All good businesses should want to create long-term relationships with their customers. This key to success can become overlooked when your company is focused on closing sales and finding more and more customers. Truthfully, the best strategy a business can formulate is to acquire many loyal (long-term) clients instead of many new clients.
The value of a loyal customer outweighs the value of a new customer based on multiple factors. For example, did you know that loyal customers spend significantly more money on a brand they trust than a new customer will? Loyal customers are the key to many brands’ success, and oftentimes, many brands will choose to focus all their attention on gaining customers rather than customer retention.
What is Customer Retention?
Customer retention is the best way to market your business, but what is it exactly? Customer retention isn’t just business jargon. It is a strategy that maximizes the value of your current client base.
You can still focus part of your business on finding new clients, as new clients should become loyal clients. When you make customer loyalty a substantial part of your marketing department, you will get more shoppers at your store who will shop for more extended periods of time and purchase a larger quantity of items.
Customer loyalty is not a bold, new way of thinking. Shifting your attention to your brand-loyal customers will you put you ahead of your competition because many companies are still focused on pulling in the most customers. You’ve probably seen marketing ploys that offer such enticements as “10% off for new customers, only.” But what about the hundreds or thousands of customers that already like your brand? Many strategies exist that will allow you to make your loyal customers feel appreciated. Oftentimes, they can take minimal effort while saving your company a lot of money on marketing, rather than just spending your budget trying to acquire new customers. So the question is, how do you turn a customer into a loyal client?
1. Set up an email list
First, you should acquire your customers’ email addresses, so you now have a method of communicating with them all the time. This can be done through pop-ups once they enter your website, where you can create a loyalty program with benefits that requires an email address and phone number to sign up. If your business operates in a retail location, you can have your cashiers ask for email addresses when customers are checking out. Be sure to have a reason to take their email address; a lot of customers will be afraid that you will spam them with content that they don’t want. Ensure your customers that they will only receive emails periodically and these emails will only have important information and deals inside. These emails also prompt your customers to head to your website or store whenever they receive an email.
2. Set up a toll free number
Customers become loyal when they trust a business or brand. By providing your customers with a way to get in contact with your business through the phone, your customers will be more likely to trust your company and want to make repeat purchases. They also know that if there is a problem with the product that they purchased they can call your customer care line and get problems resolved efficiently and effectively because you have earned a reputation for that.
3. Remind them to return
Since you are able to get in contact with your customers by phone and email, you can now remind them to come in. For example, if you are running a pilates studio and you haven’t seen a member in a few weeks, you can remind them that you’d love to see them or maybe let them know about any new updates to the studio. Or, if you’re running an online shop, you can send out an email to show your customers all of the new items that you have in stock since the last time they visited the site. Both of these strategies work to “push” your customer into visiting your store.