Staying competitive in the digital age is not easy. Customers can easily be tempted to try to jump to another company or service if you don’t have a strong customer retention strategy. A lot of brands think that when you’ve already convinced a customer to buy once, you’ve done the hard part. However, customer retention is the much harder part.
What is Customer Retention?
Customer retention is the process of convincing existing customers to keep purchasing your products or services. Since a customer has already made a purchase, your strategy will be very different from your lead generation strategy. Here are 5 effective ways to retain your customers.
1. Send Weekly Newsletters
A company newsletter is a simple and cost-effective way of retaining customers. By using email automation, you can send updates or offers to all of your customers at once. When you update your customers, they are most likely to keep on buying from your brand since they are reminded of your brand every time they open their inbox. Using Klaviyo or Active Campaign can help you create a newsletter template so you don’t have to manually update your content all the time.
2. Reward Loyal Customers
If a customer doesn’t feel appreciated, they are most likely to go buy from another brand. This is why you never take your loyal customers for granted. Reward them for sticking around by providing personalized discount codes, free gifts, bonus points, etc. Want to learn more about loyalty programs? Check out this article on loyalty programs.
3. Be Active in Your Community
Customers are becoming increasingly socially conscious and that means you should too. Customers pay attention to whether your organization gives to charities, the brands that your partner with and whether you have a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) plan. A great way to show you care about your community is by writing blogs about it – the key is to be creative with your brand. Remember that customers want sincerity and empathy from brands.
4. Ask For Customer Feedback
Customer feedback is vital for every business and an important factor that determines the growth of your business. Gathering feedback will help you understand your customer’s perceptions about your overall brand. This will give you a clear picture of how you are performing and think of ideas on how to improve both your brand’s strengths and weaknesses. Collecting feedback will surely help you retain customers when you analyze it and act upon it.
5. Monitor Your Lost Customers
Bill Gates once said that “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning”. If you’re trying to figure out how to retain customers, look no further than the ones you’ve lost. Listening to customers’ complaints can clue you in on what not to do in the future. By using social listening tools like Sprout you can have a detailed look at customer sentiment. Whether it’s a bad email, your customer service, your website – you need to know what makes you lose customers.
Want to retain more customers this 2022? Parachute has a team of digital marketing experts who can help you! Contact us today for a free proposal.
