10 Customer Retention Strategies

Hey friend. Sandy Waggett with MSW Interactive Designs and today on your marketing strategy, elevated I want to talk about customer retention. Customer retention is so important because the data shows that acquiring a new customer can cost five times more than retaining an existing one. Plus, existing customers are more likely to try new products, new programs and spend more money. And when you focus on customer retention, you not only boost your customer lifetime value, but you also, over time, create loyal brand advocates. Let's look at some common sense customer retention strategies and these are going to sound obvious, but we all know that common sense is not always common practice. Once I get through these obvious ones that most business owners, let's be honest, don't actually do, then we'll get into some more advanced techniques too. So continue to watch the end or skip forward if you think you already got these first five nails. So number one, personalize your customer experience as best you can. Even if it's as simple as your weekly newsletters that you send out, make sure that the lead in starts with their first name rather than just a generic opening. Personalize everything that you can. You also want to put emails in front of clients with products and services they need. So like with my agency, I would not want to send a newsletter talking about web design stuff or tactics or whatever for a group of clients that we just recently launched websites for because they already purchased that product or service and now I want to introduce them to other things to help amplify their message and grow their reach rather than bombarding them with newsletters and information about actually the web design process and things like that. Another one is implement a loyalty program. We've all been part of loyalty programs and it's nice really. It really helps you get repeat business from customers and it helps with long time customers when you make them feel valued. So even like a VIP program for customers have been with you over two or three years, so what does that look like in your business? Another technique and it's essential is regular communication. So we do a weekly newsletter for our clients and then we also do two times per month free marketing meetups where we get on zoom, live with clients and other people too. So it does act as a top of funnel lead generation mechanism. And then I also do a once per month AI training. So those are ways that we stay in front of clients on a consistent basis in addition to our normal social media and things like that. The other thing is to make sure that you're constantly asking and acting on feedback. So you want to ask your customers how you're doing. And you want to make sure that you're acting on the feedback that you receive. Now, I'm not suggesting that you make knee jerk reactions, but getting feedback from your customers is a very good thing. And my friend Mike Michalowitz and I Mike, if you're, if you see this, and I hope I don't dark this up, but he says one of the most important questions you can ask your customers, what am I doing really well? And then you double down on that, triple down on that, do it even better because that tells you what they are judging you on. So solicit and act on feedback. And then the fifth one that's pretty much common sense is to make sure that you're providing an exceptional customer experience. Experience. I don't need to remind you that it's the customer that actually gets to decide if it's an exceptional experience. Now, we're all human. And I'll tell you what, we changed the model of our agency last year quite extensively. And I'm just going to be perfectly honest, I had some clients that did not have a great experience because we weren't prepared to meet the level of service that we were trying to engage in with our new model. And we really had to go through some growing pains to get that all ironed out. So a few of my early adopters just did not have a great experience. And that is really hard to recover from. Now that said, we're all business owners. We all change our businesses and try things in our businesses that don't work out. So don't beat yourself up over it, but always do your best to provide a great experience for your customers. Okay, so those are basics, right? They seem simple enough. Common sense is the most common practice. So make sure those foundational elements are in place. And then let's look at five other advanced techniques that you can implement in your business to really help your customer retention. The first one is customer journey mapping. Now, this is actually quite an extensive exercise. So you essentially map out the entire customer journey from when they first literally care about you or come across your business all the way through the entire nurturing cycle. Every single touch point, like, who are they talking to? What are the conversations about? And then like your onboarding, and then how the service is delivered, and then how feedback is solicited and then how the continuing engagement is, is going on. So you map out the entire journey and then from there you look at areas in each of those sections where you have the opportunity to go way above and beyond, surprise and delight your Customer. A great book by Joey Coleman. Never Lose a Customer Again does a fantastic job of walking through how to create an exceptional customer journey map and how to find those areas where you can surprise and delay. I really recommend that book. It's awesome. Next one is predictive analytics, so you can use data on your customers to determine, okay, so what they purchased now and at what point they might be prepared and ready and need another service that you provide. So you're intentionally mapping a customer journey using predictive analytics in when you're going to reach out to them to upsell or whatever it is, engage them in another product or service that your company offers so that stuff doesn't happen without intentionality. Some feedback that I actually got from customers, I'm going to say seven, eight years ago, and I was surprised. I reached out to customers and I'm like, hey, you really need this SSL thing or you really should be doing social media. And a few of my longtime customers were like, hey, why are you just telling me about this now? And I was, I don't want to bug you. Core whole business practice, don't do what I did. Your customers, once you have earned their trust and they are your customers, they do not mind you reaching out to them and saying, hey, this is happening in the industry. This is what you should be thinking about. This is what you should be doing next. If you don't do it, this is what can happen. I can help you with that. So don't make the same mistake I did. People want to be reached out to you already on the trust. They're already a customer. Next one is community building. So you create a sense of community by.

Bringing clients together. So a good example, I have a Facebook group for clients and these marketing meetups and AI trainings I do online invite customers in. And when I started doing this, one of the unintended consequences was that customers started engaging with each other and using each other's services because they didn't know each other until they came together on these Zoom calls that I did and they started talking to each other, oh, I could really use that and made me feel great. But that also made my customers feel great because by coming to a Zoom meeting where I was actually supporting their business by coaching and training on certain things around marketing, they were having the opportunity to meet other people who ultimately became their clients. So very cool. Community building is a very solid strategy for customer retention. Next one is tiered loyalty programs. So you can take your basic loyalty program to the next level with some kind of a Tiered reward. So as customers invest more or spend more with your company, they unlock greater benefits. So like over a period of time, maybe they're in this basic, in my instance, maybe they're my basic marketing meetup for free. And if they get to a certain level where we've done their website and their social media and they're doing retargeting and maybe I, I create like a marketing masters group. And so these business owners, as they've progressed through the service area service offerings that we have, you know, they can now come to the marketing Masters group. So they're conspiring and working to get there by building up their marketing over time. So it not only really coaxes them into upgrading their services, but then they gain status by being in the marketing Masters group. So that's an example of a tiered loyalty program as it would apply to my business. What could you do with your business that's similar to that? Another one which I actually haven't implemented yet, but I have seen people who have and I'm considering it, is a customer advisory board. This is fascinating to me. I can see where it would really work for your longest term clients, your best clients, most trusted clients. Why not create an advisory board where they feel privileged to give you feedback and insights on your services and product offerings. I imagine for my own company how valuable that could be. So think customer advisory board, would that work for your business? And then number five is a personalized re engagement campaign. So customers that for whatever reason you've lost, have moved on, whatever it is, don't just drop them off the map. I've had so many instances over the 25 years in my business where customers have come back because I have reengaged them. So through newsletters, through sending them holiday cards, through sending them just notes or a lot of times when a new business author comes out with a book, I'll buy the books in bulk and I'll just send a copy of the book with a personalized note to just reengage that former customer and let them know that I'm still here. And if they need help or want to work together again, they're welcome to come back at any time. Just to wrap up. I hope this was helpful. When we talk about lifetime value, you can significantly increase the lifetime value of your customer when you have intentional process and system in your business that really builds on the retention of that customer. So let's all keep our customers and grow our businesses and grow our profits and making an amazing day. See you soon.