Even if you did your homework when it comes to customer acquisition, maintaining consumers can be really tough, especially with all those competitors out there sneaking around the corner. A rising churn rate is never fun to have, but what if you simply lack in ideas of attracting new buyers?
The solution is quite simple: Retention.
Sounds easy, doesn’t it? However, the truth is that retaining a customer is probably more difficult than acquiring a new one, since it takes time to follow-up and call existing customers, it requires you to have a well-managed base and more.
Nevertheless, by the end of this article you will be familiar with 4 retention strategy ideas that you could implement into your sales funnel.
Let’s start.
1. Remind your customers about your product’s value
Customers that bought your product once certainly found it valuable in some way. The thing is, you can’t come to a general conclusion what’s that “X” factor your customers found in your product especially because value is something very subjective. However, you can teach them to recognize the main benefits and advantages of your product and remind them what made them purchase it in the first place.
How?
The mighty Internet offers you plenty of different ways to interact with your customers and remind them of the reasons why sticking with your product is a good decision to make. Create social media campaigns, write ebooks and webinars and highlight how can your product solve their problems and get them the desired results.
Or even better – earn people’s trust by sharing a success story from your real customer!
2. Listen and communicate
In order to make the best out of your product you must communicate with your customers, listen their needs and act accordingly. Make a thorough research on how your brand’s style and tone are influencing your customers. Be honest to yourself and don’t be afraid to make changes, despite how radical they might seem. Lack of product fit is the most certain way to customer churn – keep that in mind.
…. Ask yourself, how much do you even know about your customers, what information have you collected about them? A proper CRM (like Platformax) can help you gather and use that information in such a way, that it will help your business grow even further.
How?
Humanize your overall business. Make surveys where you will ask your consumers about the pros and cons of your product. Make sure that you are using the customer’s preferred method of communication so give it a try with both email and sms, and social media as well. Take some time to empathize with your customer and as soon as you start thinking like one you will know what product improvements to make.
3. Make sure your brand is addictive
Bearbrand really made a buzz around their brand. Yes – about their brand firstly and afterwards their products reaped of the benefits. Their goal is to Do their part to change the way society views beardsmen and it seems like they have been on the right track. Although it seems like they did something extraordinary, their team just acknowledged the fact that consumers are seeking for an authentic connection with the brands they love and created a business strategy accordingly. Utilize this tactic when creating your own retention strategy and declare war to your churn rate!
Image source: Printscreen from BeardBrand
How?
Let’s go a step backwards and highlight once again the importance of consumer listening. Understanding your customers is crucial for creating an addictive brand. Make in depth surveys and customer interviews, study your website analytics and find a pattern that represents your consumer’s actual purchasing intentions.
Now it is time to create an ideal brand image or concept around your brand that will be based on the common motivation amongst your consumers. Make sure it represents your brand’s mission and implement it into not only your marketing, but overall business strategy as well. There are many other examples apart from Bearbrand which prove that lifestyle brands retain customers not only because they like their products, but also because they want to be involved with the company.
Brand addiction is the first step to take when making a retention plan that will “stick”. Give your consumers a reason to stay and you won’t have to worry about your competitors, especially if you follow-up on them via email or phone every now and then, showing them great new deals or just generally checking how you can help. Be human. Following up with Pmax gets them hooked to your product or service!
4. Gamification is a retention magnet
Gamification is a strategy that has been popular for quite a while and what’s most important – it brings results. If you are creative and know your customers well (again, you see how important it is) gamification can really be perfect for making a connection between customers and your brand. Furthermore, this can be your most powerful retention tactic.
In order to make the most out of your gamification strategy, make sure that it’s focus isn’t just on customer retention. Regardless of how this confusing might sound, remember that gamification, as the name says is meant to be fun and one exciting experience for your customers that will make them to come for it again.
How?
Being creative is often not that easy, luckily the Internet is full of gamification success stories. Surely you can find one that you can relate to. Whether your product is a software so you can add special rewards when customers do a certain thing, or you prefer to develop an app for this matter (check out how Nike did it with their Nike Fuel campaign), the choice is up to you. Hey, did you have a chance to check out what Victoria’s Secret team did for their Dream Holiday Rewards program? A perfect gamification strategy where a group of their customers had a mission to collect hearts for making purchases. Great idea to engage with the brand, isn’t it?
Even if your strategy doesn’t turn out that successful this isn’t a reason for you not to try again, on the contrary – your customers deserve excitement!
Sum up
Improve your sales funnel (if you’re looking for an effective solution to manage your sales-funnel and process in general, take a look at the all-in-one platform, Platformax) by changing your business priority to customer retention. Utilize all channels and tools that you have, to get a good understanding of your customers’ needs, work on your brand and educate your customers about it. Remind them why your product is the one they opted for and it will surely result in numerous sales.
Which customer retention strategies worked best for your boost of revenue? Let us know in the comments below.
Hey,
These four strategies are very effective. I am sure one could boost their customer retention with these pro tips and strategies. As customer retention is very important for a company to understand what are their customer future and present needs, so following a correct customer retention strategy is very critical, and this article is very useful for it.
Thanks for sharing this article,
Cheers.