The Secret to Winning (and Keeping) Loyal Customers

Loyal customers aren’t born, they’re built. Marketing acquisition costs have skyrocketed by as much as 900% over the last 20 years. And how have brands responded to these diminishing returns? Often by throwing more money at advertising and promotions in an effort to gain additional customers. This isn't efficient or sustainable, and it isn't the only option. 

The reality is — you need both customer acquisition and customer retention in order to make your marketing spend more sustainable. We believe customer retention efforts are often undervalued by digital agencies, which is why we prioritize retention as part of our strategy.

Finding New Customers Comes with a Cost

For emerging and quickly growing ecommerce companies, resources are limited and founders want to be sure their marketing dollars build a sustainable business. The challenges of the DTC business model are real, but we’ve seen that by prioritizing KPIs like repeat customer rate, growing retail brands CAN thrive in the world e-commerce. With just a 5% increase in customer retention, correlates to at least a 25% increase in profit! The numbers don’t lie when it comes to the long term business impact of investing in customer loyalty. 

Tactics to Increase Retention and Build Loyal Customers 

INVEST IN LOYALTY PROGRAMS

Loyalty programs are powerful tools — but only if they’re meaningful. So many loyalty programs we see don’t include any perks that customers really want to see. Coupons or free gifts on their birthday, points reminders, first dibs on new product launches, and special, members-only sales to name a few are strong tactics to keep them engaged. A strong loyalty program should make your audience feel special, and create a sense of exclusivity.

Deliver Personalized Product Recommendations

Personalization in email marketing is key in 2024. Tailoring content based on a customer’s preferences, past sales behavior and interests is crucial to creating a brand experience that feels exciting to them long term. By harnessing data and customer insights, personalized recommendations not only say “hey, we get you,” but also increase the likelihood of conversion.

Prioritize Cross-Channel Customer Service 

Marketing and customer service are so intertwined, and we can’t overstate the importance of a seamless connection between the two enough. Two-way SMS messaging and active community management on social media further can foster direct and meaningful interactions. We always advocate for plain text emails from customer service teams, encouraging recipients to hit reply and create a direct line of communication. While some brands shy away from this kind of messaging, we understand that customers, especially loyal ones, appreciate feeling connected and having a direct avenue to communicate. Our strategies are deliberately customer-centric, aligning with our commitment to personalized and responsive interactions.

Provide Valuable Content 

Once your customer makes a purchase — your work isn’t over. Now, it’s time to nurture them with value-forward content that keeps them engaged and encourages their loyalty. This can look like how-to content, usage inspiration, or anything else related to your product or service that they should know. Ideally, this content is personalized to the product they purchased. 

Promotions are effective at generating quick sales, but over time relying on sales can diminish your return and cut into your bottom line. The most successful content strategies prioritize engagement-focused campaigns just as much.

Understand your Audience 

Gathering insights from your customers can be as simple as scrolling through social media. Through community engagement, our email marketing client, Printfresh, learned their customers are avid readers. 624 used this insight to build engagement-focused content around reading into their email marketing content strategy. After experimenting and finding success with book recommendations and reading lists in email, Printfresh went on to develop a book club partnership with Simon & Schuster. This is just one example of how we used email marketing to engage and nurture Printfresh’s existing customer base and ultimately helped Printfresh achieve a 30% increase in repeat buyers year over year. 

Despite compelling reasons to nurture current customers, only 30% of marketing agencies prioritize acquisition and retention equally. That’s what sets 624 Agency apart. Retention is a huge part of our unique approach to marketing. If you are looking for ways to keep your existing customers happy and build loyalty from the ground up – let’s chat.