You will need access to your Shopify backend and third party email marketing tool. For the purposes of this tutorial, we will use Klaviyo.
Issuing store credits is a great way to drive value to your customer engagement program. Sharing credits over an extended time period (compared to a one-time offer) can encourage desirable repeat shopping behaviours by issuing new credits over time.
This can be accomplished through email drip campaigns. The email flow will be triggered when a customer first joins the program. It will then send relevant promo codes to participants over an extended period of time, ensuring that participants receive a consistent stream of value.
We will use the following scenario for this tutorial
We are building a VIP program and would like to include as a benefit, an $80 annual credit that is issued in intervals of $20.
To get started, here is what we will need:
Access to your RareCircles admin dashboard
Access to your Shopify backend
Access to your email marketing tool (Mailchimp, Klaviyo or similar)
Follow the steps below to begin pushing store credits to your program participants.
If you are using a third party email marketing tool that is not Klaviyo (MailChimp, Constant Contact, etc...), you will need to first configure a Zap to your account.
Step One: Configure the credit codes
The first step in creating a credit drip campaign is configuring your promo codes. These are the codes you will add to your email campaigns to automatically send program participants their credits.
Before you get started, identify the number of codes and desired parameters.
How many times a year will you be sending codes to members?
Are the credits stackable?
For how long are the credits valid?
With these questions answered, you can begin creating your promo codes. You will need to create 1 unique promo code per email.
If you plan on issuing a quarterly credit, you will need to create 4 separate promo codes, one for each period.
Code Parameters
Your promo code parameters will differ depending on your goals. In this example, we are creating four $20 store credits that we will send to customers over a one year period.
To create a promo code:
Login to your Shopify account
Click Discounts
Click Create discounts
Configure your discount codes
To learn more about how to configure discount codes, visit the Shopify Help Center.
Ensure the promo code is only valid for program participants by restricting it to the customer group with the relevant tag. You will have created this tag during the program setup.
Step Two: Create the email campaign/flow
You must have connected your RareCircles account with your email marketing tool in order to trigger this automation.
Now that we've created the codes, the next step is to create an email sequence that will send an email notification to participants at the requisite interval.
To create your email flow:
Set your trigger to fire when a customer is added to your customer program list.
Create an email template. You will use this template to create the various emails in the flow.
Add your first email. Don't forget to include the promo code and a link to your store.
Add the relevant time interval. In the case of a quarterly credit, this would be 91 days.
Add your second email. Be sure to add the relevant promo code.
Repeat this step until all codes have been included in the email flow.
The steps to create the campaign or flow will vary depending on your email marketing provider.
Step 3: Set live
Now that the email flow has been configured, we can set it live to begin sending emails.
Participants will now receive an email every 91 days with a new promo code granting them $20 in store credit.