How to assemble a VIP customer list in Shopify

You know it's important to reward your best customers.

Before that can happen, you need to know who they are.

1. The first step is to define what you mean by best customers. Are these customers who have spent the most? Referred the most people to your store? Or bought several times?

Getting clear with this criteria will make the rest of the process easier.

2. Next you'll want to identify which customers would qualify using that criteria.

You might need to combine different tools for this depending on your criteria, like your Shopify sales data plus your email marketing system. Exporting all of the data to CSV files is usually the most flexible option, though there are limits on Shopify exports.

3. Check that you have enough people in this segment. You'll want at least 100 people in your best customer segment so if you're a bit short, go back to step 1 and loosen your criteria a bit.

Alternatively, if you have a lot of people in your segment then you might need to tighten up the criteria. Aim for 10-20% of your customer base, with a lower percentage the larger your customer base is.

4. Once you've refined your list, you're ready to use it. Depending on what marketing campaigns you want to run that could mean importing the list into your email marketing system or in a Facebook Ads audience.

5. The final step, and one that is missed frequently, is to do this process again in a few months. Your customer base changes and customers will fall in and out of favor. If you're continuing to promote to last years best customers, you'll be missing many opportunities.

You can also use Repeat Customer Insights to help create your list. It automatically create 30+ different customer segments so you can pick which one that best fits your criteria and let it do all of the searching and filtering.

Eric Davis