What happens if you get 10 new customers but lose 20 of your existing customer base? The net result is clearly not positive, and if the trend continues, your company’s market share will shrink. Even if your net income were to break even, the company’s revenue is not growing. In the long run, this can challenge a company’s ability to compete and innovate.
By focusing too much on adding customers to the roster, marketers overlook a company’s greatest asset: its current customers. Your company neglects these important individuals at its peril. It’s great that they’ve already signed up for your service or bought something from you online. But customers need a reason to stay, as you’re probably not their only attractive option.
That’s why a vital part of any company’s marketing arsenal is digital strategies that aim to keep customers on board. The trick is to execute plans with more long-term potential than short-term potential. Let’s look at three below.
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1. Keep them interested with compelling content
Need another reason to take a closer look at your online content? Well, you found it. Effective customer retention strategies will be difficult to execute without compelling appeal. The difference here is that you want your content to keep customers interested in what you have to offer.
Instead of introducing people to who you are, find ways to re-engage them. Digital marketers who utilize content good with existing customers use it as a relationship building tool. They determine the relative phase of different customer segments and distribute different materials on that basis.
Customers who haven’t made a purchase in months may need a reminder why they like specific products. However, more consistent buyers are better able to respond to information about improving their experiences. Suppose the data from this segment shows that they are interested in self-improvement techniques. Regardless of what your business sells, you can make a self-improvement podcast available through your ordering app to bring those customers back in.
2. Make it personal
The statistics on personalized customer experiences don’t lie. About 71% of shoppers expect personalization from the brands they do business with. About 76% of consumers get frustrated when their experiences aren’t unique enough.
What does this mean for digital marketing strategies that focus on customer retention? It means generic approaches won’t work. Everything from emails to product recommendations must use customer data. Customers don’t want to feel like they’re just another transaction. They are also less likely to respond well to email blasts promoting irrelevant promotions or products.
If your customer data is out of order, getting it there should be a top priority. Otherwise, your personalization efforts will be like putting the cart before the horse. Once you have reliable information about your customers’ behaviors, interests, and preferences, you can tailor experiences. These can be emails with discounts based on previous purchases or guides to existing products.
3. Start a conversation
Whatever the relationship, no one likes to feel ignored. If the other side doesn’t seem to be listening, that can motivate people to leave. Feeling unheard is why spouses sign divorce papers, employees file their notices of resignation, and customers flock to competitors.
If a company does little more than push products, customers may think they are just a number. They have little reason to keep paying their hard-earned dollars, especially if a company doesn’t ask for feedback. Giving customers the opportunity to voice their opinion through online communities and surveys is a start. But acting on those concerns is more important, because a lack of response makes expressing them feel like a waste of time.
Customers dissatisfied with an online survey deserve one-on-one follow-up. The conversation can reveal a problem with a simple solution. Suppose you offer internet and communicate the status of outages via an app. While this is helpful, what happens if the app doesn’t let customers talk to a live representative about a more complex outage? Adding a feature to route questions to a person shows that customer input matters.
Social media is another opportunity for feedback and personal conversation. Topic-driven communities are a way to interact with customers, gather insights, and respond to concerns. Such interactions demonstrate a willingness to treat clients as individuals with individual needs.
Inspirational Loyalty
Retaining customers is about building loyalty. Digital marketing strategies need to be personal enough to make customers feel seen, valued and heard. Without these critical elements, a company’s campaigns can become a risk rather than a tool that produces results. Marketers who are willing to increase their retention efforts are more likely to achieve the net profit they seek.
Janice has been with businesskinda for 5 years, writing copy for client websites, blog posts, EDMs and other mediums to engage readers and encourage action. By collaborating with clients, our SEO manager and the wider businesskinda team, Janice seeks to understand an audience before creating memorable, persuasive copy.