Marketing team reviewing digital strategy.
What happens if you gain 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 decline. Even if its bottom line has broken even, the company is not increasing its revenue. In the long run, this can challenge a company’s ability to compete and innovate.
Focusing too much on adding customers to the list causes marketers to overlook a company’s greatest asset: its existing customers. Your company neglects these important people at your own risk. It’s great that they already signed up for your service or bought something from you online. But customers need a reason to stick around, since you’re probably not their only attractive option.
Therefore, a vital piece of any company’s marketing arsenal is digital strategies that aim to keep customers on board. The trick is to execute plans with more potential in the long term than in the short term. Let’s look at three of them below.
1. Keep them engaged with engaging content
Need another reason to take a second look at your online content? Well, you’ve 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, you’re finding ways to re-engage them. Digital marketers who leverage content well with existing customers use it as a relationship-building tool. They determine what relationship stage various customer segments are in and distribute different materials accordingly.
Customers who haven’t made a purchase in months may need a reminder why they value specific products. However, more consistent shoppers may be more responsive to information on how to improve their experiences. Let’s say the data for this segment reveals that their interests include self-improvement techniques. Whatever your business sells, you can make a self-improvement podcast available through your ordering app to bring these customers back.
2. Make it personal
The statistics on personalized customer experiences don’t lie. Some 71% of shoppers expect personalization from the brands they do business with. Approximately 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 should use customer data. Customers don’t want to feel like they are just another transaction. They are also less likely to respond well to email blasts announcing irrelevant promotions or products.
If your customer data isn’t up to scratch, getting it should be a priority. Otherwise, your customization efforts will be like putting the cart before the horse. Once you have reliable information about your customers’ behaviors, interests, and preferences, you can provide them with personalized experiences. These could include emails with discounts based on previous purchases or how-to guides on existing products.
3. Strike up a conversation
Whatever the relationship, no one likes to feel ignored. When the other side doesn’t seem to be listening, it can motivate people to leave. Not feeling heard is the reason spouses sign separation papers, employees hand in their resignation notices, and customers flock to competitors.
When a business doesn’t do much more than promote products, customers may think they’re just a number. They have little reason to keep shelling out their hard-earned money, especially if a company doesn’t invite feedback. Giving customers the opportunity to express their opinions through surveys and online communities is a start. But acting on those concerns is more important because the lack of response makes expressing them feel like a waste of time.
Customers who indicate dissatisfaction in an online survey deserve personalized follow-up. The conversation can uncover a problem with a simple solution. Let’s say you provide internet service and communicate outage status through an app. While this is convenient, what if the app doesn’t allow customers to speak to a live representative about a more complex outage? Adding a feature to allow questions to go to a person shows that customer feedback is important.
Social media is another avenue for feedback and personal conversation. Topic-based communities are a way to interact with customers, gather information, and respond to concerns. Such interactions demonstrate a willingness to treat customers as human beings with individual needs.
inspiring 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 liability rather than a tool that drives results. Marketers willing to increase their retention efforts are more likely to achieve the bottom line they seek.