While the number of strategies for finding your target audience is going through the roof, many companies don’t pay sufficient attention to the customer retention strategies. According to Marketing Metrics, a customer who has already purchased something from you may purchase something else in the future with a likelihood of 60%-70%. Meanwhile, a new customer is only 5%-20% likely to take advantage of your services.
When you know the stats, it becomes obvious that retaining an existing customer is much more profitable than attracting a new one. Below are several important customer retention strategies in digital marketing today.
1. Maintain The Attention
Many businesses invest large amounts of money in finding new customers. Once they make a purchase, the volume of attention suddenly goes down. In order not to lose a customer, it’s important to keep the attention on the same level after the purchase as you did before it.
If you manage to make the interaction truly worthwhile to the customers, rather than pound them with spammy messages, you are likely to keep them.
2. Keep Selling
Just because you’ve already sold something to the customer, doesn’t mean that the 60%-70% chance of the repeat sale is already in your pocket. It’s important to keep selling the product to the existing customer to avoid buyer’s remorse, get referrals, and initiate new purchases.
Doing research on what the existing customers like is easier since you already have extensive information about them. Use this data to come up with a new sales pitch and maybe even a custom business proposal.
3. Say Thank You
While being polite is a must for anyone, being polite with a customer can turn into a fruitful relationship. Don’t forget to say “thank you” for the time a client spent on your business.
Follow-up emails can do wonders and initiate new sales. Just make sure you keep up the email list hygiene in order not to produce bounced messages.
4. Draft A Communication Calendar
Keeping in touch with your customers may be tough when there are too many of them. If you want to deal with many at once, you can create a communication calendar. It will remind you when to send letters, make phone calls, offer new products, etc.
Customers tend to respond to such attention in a positive manner. If you stop giving attention on a regular basis, you could lose many of them. Frequent communication makes the customers feel as if they are a part of your business.
5. Offer Useful Content
When you are sending follow-up emails, thank you notes, and new offers, it’s highly important to provide valuable content. The customers of today are overwhelmed with ads jumping out at them at every corner.
Don’t create another useless ad. Instead, send out newsletters with valuable content. Make the customer feel happy and interested when they get a message from you. Posting the same valuable content on the website can also help you with your SEO efforts for discovering new clients.
6. Be On Top Of Customer Service
The quality of customer service is often the deciding factor for many clients. If they are fully satisfied with the way you care for them, they aren’t just likely to come back. They will probably tell others about your business as well.
Each employee who interacts with customers should deliver top-notch service. A client should always feel welcome and appreciated.
7. Ask For Feedback
All customers have opinions about your service. Make it easy for them to share it. If something goes wrong, and you fail to get feedback, you are unlikely to retain the customer. Even worse, he or she could tell about the bad experience to others, eg. by posting a negative review online.
Be insistent when asking for feedback. Customers who have had a not-so-good shopping experience, which was rectified by the company timely, often come back for more services. Make giving feedback easy. Forget 50-question questionnaires. Settle for a quick survey.
By following the above tips, you can improve your customer retention strategies and boost profits immediately. Focusing on customer retention doesn’t mean forgetting about finding a new audience. The marketing team should pay proper attention to both.
