Want to boost your bottom line without the hassle of new sales? Re-target with customer retention programs that keep people loyal.
It’s no secret that the most profitable customer is the repeat customer. Loyalty is crucial for businesses, but is not always a result of satisfaction. Successful companies do not sit and idly wait for their happy customers to come back for seconds. They have data-driven strategies to target these audiences. They’ve built customer retention programs into their sales and marketing.
If you haven’t yet found a way to entice your customers with further options, upgrades, or relevant products, you’re letting opportunity walk out the door every day. Take action and give your customers a reason to come back and buy from you again.
Create a framework that utilizes data to re-target customers and build strategies
Business owners and sales professionals have an enormous advantage today. There are tools available that allow us to track customer behaviors, purchases, email responses, and a plethora of insightful actions. This data is at our fingertips, so we must use it wisely.
Put yourself in a position where you use customer data and technology to your advantage. The first step? Use a customer relationship management tool (CRM). Why?
- It centralizes your data and makes it easily available to marketing and sales teams.
- It can produce in-depth reports on your customers and how they act/respond.
- It streamlines interactions “after the sale” and segments your customers to criteria.
- It tracks your follow-ups, results, and makes it easier to plan a course of action.
- It provides insightful data on old vs. new customers so that you can see the trends.
How data plays a role in building customer retention programs
Retaining customers is all about knowing how to fulfill their needs further. What else can you provide them that will augment their first purchase or increase their satisfaction?
This point is where customer data becomes valuable. You know something about them now. You can track their interactions, what interests them, and what’s relevant to their first purchase. ‘
Furthermore, data provides a common point of reference for your sales and marketing teams.
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For instance, your marketing team may use data to understand your customer’s behavior, his purchasing decisions, and what he has in common with other groups.
Your sales team might use data to figure out the most opportune time to follow-up after the sale, or what upgrades could be added to provide further satisfaction.
The data will determine the focal points of your customer retention programs.
- What’s the correlation of length between separate purchases and the total amount of purchases made per year?
- How often do people buy an upgrade to a product? What types of upgrades are (or could be) valuable for these situations?
- What are the results of a promotion two weeks after the initial sale versus four weeks after the initial sale?
How to build customer retention programs and see results
Depending on the business, there are retention strategies that work and don’t work. But there is nothing wrong with giving the tried and true pathway a chance. Use the CRM data to segment your customers into specific niches, then target them with specific offers.
- Create an exclusive membership with incentives to loyal customers.
- Promote products to those who have expressed interest or have previously bought similar items in the past.
- Cross-sell and upsell products at the time of purchase.
- Develop a hierarchy of upgrades that offer more value for a competitive price.
Deliver your retention efforts in a quick fashion. Figure out a consistent strategy and stick to it:
- Deliver “post-sale” interactions on a regular schedule. Create a calendar for reaching out and offering specific products, services, upgrades, and memberships.
- Make your outreach efforts as personal as possible. Customers respond to offers that deliver value just for them. Plus, it shows care in your customer service efforts.
- Send customer experience surveys on a regular basis. The more data you have, the more you’ll know how to create customer retention programs that perform well.
Turn your past customers into loyal supporters with automated follow ups. Schedule a free demo of our sales follow-up software and see how it works!
What’s your best strategy for retaining customers? Give your feedback in the comments!