Hostage Tape's Post Purchase Flow

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I'm sure you've seen Hostage Tape. They've blown up in the last few years to a $40M run rate. First, their funnel is dialed. But I was more impressed with their post purchase flow so let’s break it down.

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Low Cost, High Reward Marketing?

• Customer referrals.

• Brand ambassadors.

• Creator partnerships.

• Traditional affiliates.

There’s a dozen different ways your brand can partner with people to reach new audiences.

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Cha-ching. Another customer.

But brands rarely survive on one-time purchases.

And Hostage Tape is my favorite case study on what to do post-purchase to turn someone from a one-time into a long-time customer.

Step 1: Use Education To Ensure Product Usage

Customer loyalty comes down to ensuring customers get the value out of your product as promised.

Right after purchase, on the order confirmation page, Hostage Tape shows a video of how to start using the product.

Sounds insignificant, but as I started using the product, I realized that it’s difficult to use without the video instructions.

Frustration that leads to turnover - unless you step in to help.

Step 2: Collect Feedback For Optimization

Next, Hostage Tape collects zero-party data.

Which is data that your customers intentionally share with you…

“Which of the following led you to purchase today?”

This helps you learn which channels to scale.

Another good question the founder of Lomi asked their customers post-purchase is: “What almost made you not buy?”

They use this data to optimize their content and site.

Step 3: Build Your Army

Before Hostage Tape lets their customer go, they invite customers to be part of their army - a.k.a joining their referral program.

And there are two things I want to call out here.

Spotlighting the referral program

Hostage Tape highlighted the program where there are the most eyeballs: the order confirmation page and the order confirmation email.

Giving the right incentive:

Rather than giving $5 towards the next order, Hostage Tape offers $5 cash for every referral.

For a small brand, a referral program is an economical way to acquire more customers and make existing customers stickier.

Two questions to ask yourself:

1. Are you making sure customers are aware of the program?

2. Are you structuring incentives in the most effective way?

The biggest takeaway from this case study, other than the specific tactics, is that Hostage Tape took advantage of the real estate on the confirmation page.

100% of customers see the page. The same applies to order confirmation emails.

Whatever tactics you implement, do it with a sense of urgency while you still have customers’ attention.

In partnership with ALT TERRAIN

How To Make Your Brand Memorable

The brands that truly stand out—like Liquid Death—are doubling down on in-real-life (IRL) experiences.

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With over 10 years of experience in experiential marketing, ALT TERRAIN has helped brands like Liquid Death and Converse create memorable, scalable IRL experiences.

Curious what this could look like for your brand?

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• Blogs: What makes a perfect blog post? (LINK)

• Strategy: Two strategies to win marketing for startups. (LINK)

• Monetization: Collin and Samir talk about the challenge with creator monetization and how to solve for it. (LINK)

• The Battle for Attention: How do we get attention in a distracted age? (LINK)

• Favorite Thread: Hostage Tape’s founder is a genius in content creation. Check out his latest thread. (LINK)