Retention Marketing

Retention marketing is a series of strategies implemented to keep clients engaged, satisfied, and willing to buy. Most of the time, such practices are associated with offering relevant and catchy content to the consumers to raise the lifetime value as well as profitability for the company.

Did you know that a 5% growth in client retention can lead to a 75% rise in the profitability of your business? Bain and Co. stated this data, and, as many companies report, that is the way it works. You can check it yourself with the help of analytics and various types of tests. Below are the reasons you should consider retaining existing clients.

Repeat clients save money

It is more expensive to attract new clients than motivate the existing ones to come back for more deals. To expand the customer base, a business has to come up with some innovations, and they are never cheap. No strategy guarantees success so that you may waste your money. The returning users offer higher conversion rates.

On the whole, the chance of selling a product or service to an existing client is up to 70%, while in the case of a newbie, this mark reaches only 20% maximum. These statistics from Gartner Group means that just 20% of the existing customers make 80% of the company’s revenue.

Besides, it requires less cost to engage a customer who has already tried your offers. To minimize acquisition costs, a business should focus on returning clients. Finally, competition is lower if you can rely on repeat customers.

Brand loyalty guaranteed

Returning customers tend to show more loyalty to the brand. They would rarely prefer to switch to another company unless something goes wrong, and your product or service quality goes down. The buyers usually choose 2-3 shops from each category they are interested in, and they attend only those places for purchases.

What is more important, loyal clients will bring you new customers. Word-of-mouth has always been a free and robust approach; sources like McKinsey prove that. Thus, if you need a new cool ad for your product line, try to satisfy the existing clients, and they will do their best to promote your business to their relatives and friends.

No extra information is required

Returning customers need little to no information on your product or service. At the same time, new users require plenty of time to compare your offers to competitors’ ones. Repeat customers save both your time and money that you could have spent on additional promo materials.

Because of these facts, Marketing Metrics reported that it is 50% simpler to make profits from the purchases of repeat customers than newbies.

What is the retention rate?

Also known as CRR, this is a critical metric that shows if your marketing and client care attempts are fortifying your company and bringing the expected revenues. This indicator points out to the right time for making crucial changes or switching gears to hit the company targets.
The formula of a customer retention rate is

((E-N)/S)) X 100

where:
E = the number of clients a business has at the end of a specific period;
N = the number of newbies that a company acquired using other methods within the same period;
S = customers that a business used to have at the start of the period.

In the Harvard Management Update, they say that 80% of businesses claim that they believe their client service is excellent while only 8% of their customers agree on that. That’s a shame. Another study offered by IBM shows that companies rarely care about what their clients really need and do not even know their tastes and preferences. So, what are some of the strategies to improve the situation?

Learn more about your customers

Dedicate some time to collecting personal information about your clients. We do not mean their contacts only – try to surf their social media accounts like Facebook or Instagram to know more about how they spend their free time, what kind of places they attend, their favorite food and colors, etc. You should also find out which holidays they celebrate to know the right time to send another promotion.

Look below to get to know how SendPulse allows you to use customers' data. Create as many variables as you need and use them to send personalized offers.

Dedicate more attention to email campaigns

After gathering the required info about your existing clients, think about how you can formulate messages based on it. Come up with a personalized approach to each category of users.

Look at the email sent by Aldo. The brand uses a client’s birthday as a chance to increase both loyalty and sales.

Offer loyalty programs and discounts

Everyone loves discounts. However, you should not offer them round-the-year as the customers may lose interest. Update the coupons with the promo codes once in a month or six months. Make them 15-20% off. Inform clients about your discounts via emails that you can create with the help of SendPulse service.

Check out below how the pet supplies store promotes its loyalty program via email.

Provide user-friendly customer support

A client care service is the face of any company. You should hire enough experts to work by shifts to make this team available 24/7. The reps of this service should know the product in-depth to solve any problems ASAP. Even the repeat customers hate waiting for lines!

Offer to become a member of your community

It is simple to turn subscribers into your clients. Clubs and premium memberships make customers feel special. Being a VIP is always as attractive because you get more than others. You can offer several-day free shipping if you sell goods to different parts of the world. If you are an owner of the bookstore, you may promote free books of specific categories in exchange for an annual membership fee.

H&M offers exclusive discounts for members only. Big brands use this method to increase customer engagement and sales.

Run reactivation campaigns

Sooner or later, subscribers may lose interest in your products. If you want to engage them back, focus on personalization. You should divide the list of such customers and create an individual message for each of them. Also, it is critical to determine the reasons why users are leaving and improve these weak points.

National Geographic asks subscribers to choose the topics they’d love to know more about. That is another way to re-engage sleepy users.

Follow these 5 steps to win back your subscribers.

SendPulse provides marketers with a bunch of pro tools that help make retention marketing less of a headache. Segment your list and automate sending triggered campaigns right now!

References

1. In this article on HubSpot, you'll get to know why you need to start retention marketing today.
2. Find out how 5 top eCommerce brands run their retention marketing strategies.
3. Get a closer look at retention marketing metrics and types of campaigns.

Last Updated: 22.03.2023