Subscription Cortex: Needs Nurturing

This article is part of the Subscription Cortex Stage Guide. For the standard Cortex Stage Guide click here.

When someone subscribes to email updates from your brand, but disengages from the site, they are classified as a user who needs nurturing. This is your opportunity to provide additional brand information, update users on changes to the product catalog, and provide new opportunities for the user to re-engage with your brand through social media and special events.

Who Will Receive Needs Nurturing?

Users who have moved through the welcome emails but have not subscribed, have not made a (recent) single-item purchase, and are not active on site will become eligible for Needs Nurturing.

When Will Needs Nurturing Send?

Once a user becomes eligible for Needs Nurturing, emails will be sent to them according to their optimum send interval and best time to contact, until they become eligible for a different Cortex stage.

How Do Product Recs Work For Needs Nurturing?

Cortex uses a flexible and intelligent recommendation scheme for Needs Nurturing that is actually three recommendation schemes combined. 

1. For users with browsing or purchase history, product recommendations are targeted based on their behavior, the purchase behavior of similar customers, the popularity of items in the catalog, and more. Cortex uses this data to predict the preferences of each individual and target them with the best recommendations. 
2. For users with limited data available Cortex uses Intelligent Cold Start Recommendations. Using predicted gender and the location of the user when they sign up Cortex is able to target recommendations based on the purchase behavior of customers most similar to the new users. 
3. If information is unable to be collected on the new user at signup a broader recommendation scheme based on the most popular products will be used.

You can learn more about adding dynamic product recommendations to your Needs Nurturing emails here.

You can learn more about the Needs Nurturing product recommendations here.

Best Practices:

• Include filtering to limit over-sending from this stage
• Reinforce your brand's key value proposition
• Include strong branding and multiple Calls To Action
• Use a minimum of 3 dynamic recommendations per template
• Remind the shopper of any standard incentive
  (i.e. "free shipping on all purchases")

Recommendations:

• Include reviews from customers, celebrities, or well known brands/publications
• Include additional links to social media to increase engagement across multiple channels
• Include fresh content from your blog to get users back on site