5 Tips to Keep Customers Loyal

Many businesses make the common mistake of focusing the majority of their marketing efforts towards the top of the sales funnel. That is the awareness and interest stage, where a business is simply trying to get customers to know about their brand and become interested in their products and services.

And while getting new customers is very important for any business, retaining existing customers is equally, if not more, as important. A study conducted by Harvard Business Review, suggests that a 5% increase in customer retention can increase a business’ revenue from 25% to as high as 95%. The point is clear – getting a new customer is great but keeping that customer is even better. Keep reading for a few tips to help increase your business’ customer retention rate.

• Have a Customer Retention Program – One of the first steps to increase your business’ customer retention rate is to allocate time and resources to developing and implementing an effective strategy aimed at that specific goal. Decide on what types of tactics will be used, e.g. loyalty programs, referral programs, etc. Also, what are some of the specific short-term and long-term goals, e.g. to increase retention rates by 5% in a year and 25% in the next three years and 50% for the next five years, etc? This will help provide a clear and concise road map for how to specifically approach the challenge.

• Communicate Along Customer Journey – As stated above, a key reason for a low customer retention rate is that many businesses make the mistake of focusing a lot of their efforts primarily towards the earlier stages of the customer journey. Therefore, there is a risk of developing a dismissive, “the sale has happened, our job is done” mentality. Instead, businesses need to focus on the entire customer journey and ensure a consistent line of communication is available at every point. This approach ensures that the customer never feels ignored or neglected, that as a business you’re always aware of any issues and/or concerns they may have and more importantly that the customer feels satisfied at the conclusion of their journey. And as such, is far more likely to maintain their relationship with your brand.

• Engage With Customers – Piggybacking off the above, another very important and effective strategy in retaining customers, is to engage with them on a personal level. Customers, like most individuals, like to feel special and that they matter, rather than being a random face to a business. Tactics such as personalized emails, loyalty programs that give special discounts and rewards to long-time customers, sharing user-generated content, etc. are all effective ways to engage with customers and increase customer retention rates.

• Engage in Active Social Media Listening – Another very effective way to retain customers is to actively listen and thus, be aware of what it is they think of your brand and your competitors as well. Social media listening, when well-executed is a very efficient way of doing this. Identify where specifically your customers are talking and engaging on social media and pay attention to what they’re saying about your brand, the kind of descriptors used, the grievances, what they love, what they hate, etc. These insights will greatly help your business tailor its communication more accurately to customers and by that token, keep them better satisfied and of course, loyal.

• Focus on Loyalty Stage Content – As we all know (or you should), content is king. One of the most important aspects of any digital marketing strategy is high-quality content. Whether that includes videos, images, blog articles, newsletters, etc. That said, various types of content appeal to different stages of the sales funnel and customer journey. And as noted above, because most businesses tend to focus on the top of the sales funnel, much of the content pushed forth tends to be awareness and interest-driven. Therefore, a final important tip in retaining customers is to focus on the development and dissemination of content geared specifically towards the bottom of the sales funnel and customer journey, i.e the loyalty and advocacy stages. And what are some of those – i.e. surveys, contests and special offers, personalized emails, eBooks, user-generated content, etc. just to name a few.

Need more tips and suggestions and to help drive your digital marketing strategy? Yello can help. Contact us today.