Many businesses focus entirely too much on the idea of converting new customers. Injecting a large degree of your marketing budget into capturing and converting new customers can be an exciting process but making the mistake of overlooking your more valuable customer could leave you missing one of the most effective strategies for ongoing business. Customer retention and tracking your analytics for loyal customers can make sure that you could save money in your marketing effort while continuing to generate excellent sales.
According to analytics data across several industries worldwide performed by Kissmetrics, it’s estimated that it costs roughly 7 times more to convert a new customer rather than retain a current customer. Customer retention remains one of the most cost-effective ways for your brand to continue seeing ongoing sales.
The added benefit of retaining loyalty with customers is that they can refer another customer to you for free. This can save on your marketing budget and make sure that you can access a wave of new customers that have an improved sense of loyalty from the beginning as well. Here are some of the top ways that you can retain more customers and improve the loyalty of your customer in the process.
Make sure you’re on social media:
Almost any business has some type of social media presence today. Social media networks can be one of the most useful solutions that you can use to regularly interact with your customer and keep in contact with troubleshooting, sales, and more. Social media gives you the opportunity to engage with your customers as well as build ongoing trust. Reaching out to your customers by regularly posting more about the personal side of your brand can make people feel an instant loyalty towards your company.
Social media platforms are the perfect place to ask questions, troubleshoot product issues as well as register complaints with product creators. Being on social media shows that your company is not only listening but you truly care about your customers.
Encourage interactions and stay in touch with your customers:
Introducing promotions, connecting with your customer online, and making sure that you can produce valuable content that is engaging for your customer can all be important. Ask your customers to share some of their stories, hold contests, and work at encouraging engagement and engaging activities amongst your customer. As you are anticipating the future of your marketing make sure that you are able to have a series of marketing campaigns that will help you continuously reach out to your audience. Regularly thinking up new marketing campaigns that can engage your customer will make sure that you always have a plan for the future.
Work on brand reputation:
An essential site analytics today means ongoing monitoring for brand reputation. No matter what industry you’re in, a few bad reviews online published in prominent places could potentially damage your sales. Working on your brand reputation by taking responsibility, apologizing, and working to address complaints as soon as they arise will help to make sure that you can prevent future mistakes and address some of the faulty processes within your business. If your customer can see that you are willing to resolve complaints quickly, it will show that you can take responsibility and that you are truly authentic and wanting to exceed the needs of your customers.
Offering surprises with your customer service:
Small surprises in customer service can really set your company apart from your competition. It could be something as simple as including a special note if somebody is ordering on their birthday, sending along with discounts for special dates, or even including personalized support for your e-mail newsletter. When you get more hands-on with your customer, it can often surprise that and build loyalty quickly. Everything from handwritten notes to quick conversations over social media will show that you truly value your customers’ business. Tracking your analytics and even thanking somebody after making a purchase can go a long way to retaining a customer.
Harnessing the power of automation:
Some of the best analytics tools will continuously use automation to establish routines where customers can be regularly checked in on. Marketing automation will monitor your customers and make sure that you can send out update e-mails at the perfect time and integrate proper marketing strategy. There are a number of challenges associated with marketing automation but it can be an excellent way to send a crucial e-mail to get eyes back on your page or to get a loyal customer thinking about a new product that you’re launching.
Always consider customer feedback:
Asking for regular survey responses may seem like a very big ask for your customers. Service can be a powerful tool for improving customer engagement, however. You’d be surprised at the responses you get from a local survey. With the average response rate on business surveys being nearly 25%, this could give you a massive selection of data that could be used to improve your company, your products, and the relationship you have with your customers.
Stay consistent with your engagement:
Having a regular stream of content and a communication calendar for your e-mails can be important. Scheduling posts, making sure that you’re regularly publishing new content and more will be important to stay in the minds of your customers. Regular content and reaching out to your established customers can be an important aspect of retention and new content will always help you gather new customers as well.
To get started with retaining more customers for your business, it’s important to take a close look at your analytics. Consider the way that you are converting sales and the total number of customers that are coming back for repeat business. By analyzing your traffic and having a better indication of your repeat customers, you can work at enacting some of these strategies while monitoring your analytics to see if you can generate improvements with customer retention and loyalty.