61% companies cite customer retention as their main challenge. Yet, by increasing it by 5%, you can boost your profits by 25 to 95%. Interesting, isn't it?
So, how do you keep your customers for the long term?
Discover 10 customer retention strategies to implement right now!
1. Prevent churn from the start
Customer retention starts at the point of purchase. Most consumers choose a product or service because it offers one or two features that seem appealing. But it may actually do much more for them! If they feel limited or don't realize that your offering can take them further, they will leave your company.
From the very first day of purchase, you need to encourage them to discover the benefits of your offer. How?
- Invite them to a webinar or a product demonstration.
- Offer them a brief, clear getting-started guide that proactively answers customers' main questions.
- Regularly send, by email, tutorials to fully use your offering.
In the email below, Visibrain informs its customers about upcoming updates. The company invites them to a webinar to showcase new features of its tool with the aim of retaining users or even encouraging them to upgrade.
2. Encourage a second purchase
Customers who repurchase have 9 times more a chance of becoming regular buyers. This second sale is therefore essential for customer retention.
However, the success of this repeat purchase depends on targeting and timing. If you follow up with the customer too early, they won't want to convert. Conversely, if the campaign comes too late, you may have already lost them.
The exact timing varies depending on the product purchased and its lifespan. So how do you proceed? Analyze your sales to determine the average time between two purchases. You can also send a survey to your customer base to learn about their purchase intentions for the coming months.
Besides, a few days after the sale, you can contact the customer to ask for their feedback on your product/service. Add a question to find out if they are ready to order again and within what timeframe.
When following up to encourage a second sale, include a discount offer. This technique generally boosts conversions!
3. Leverage SMS marketing
To maximize the success of your customer retention campaigns, bet on SMS. They have an open rate 5 times higher a 40% higher chance of converting than email recipients.
Moreover, SMS can be forwarded more easily. In addition to retain your subscribersyou gain potential customers.
To retain your customers, you can use this channel to:
- Send discounts for a special event or for their birthday
- Offer VIP access or private sales
- Recommend products after a purchase
- Alert about product restocks
- Offer weekly advice
This helps strengthen customers' sense of belonging to the brand and their engagement.
For example, the Black Friday has given brands a good opportunity to solicit their customers with exceptional promotions. The objective being to encourage purchases to increase their loyalty:
4. Build a community around the brand
Customers like being part of a community. Give them the opportunity to interact with your customers on topics related to your products and your brand. For example, you can create a Facebook or LinkedIn group attached to your main page.
For example, Adobe created a LinkedIn group that brings together users who have received the "Adobe Certified Expert – Marketo Engage" certification. This space allows experts to advise each other, get inspired, and help one another in using the tool.
These discussion spaces have several advantages:
- Maintain a connection with your audience and encourage purchases (and repeat purchases/renewals)
- Serve as customer support to provide a faster, more personalized response to users
- Detect them Brand ambassadors and use them for your next campaigns
- Obtain relevant feedback on your products and services in order to improve your offerings
All these best practices tie customers to your brand. They strengthen their loyalty while promoting the word of mouth. This helps you build and grow a base of loyal buyers.
5. Use behavioral segmentation
Behavioral segmentation allows you to classify your customers based on their interaction with a product or service.
The criteria to use are:
- Buying behavior: does the customer buy out of habit or because of the price?
- Purchase occasion: for Christmas, a birthday celebration, during sales, etc.
- Benefits sought: a productivity boost for a team, searching for ways to save money, a need to push oneself…
- Customer journey stage
You can identify this data by analyzing the information stored in your CRM, the keywords entered into search engines, or via a questionnaire on your site.
Then, to increase customer retention, you can:
- Launch remarketing campaigns based on users' past behavior.
- Send targeted content to user segments based on their interests, average order value, product usage frequency, etc.
- Concentrate your marketing resources on users ready to convert: demo request, viewing the pricing section…
6. Notify the user of their progress
This strategy is used by companies offering products, software, or applications that serve a performance objective. Each week or month, you send the customer an email about the performance achieved with your product.
This summary may include:
- Progress metrics
- Statistics and a comparison with other users or a previous period
- Performance badges to encourage the customer to keep using the product
- Personalized recommendations to improve
This technique gives the user a sense of making progress with your service and a reason to keep using it. It also reduces churn.
For example, Slendertone Abs sends weekly performance reports on belt usage. The user knows whether they have met their goals and is offered recommendations to improve performance the following week.
7. Focus on acquiring high-value customers
Most customers will buy only once, but 20% of them will become repeat customers. To acquire more high-value customers, you must first determine the characteristics of that group.
Using a customer data platform (CDP), you can learn information such as:
- Their geographic location
- Their age group
- Their marital status
- Their interests
- The pages they land on
- The ads that bring them to your site
- The products they buy first
- The second and third products they tend to buy
- Average time between the first and second purchase
After identifying these 20% and how you attracted them, you can create marketing segments to launch personalized campaigns. Also use this data to build audiences on social networks or Google Ads.
8. Improve the delivery experience
Unwrapping a package is a special feeling. It satisfies our need for instant gratification.
When a customer receives a package, the first moments are the most special. By making unboxing an experience in itself, you capture their attention and encourage them to buy again.
You have the choice of:
- Add a handwritten note
- Personalize the package
- Include a gift: this can be a sample of another product or stickers with your brand
- Offer a discount on the next delivery
9. Increase your brand awareness
One of the best ways to increase retention is to improve your company's awareness.
Your brand should be the first that comes to consumers' minds when they feel a need. This increases the chances of keeping your customers for longer.
To improve your awareness:
- Highlight your brand's values
- Align with your target audience's social commitments
- Personalize relationships with your customers
- Be transparent about your value proposition
- Educate your audience through content
- Prioritize user-generated content
- Offer impeccable customer service
- Humanize your brand
- Launch Loyalty programs
10. Involve users in product development
To be sure of retaining customers, include them in product decision-making. If they validate a product or feature, they will not hesitate to use it repeatedly. Several options are available to you:
- Surveys on improvements to make to your services
- Customers who test your product in preview or receive a sample
- Call 20 to 50 customers every month to gather their feedback on your products
- Set up an advisory committee with your loyal customers: you can also regularly invite new customers
Be sure to take into account customers' different comments. In addition to creating a sense of belonging, you gain brand ambassadors.
For example, to celebrate the brand's 90th anniversary, LEGO invited its customers to vote for one of these classic editions. The goal is to reissue it in a more modern version.
Conclusion
You probably know the saying: it's more expensive to acquire new customers than to keep existing ones.
Customer retention lets you save money but also expand your sales reach. The longer a buyer stays with you, the more new markets they bring you. So, try these strategies now to improve customer retention!
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