bots are not allowed (Smart Content only loads onto the page if the user is recognized) so your coupon won’t be scraped.
Leverage the Page
You now have an asset to help you increase sign-ups and email engagement. Update it regularly with exciting new deals and offers, but keep people guessing. That’s how you can hold their interest and maintain the element of surprise and delight, which is so crucial to this kind of strategy.
What are some ways you’ve used rewards and giveaways in your eCommerce business? Share them in the comments below.
Originally published Mar 24, 2014 8:00:00 AM, updated January 18 2023