In today’s saturated markets, a good product or service is not sufficient to boost – let alone sustain – business growth. Building your brand requires reaching and engaging customers that stay loyal to your business even long past their first purchase. But to do this, you need to give your customers a reason to listen, care, and engage with your brand throughout their customer journey.
However, with the tight competition and proliferation of communication channels, attracting customers is becoming increasingly challenging. And far too often, marketers focus their time on chasing sales and not enough on retaining converted customers. Whether you’re working on a sales strategy in-house or have decided to hire a conversion rate optimization agency, it’s essential to focus on how to retain your customers even after you’ve realized a sale.
But how do you create a strategy that attracts new customers while keeping your current ones engaged and happy? To get you started, we’ve compiled a simple marketing guide that will take you through some of the most effective tactics for increasing and maintaining your client base over time.
Use a Social Media Strategy
If you want to attract your target customers, you need first to know who they are and where you can find them. Nowadays, that means identifying which social channels they’re using and creating a strategy that will help you reach them and retain their interest.
For example, if you’re a B2B business, you can search for clients on LinkedIn and reach out to them directly. However, you need to identify who those potential clients are and how you can best generate interest. You can now use automation tools – that even offer a free trial – to help you with lead generation and even turn prospects into loyal customers.
Generally, your approach on any platform should be to think about how you can create value and stay consistent in your efforts – whether through posts or direct contact.
Leverage Word of Mouth
Word-of-mouth has always been a strong marketing tool, but it’s starting to play a more significant role lately as consumers are becoming overwhelmed with ads. As much as 90% of consumers trust brand recommendations from their friends or family, and 70% trust the opinion of other consumers. In other words, they are more likely to trust strangers than in advertisements.
So how do you get customers to share good opinions about your brand? First, you need to create a product or service that works and provides value. If your customers are satisfied with your offerings, you are more likely to retain them and turn them into loyal customers.
Another way to achieve that is exceptional customer service since people prefer to buy from businesses that respect them. Lastly, try to encourage them to share their experience, as it might not always come to them automatically.
Consider Giveaways
Although it might seem cliche, giveaways and gifts are almost always guaranteed to work. To begin with, they are likely to make you more visible as people might share the giveaways with friends and encourage others to make use of them. Most importantly, however, they attract new buyers and might help you gain customers that have not heard of your brand before or that might not have tried your products otherwise.
At the same time, your existing customers might appreciate your efforts to add even more value to their experience, becoming more satisfied with your business and buying from you again.
However, you should be aware that you cannot offer gifts all the time, so you should make sure to time your giveaways strategically and determine the number of people who can claim them. In turn, that might also make the offer more appealing, as people might rush to get their hands on your products.
Stay in Touch With Your Mailing List
One of the most effective marketing tools for staying in touch with your customers – and encouraging them to keep coming back to your business – is your mailing list. These messages may contain promotions, updates, tips, and even information about the business or industry.
With the help of automated emails, you can connect with customers frequently, segment them into groups, and send personalized messages to specific customers. The best way to attract new customers to your mailing list is by offering incentives, such as a discount code for their first purchase.
At the same time, you can retain your existing customers via email by giving them access to early sales, sending them personalized recommendations, or even discounts for their favorite products. And although you shouldn’t send them an email every day, you can reach out reasonably frequently. About 32% of marketers get in touch 2-3 times a month, and 16% do it more than six times.
Final Words
There are different ways to attract and retain customers, and the most effective ones are those that make the most sense for your business. For example, if your products are not visual, posting pictures on Instagram may not be the best way to promote them.
Nonetheless, some marketing methods have proven effective for a broader scope of businesses. These include a social media strategy, word-of mouth-marketing, giveaways, and reaching out to your mailing list.
Whichever ones you choose, remember that attracting customers will not always result in an immediate sale, nor a long-term customer from every purchase.
