Companies spend more time and energy marketing to existing customers vs. new customers, and for good reason.
The cost of acquiring a new customer is 5 to 10 times greater than the cost of retaining an existing customer. Additionally, businesses have a better chance of selling to an existing customer (60 to 70% chance) than a new prospect (5% to 20%).
From a cost and revenue perspective, applying your efforts towards retention marketing (also known as lifecycle marketing or loyalty marketing) is a surefire way to maximize your investments.
The following client retention strategies will help you shift your focus to inspire loyalty to your brand and build a customer base that nurtures its own growth.
Table of Contents
- What is retention marketing?
- Client retention strategies that work
- Build trust with your customers
- Hone-In On User Experience
- Reward Loyal Customers
What is Retention Marketing?
Retention marketing is the art of building customer loyalty in a way that extends their relationship with your business. The longer a customer stays, engages with and purchases from your business, the greater their lifetime value (LTV).
Customer retention marketing often consists of improving the user experience, sending engaging email workflows and delivering personalized promotions to your most loyal customers. These touchpoints with your business keep your brand top of mind and frequently remind your customers of the value you offer. However, these strategies are just the tip of the iceberg.
9 Client Retention Strategies That Work
At Human, we’ve employed dozens of different tactics to establish unique brand identities and cement those brands as serious contenders in their industry. As a result, we have achieved results like 8 million new organic visitors, 77% increase in revenue and 54% increase in conversion rate.
Today, we’re passing our learnings on to you. This is our list of tried-and-true client retention strategies that you can apply to your business.
Build Trust With Your Customers
Customers, particularly those in the ecommerce space, rely on your business to meet some pretty high expectations. This is undoubtedly due to the shift from in-store to online shopping, where retail giants like Amazon offer hard-to-beat services like same-day shipping or hassle-free returns.
These days, 63% of shopping begins online, so the impression you make on your website is more important than ever. Here are some ways to help build trust in this ever-changing digital world.
1. Personalize your communications
Studies prove that personalized marketing communications perform better than one-size-fits-all messages.
To capture attention and retain it, take advantage of artificial intelligence tools (like Personalize) that can help you tailor your message and overall marketing strategy.
At the end of your message, always sign off with your company name (or your actual name depending on your industry or personal style). This is another opportunity to make your message sound like it’s coming from a person, not a machine.
2. Ask for and respond to customer feedback
If you ask for reviews, it’s important to keep the good and the bad. Keeping the bad reviews may actually be of benefit, but you must reply.
Replying to negative reviews shows your disappointed customer (and prospective customers) that you are listening and willing to address concerns.
Many businesses dismiss social media, but customers want to communicate with you on your social profiles, too! If you can allocate the time and resources, you should have a dedicated community manager to engage with and address comments online.
Continue Reading: How to Respond to Negative Reviews + 7 Customizable Templates
3. Be transparent
Gone are the days when people would simply buy your product and trust that it could do everything a salesperson professed it could do. Scams and misrepresented products have made customers skeptical, so you need to work twice as hard to build trust in your brand (especially if you’re a newer company).
Businesses that are transparent about who they are, what they do, why they do it and what goes into the manufacturing of their products are far more likely to garner genuine trust from their customers. If you’ve been neglecting your “About Page,” now is a good time to redevelop your content and tell your story.
Continue Reading: How to Write an About Us Page People Will Actually Read
4. Be accessible
Every business should have some form of customer service. If you have a contact form, make it easy to find and complete. Whether you communicate by phone or email, you must be responsive and follow up reliably.
If you need more than 24 hours to respond, ensure customers are aware of your typical response times. A good general practice is to trigger an automatic response that informs customer their message has been received, and notes when they can expect someone to get in touch.
Additionally, it helps to have an FAQ page or other resource where people can seek answers for general questions. This accessibility of information helps customers feel connected even if they are not directly communicating with you.
Hone-In On User Experience
In addition to building trust around your brand and business practices, a solid way to develop brand loyalty is by having a user-friendly website. Here are some ways to ensure your site is welcoming and easy to navigate.
5. Make it easy to get connected
Acquiring email addresses and phone numbers is a huge piece of the marketing puzzle, so you want this process to be as painless as possible. Make it easy to onboard new clients or create an account (auto-fill options are a lifesaver here).
By removing friction during the signup process, you show customers that they can expect future engagements with your business to be just as easy and seamless.
Continue Reading: Why Web Accessibility is Important (+ Best Practices)
6. Make use of gamification
Gamification is the use of game mechanics to make your site more enjoyable to use and navigate.
You can use gamification for your purchase process, form completion and other click-heavy processes. By doing so, you’ll encourage users to complete these actions.
DevHub, for example, saw an increase in the number of users who completed their online tasks (from 10% completion rate to 80% completion rate) after adding gamification elements to their website.
7. Make your site mobile-friendly
Nearly 3 out of 4 dollars spent on online purchases are attributed to mobile shopping. If you have an ecommerce site, you must invest in a mobile-friendly user experience.
Even if you’re on the business-to-business side, having a mobile-friendly site is a significant advantage in today’s digital landscape. More people are using their mobile phones as all-in-one devices, meaning they use them to make calls, connect to the internet, browse social media and shop online.
Laptop and desktop computers are scaling back to be the devices of students and working professionals, while mobile phones take the spotlight for day-to-day online activities.
Continue Reading: Key Components of User Friendly Mobile Website Design
Reward Loyal Customers
Rewarding loyal customers is a great way to increase brand loyalty. By providing incentives, you can encourage customers to stick with your brand and continue doing business with you. Here are a few ways to reward your loyal customers.
8. Start a loyalty program
Building a loyalty program rewards high-value customers and helps develop and nurture loyalty in fledgling customers. It’s also relatively simple when you have the right tools and a well-thought-out strategy.
A basic loyalty program comes together like this:
- Decide on the rewards - it could be points, varying degrees of discounts, free items with a purchase, etc.
- Decide which actions you want to reward - signing up for your newsletter, making a purchase, signing up for text message marketing, etc.
- Set up an automated system to keep track of points and award rewards.
- Promote your loyalty program.
Continue Reading: How to Build Brand Loyalty With Email
9. Leverage email newsletters and SMS marketing
Email newsletters and SMS marketing are two additional ways to keep users coming back to your site. You can use them to send exclusive deals, share new content or just give a general update on what’s going on with your business.
I briefly touched on email marketing earlier, but I may as well mention one more excellent resource for putting together a powerful email marketing strategy.
Continue Reading: How to Succeed With SMS Marketing Without Discounts
Team Up With Human’s Branding Team
Client retention starts with a great user experience. Paying attention to details like providing valuable and personalized content, removing friction points and making your site mobile-friendly allows your business to build brand loyalty and keep customers coming back for more.
Ready to take your branding to the next level? Learn how we can help you humanize your brand, differentiate yourself from competitors and connect with your audience.
