Nowadays, being a god at attracting customers is no longer enough for effective business development. You need to learn how to make them come back. This is more complicated and requires a number of other competencies.
“Improve the deliverability of your email campaigns speak with real customers.
I Want To…”
Check emails
There is not a single business in the world that does not know what the “customer churn” is. But there is something that distinguishes successful entrepreneurs from all others: they are constantly working to reduce the churn. It allows you to create a loyal base of regular customers, generate repeatable sales, reduce marketing and advertising costs, and, accordingly, get a significant advantage over competitors.
“Advanced segmentation and personalization
Trends come and go, but there are those that show consistent stability every year. This is a course towards rapprochement and improvement of relationships with potential and existing customers. Personalized emails that are tailored to your preferences help customers view mailings as a friendly gesture, not an annoyance factor.
Do not forget about email verification service before launching an email campaign.
I wish you a good open rate and reply rate!”
We decided to share with you 7 relationship marketing strategy ideas to reduce the customer churn, which you can start using in practice just tomorrow.
“What influences the success of your email campaigns?
The quality of your email database”
Let’s check it
What is Relationship Marketing?
Relationship marketing means that your customers are a key element of marketing strategies in the context of stimulating their loyalty to your brand. This is a bit of a word of mouth that works for you. And relationship marketing strategies, in turn, are aimed at increasing brand awareness by creating and maintaining long-term relationships with customers. Data of target subscribers / buyers, as well as their reviews are used as a toolkit.
Serious players in the global arena of goods and services adhere to the emotional concept of promoting their brand as part of improving customer relationship marketing. Speaking about improving the quality of life, large corporations offer forever lasting friendship so that their customers always stay with them. At the same time, the dynamically developing era of digital marketing dictates its own rules. The one who accepts them and constantly uses new relationship marketing ideas remains on the horseback. Others take their business down the dumper, fondly assuming that those who left should be replaced by new ones.
Thus, relationship marketing is the desire of companies to improve their customers’ lives, increase engagement and reduce the cost of marketing activities.
Why is Relationship Marketing important for your business?
Corporations that are serious about customer retention know that an increase of just 5% is a huge success and a reason to celebrate. Why? Because the profitability of a business in this situation can increase by more than 70-75%. Pretty cool arithmetic, isn’t it? Professionals in terms of effective relationship marketing tools establish strong ties with their customers. They, in turn, are easily attracted, happy to buy and always have a loyal attitude to the brand. In addition, these customers advise their choice to friends and relatives, work colleagues and other acquaintances, doing part of the promotion work for you.
It is curiously enough that companies with “one-time” customers can also benefit from high-quality relationship marketing. The positive impression of the quality of products or services provided, positive reviews about it, referrals and brand recognition – all this is a huge advantage for your long-term marketing campaign.
Here are a few reasons why relationship marketing is important to your business.:
- Innovative ideas. By giving your customers the opportunity to offer original ways to improve products, create advertising, hold promotions you receive an unlimited source of valuable and free ideas to increase the profitability of your business.
- Free advertising. If your customers are satisfied, they will tell everyone about it. Referral advertising will become an icing on a birthday cake. Do everything possible so that the buyers remain happy, while they could express their emotions through a convenient communication channel. Do not hesitate, and new customers will flow like a river.
- Valuable feedback. The reason that follows from the previous paragraph. Try to create a good place where all customers will be able to share their impressions, thank for the product, service or service, perhaps make a comment. This way you can improve more than just the relationship between you and customers. You will have the opportunity to constantly improve your business.
- Authority and trust. The most difficult is the case of little-known companies and specialists no one has heard of. But who stops them from disseminating information about themselves? That’s right, nobody. So imagine your brand has a reputation that people willingly trust. Focus on potential and existing customers, as strong relationships with them will help you achieve what you want. They will recognize you, they will talk about you, they will buy from you.
If you have already tried some relationship marketing techniques, or your business is just emerging, our guide will be valuable for you. With its help , you can choose the most effective strategy that is 100% consistent with your business concept and brand positioning model.
Relationship marketing strategies for your business
We hope that you have realized what is a relationship marketing strategy and how essential it is for business. But the choice of any strategy implies quality work for creating your customer’s portrait. Target audience development is an integral part of any business. Actually, it all starts here, not just the creation of marketing campaigns. You can find out everything you need about your customer base using various online targeting platforms, such as Facebook, Google AdWords, Twitter, Perfect Audience. They will tell you demographic data, age, marital status, gender, country, state, city and other important aspects regarding your customers. In accordance with this information, the choice of relationship marketing approach will become much easier, and its use more efficient.
Facilitate the communication processes
In many cases, it is extremely important for a potential customer to get additional information about a product or service before making a purchase. Moreover, it may be necessary for him, for example, to clarify the features after placing an order and so on.
Give customers the opportunity to quickly get feedback using a convenient channel and in a convenient way. In addition to the usual phone number and email, you can use the social media approach – messages via the Facebook page, contacts in the WhatsApp, etc.
Even if a customer uses these channels to complain about quality or service, you can always get a chance to solve the problem instead of letting him just leave.
Always analyze the churn reasons
Very often, it is caused by non-obvious problems that occur regularly. By eliminating them, you can stop losing profits and increase customer loyalty. Moreover, you can organize appropriate training for your employees.
Customers can go because you didn’t offer them the simple extra value that competitors did. The reason may be a high price, insufficient guarantees, consulting managers’ behavior, and many other things. But the only way to find out the real reason is just to ask.
This can be done by phone or email, as well as regular surveys to assess the satisfaction level and respond quickly if necessary.
Provide them with more information
In order for the customer to continue using your product or service, try to provide them with appropriate information support. They must clearly understand what value you offer, know how to act in cases of guarantees and refunds, and have access to the necessary documentation and reference materials. Otherwise, he or she may start looking for this information from your competitors.
Do not be afraid to experiment in this area. Connect as many channels as possible. You can provide all the necessary information about your company, products and services through them. Moreover, the current trend is for customers to watch and listen more than read. Use it! YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, Slideshares, Facebook, Twitter will help you there.
These are not only additional channels of promotion and sales. Many of them you can use to analyze engagement. Their metrics are not inferior, and sometimes they surpass the classical tools for analyzing behavioral factors.
Offer additional incentives
Creating the conditions under which customers come back again and again is not an easy task. But as practice shows, almost 80% of customers are interested in loyalty programs and rewards even before they make a purchase. Moreover, more than 25% are looking for promotions of this kind. So loyalty programs and discounts demonstrate your customers that they are taken care of and appreciated. Besides, the correct approach to additional incentives and their effective implementation have another important advantage. Here the word of mouth is triggered again, and the so-called brand “ambassadors” transmit information about you.
It can be a discount for a second purchase, a cumulative bonus, or something similar including loyalty programs. Exclusive events and insights, nice gifts, free consultations – these things not only stimulate repeatable purchases but also greatly increase the loyalty to your company.
In the vast majority of cases, such maintenance costs pay off well by reducing advertising budgets to attract new customers.
Educate, not just sell
The best way to establish a trusting relationship with customers is to help them at all stages of choosing and using the product you offer. Investing in training your future customers and those who already bought from you allows them to better understand the features of your offer, get acquainted with the processes in the organization, and make it possible to feel closer to the company.
It’s about content marketing – blog articles, YouTube videos, PDF books, live demos of your goods — all this allows you to make your customers feel comfortable and informed.
Personalize customer services
On the online store website, this can be implemented through technical improvements, for example, you can configure the recommendations output based on views and order history, sending individual promo codes and other personalized offers.
Do not skimp on investing in software that can simplify your customers access to you. The modern CRM solution is easy access to customers via chat, email and voice call. Such relationship marketing methods encourage customers to get in touch more often when they have any questions or problems. Each time during a one-on-one conversation with a client, you build up relationships, and strengthen trust and loyalty. All that you need is to choose high-quality software. Then teach your employees how to use it and make sure that they are always in touch so your customers never have to wait.
Create the additional value
As an example, you can take a look at the hosting offers. One hoster offers just a place on the server, and the second one adds a free two-week trial period + client’s website transfer from another provider.
In fact, in almost any niche, it is easy to come up with, create, and convey to your potential customers the added value that your business offers. And this can be the very opportunity to stand out from the competition.
Your customers may mistakenly choose wrong products, something they don’t quite need or do not need at all. An alternative proposal that your customers are not well aware of can solve this problem. Do everything so that they learn about it before they go to your competitors. Recommend your product in person, by phone or by email.
And finally, do not give promises that you cannot fulfill. The illusion around your product is the worst workmate in the business that can cause not just customer dissatisfaction, but generate true hatred. Promise less, but do more. Let your customers be pleasantly surprised and they will stay with you for many years, and maybe forever.
Conclusion
Reducing churn and establishing stronger customer relationships is necessary but not sufficient key to any business success. Yet, bringing in new customers is sometimes easier than keeping those that already exist. But exactly the customers who remain increase your chances of building a successful business as a result.
We hope that our article will help you solve this problem. There is no magic in it. It simply boils down to analyzing the churn reasons, eliminating them, and acting ahead of the curve.
And remember a simple truth: if you value your customers, they are more likely to value your cooperation.
