The challenge
Customer acquisition is one of the biggest and most difficult challenges that brands face. Every company, either start-up or not, spends time and money on finding ways to attract new visitors to their e-shop or drive more traffic to their physical store. Taking into consideration that attracting a new customer costs five times more than to keep an existing one, brands should start focusing more on marketing to their existing shoppers. Of course, getting new people buying your products or services is important and should also be on your list, but customer retention should be your priority if you want to build revenue and growth.
The question is how are you going to approach your existing customers in a way that would be profitable for your business? Targeting your customers by simply sending them offers and discounts is not going to work. If you aim to gain loyal customers and not just sales-hunters that will “cheat” on you with another brand if they don’t get what they search for, whenever they want, then you should read on carefully.
The solution
Loyal customers act differently than occasional customers and being able to understand their buying habits, demographic profiles and micro-moments in their engagement with you, will help you keep them more engaged, devoted and maximize their lifetime value. So, as in every successful plan, the first step is to get to know your audience and understand customers’ behavior across all channels. There are various ways that firms can identify shoppers. With advances in technology (customer intelligence platforms, marketing automation applications), it is now possible to easily find and analyze your customers and gain analytics and useful insights.
Understanding how consumers are motivated to interact with your firm is crucial for the next step, building a solid customer strategy. It is important to create a plan, set clear objectives and measure progress. When it comes to customer experience, the key is personalization. Make sure your customer strategy is not only designed and executed in multiple channels, but also that you connect with your audience on a human and personalized level. Marketing automation nowadays, enables businesses to provide customized communications and get closer to their most valuable customers.
Another important factor to consider while building meaningful relationships with your customers is to understand their value and – even more – their power. Today customers know themselves their impact on brands and that is why they expect a seamless and relevant customer experience. Customers can embrace or ruin their connection with your brand by simply sharing their experience at social media. They are willing to leave a positive or a negative feedback about your services or product as a result of their experience with your brand. So, treat your consumers as human beings and not just data points if you want to create meaningful and loyal connections, maximizing their value.
Gift tips for successful customer retention strategy
Once you have built a customer strategy, you are now struggling to target each segment of your customer data base (regulars, loyal, etc.) with creative and personalized campaigns across all channels. What many companies fail to notice when executing their plan is that they stop connecting with their consumers once they build loyalty. Taking your loyal customers for granted is risky as they expect different treatment for being loyal and staying connected with you. Many businesses reinforce their marketing efforts for retaining their most loyal customers by investing in a loyalty program. Finding the right customer loyalty platform is difficult but this is a solution that not only will save you time and money but will also increase sales.
If you want to learn more about building a successful loyalty strategy and retaining your loyal customers, contact us or visit our website.
