Promoting your business is an ongoing task that requires a strong marketing strategy and continual effort. However, for many companies, their marketing efforts are focused on attracting new customers and expanding their reach to capture a wider audience. While attracting new customers is essential, existing customer retention is also vital.

You are probably already familiar with the notion that it costs five times more to attract a new customer than retain an existing one. But, while this quote may be well-known, many marketers still devote far more time to customer acquisition than retention. As well as costing more to attract new customers, it takes your attention away from the many ways you can focus on driving customer loyalty and improving retention rates.

Figures show that selling to an existing customer is 60%-70% more probable than selling to a new customer, which is only 5%-20%. So, your chances of securing sales are far higher when you focus on selling to your current customer base. But the big question is, how do you use these stats to your advantage to improve your customer retention rates and increase sales by reactivating existing customers? Read on to find out:

Photo, Microsoft Edge.

Gain Insights

To target your existing customers, you need to utilise the strong data set you have already gathered about your customers. Gaining meaningful insights from this data will enable you to predict customer behaviour and use this to form effective strategies to market additional products and services to them.

But first you need to be able to analyse your data effectively and ensure that it is complete. Many customers have data stored in different places and held by other departments. This scattered approach makes it hard to gain anything meaningful from the data and manage it effectively. When your data is stored in different siloes throughout your organisation, using it to its full potential isn’t possible.

Using the Best Marketing Automation Software can help you bring your customer data together into one place and, from it, gather the meaningful insights you need. Organising customer data and using it to predict customer behaviour and how best to reach your audience is much easier when your data is stored in the right software.

Photo, Tom Official.

Deliver a Personalised Customer Experience

Personalisation is increasingly important to customers, so utilising this is a significant asset when trying to improve customer retention. Personalisation is powerful, and customers are beginning to not only want personalised experiences but expect them. In fact, research shows that 71% of customers expect personalised interactions from brands.

There are many ways that you can create personalised experiences for your customers. Many aspects of personalisation are pretty simple, and you should be able to achieve them using customer data that you already hold.

Suggesting personalised product recommendations based on previous purchases is an excellent starting point for personalisation. Increasing the personalisation levels on your email list is also beneficial. Providing targeted newsletter content that is personalised for your customer and their interests is especially helpful.

These personalisation efforts should help to encourage customers to return to your business to make repeat purchases and drive up the value of their shopping basket.

Photo, Tim Mossholder.

Build Your Online Community

Improving customer retention rates will be much easier if you have a strong brand identity and online presence. Building your brand’s presence on social media can be especially helpful when trying to increase customer retention rates.

So, your first step toward making this happen is to ensure that your company has its own social media accounts on the platforms used by your target market. Next, you will need to work on building your online community and increasing your followers. Posting content regularly and engaging your followers is an excellent way to encourage them to visit your website and make a purchase.

Ensuring your social media presence has a strong voice and represents your brand accurately will further help increase brand identity and will help keep your customers engaged in your posts. Having an audience of existing customers that are passionate about your brand and love your products is crucial.

Within this audience, you will have an excellent opportunity to increase your customer retention rates. Having customers that believe in your brand and are willing to advocate for it is an invaluable asset. It is these customers that are going to get excited when you announce new product launches, sales, and discounts.

These loyal customers are ready and waiting for further opportunities to connect with your brand and buy your products.