It’s a well-known cliche in marketing: acquiring new customers costs 5-10 times as much as selling to existing customers.
Organizations that don’t have effective customer retention tactics in place are facing an uphill battle, but don’t worry — we’ve got everything you need to get your customer retention efforts up and running right here.
1. Social Connections
If you want customers to keep your brand top of mind, you have to meet them where they are.
And these days, where they are is social media.
That’s why it’s so important to own your social media profiles and continually produce relevant and interesting content.
You can also build your following by incentivizing users to follow you and create their own brand-related content, like a review or testimonial, and tag your brand in the post.
2. Automated Email Sequences
Automated email flows are crucial if you want to stay engaged with your customers and prospects.
Email sequences are a great way to keep your brand top-of-mind, and they’re easy to create and maintain since most of the work happens in the background.
All you have to do is choose the right email tool or partner and build the emails based on your branding and the goal of the sequence.
Here’s a few to get started:
1) Cart Abandonment Emails
Cart abandonment is one of the biggest bugaboos for eCommerce sellers and their marketing partners. On average, about 70% of shoppers will abandon their carts before completing their purchase.
A cart abandonment email sequence is one of the most effective ways to re-engage these would-be buyers and bring them back to complete their purchases. Most of these flows contain 3-5 emails, and many sellers send the first one a couple of hours after the user’s website activity ended.
You can expand these flows with discounts or other incentives like free shipping. But if you don’t have one of these flows up and running, you’re definitely leaving money on the table.
2) Personalized Recommendations as Customer Retention Tactics
Customers who have already purchased and ready-to-buy prospects in your funnel are likely to respond to products and offers that are similar to those they’ve already shown interest in.
You can track data points like previous purchases or which products a user looked at to make dynamic and personalized recommendations in another automated email flow.
This flow is also useful for highlighting your best sellers and upselling or cross-selling products that complement the user’s original purchase.
3) Reactivation Sequences
Every organization with an email list has a portion of subscribers that don’t click on or even open their emails. And when those users go completely inactive, you can send them reactivation emails.
A reactivation sequence is set up to monitor your list, recognize when someone has lost interest, and encourage them to re-engage.
And if those users don’t really want your emails anymore, this flow gets them off of your list without any extra effort for you. On the flip side, without this sequence, your inactive subscriber portion will expand, and metrics like open rate, click-through rate, and campaign ROI will suffer.
3. SMS & Push Notifications
Just like email flows, text messages and push notifications can be automated and sent out to your customers based on specific actions or demographic segments in your list.
You’ll need to collect user phone numbers to make these notifications effective, but given how reliant everyone is on their smartphones these days, there aren’t too many better places to put your marketing message than your customer or prospect’s Home screen.
Also, don’t be afraid to incorporate other tricks and tactics as part of your push notification strategy. Personalize the messages whenever possible, create urgency with time-sensitive links or discounts, and reward your customers for engaging with your brand.
And speaking of rewards…
4. Loyalty & Rewards Programs for Customer Retention Tactics
Giving customers the chance to earn rewards and points through a loyalty program is another way to keep buyers coming back.
Research has found that gamification has direct and positive effects on eCommerce engagement, and you can customize a rewards program that reinforces your brand identity with the right partner.
You can also leverage different forms of engagement by going this route. In addition to incentivizing purchases or upsells with loyalty points, you can also reward customers with discounts or early access to sales for leaving positive reviews or creating social posts that tag your brand.
5. Referrals
Finally, if you really want to retain customers, make it worth their while to become brand ambassadors and provide referrals to your store or business.
The payout to the referral provider might need to be a higher value than rewards points or a product discount, but there are lots of ways to set up a referral program that will benefit both sides.
Similarly, you can use a referral program as the basis for working with social media influencers or other third parties that will help your business grow.
For more digital marketing tips, strategies, and secrets, click here to join AdLeaks now!
Related Posts:
