Imagine you’ve just purchased something you absolutely love. How do you feel? If you’re anything like me, you feel warm and happy. You feel…how do I describe this feeling? You feel like you’ve just eaten a delicious Lofthouse cookie.

There’s no better time to cement customer loyalty than when they’ve just bought something from you that they’re in love with. That makes the time immediately after they’ve received their purchase a prime time to offer them things or ask them to take a specific action.

I recently had a positive follow up experience and it was so well done that I couldn’t help but be impressed. After ordering a custom print from Kimposed on Etsy, I received a hand-written thank you note. She also invited me to follow her on Instagram and Facebook. As a digital marketer, I’m a sucker for follow up invitations to connect with people via social. So I moseyed on over to check out her profiles. Lo and behold, they were gorgeous. So I quickly followed both pages – and then couldn’t help myself from thinking about a gift I’d like to order from my sister.

The truth is this: social media can keep your brand top of mind with customers. It’s a great way to remind people that you exist and to reach new audiences. So why not ask people to follow you when they’re the most excited to? That moment will almost always be when they have an awesome new product to brag about. Make sure you optimize your post-purchase experience to increase future conversions.

Full disclosure: I already had this post written when I received a thank you gift in the mail from the shop owner. This is an entirely different type of follow up that I’ve got a post planned on for next week. So basically she’s killing it.