Do you remember that playground slur, “Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers”? While it’s no secret that kids can be jerks, it turns out they can also be right, because the saying does have some merit – at least when it comes to the value to retaining your existing customers.

Clearly it pays to invest your marketing efforts and budget in keeping your customers happy and loyal, but what should you spend that time and money doing to make that happen? There are many marketing tactics aimed at increasing customer retention, but 3 of the most effective are customer loyalty programs, content marketing, and drip/nurturing campaigns.

Loyalty Programs

Loyalty is not spontaneous, it is inspired. While a good product and fantastic customer service are the foundation of repeat business, what really inspires customers to keep coming back, and tell their friends to do the same, is being recognized and rewarded for their loyalty.

A good loyalty program should make customers feel special by being personal and exclusive. Program members should get access to discounts that non-members don’t, and the discounts should be relevant to them. For example, Target has a great program called “Target Circle” that not only rewards members 1% in credit for all purchases, but also makes recommendations for additional ways to save money based on your purchasing history.

The best way to get an idea of how to run a loyalty program for your business is to sign up for a couple yourself so you can see how they are executed and think about it from a customer perspective. HubSpot also has a nice explanation of customer loyalty programs and tips for making them successful.

Content Marketing

Content marketing relies on the principle of building trust by providing something of value. By offering valuable and relevant information, a brand can build trust with its audience. While often employed as part of a larger inbound marketing strategy for generating new leads, it can also help increase satisfaction and inspire loyalty among existing customers using the same principles.

Content marketing is a broad term that can include everything from email marketing and eCommerce, to eBooks and blog posts. The key to successful content is making it relevant to your customers and their needs. For instance, a veterinary clinic could provide value to their clients by creating educational eBooks related to common conditions, including signs and symptoms to look for, how they’re diagnosed, and how they’re treated. This benefits the clients by educating them on pet’s condition and the options they have for managing it, but it also benefits the veterinary clinic by both increasing customer satisfaction and helping increase client awareness about the services they offer. The clinic can then take this a step further by automating emails to go out to clients whose pets have the conditions in question (which we will talk more about in the drip/nurturing campaign section). 

Another example of content marketing done well can be seen on Amazon.com. While most companies do not have the robust algorithms that Amazon does, they can still learn a lesson from how Amazon leverages dynamic content to make purchase suggestions. When you’re browsing a product on Amazon, they show you more items related to the current one you are looking at. As a parent of a young child during the COVID-19 pandemic who survives on Amazon purchases, I can tell you that those recommendations are appreciated and have definitely inspired additional purchases.

Drip/Nurturing Campaigns

The terms “drip” and “nurturing” campaign are often (although not always) used interchangeably, and typically refer to an automated series of emails that begin running when given criteria have been met. The goal of these campaigns is to meet people where they’re at with what they need, and so they are most successful when they include content (as described in the previous section) that is relevant and valuable to the audience, followed by the call to action. This way, you get people interested and give them a reason to interact with you before you ask them to do so.  

There are many ways to use these types of campaigns to nurture customers, including:

• Onboarding new customers

• Alerting existing customers of new products

• Rewarding customers with loyalty incentives and special offers

• Setting customer expectations related to new or existing procedures

So, for instance, going back to our veterinary clinic example, let’s say the clinic uses a marketing automation system such as HubSpot. Systems like these, which are necessary for automated drip campaigns, allow you to create custom fields on contact records, such that you can track nearly anything you want. In this case, the clinic wants to track whether a client’s pet has a certain condition, so they make a field to capture that information. They can then create special mailing lists automatically for each condition and set up a series of emails with content specific to each condition that send automatically whenever someone is added to one of those lists, and voila! They have now created a highly relevant drip campaign that is guaranteed to not only educate, but delight their customers.

Don’t Just Tell Your Customers You Love Them, Show Them

Chances are, you are already letting your customers know that you appreciate their business with a discount here, or a social media shout out there, but to really inspire their loyalty, you need to do more. Instituting a fun customer loyalty program and creating personalized content for your customers will not only boost the happiness of your customers, but also the health of your bottom line. 

If you want to engage your customers using custom content and state-of-the-art marketing automation, but don’t know where to start, we can help! From getting you set up in your own marketing automation and CRM system, to building content tailored to your audience, Red Brick Partners will provide you with the infrastructure needed to support your lead-nurturing success.

Schedule your free consultation here and find out what Red Brick Partners can do for you.

References:

Gallo, Amy. “The Value of Keeping the Right Customers.” Harvard Business Review. October 29, 2014, https://hbr.org/2014/10/the-value-of-keeping-the-right-customers