Did you know that 80% of your future profits will come from just 20% of your existing customers? Moreover, the probability of selling to an existing customer is 60-70%! (smallbizztrends.com) As you can see, customer retention is absolutely essential to generating more sales and revenue. A properly implemented marketing automation platform can be very helpful in customer retention. While marketing automation includes a wide array of features and tools, the trick lies in knowing which features are going to most benefit your business and retain your customers. Here are 3 ways to retain your customers with marketing automation.
1. Start off on the right foot with relevant emails – Once a customer has completed a purchase, you do not want to make them feel that their value is only limited to that sale. The objective is to continuously engage and interact with your existing customers, converting them into loyal buyers. Marketing automation is a great tool to have constant communication with your customers, via emails, without being spammy. As soon as a customer makes a purchase, an email can be sent to them welcoming them as well as thanking them for the purchase. With the help of a marketing automation platform, personalized emails can be created and scheduled to be sent on important days for the customer, like their birthday, anniversary etc. Netflix, for example, continuously uses marketing automation to send dynamic emails to their customers, thus boosting their customer retention rates. After the preliminary welcome email, Netflix sends personalized emails suggesting relevant movies and TV shows, based on the user’s browsing and watch history. Interacting with your target audience via emails helps in boosting engagement rates and increasing customer retention.
2. Upselling/Cross-Selling – It is 5 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one. Upselling and cross-selling are the easiest ways to retain existing customers. Marketing automation can be effectively used to upsell and cross-sell to your existing buyers, thereby promoting customer retention. Once a customer completes a purchase, marketing automation can be used to send them emails suggesting other products or add-ons which they can buy. Amazon, for example, is a clear winner when it comes to their upselling and cross-selling strategies. As soon as a customer adds an item to their bag or completes a purchase, they are shown other items that are “frequently bought” with their desired item, sponsored products related to the item and similar products bought by other customers. Amazon uses marketing automation to track a customer’s purchase patterns and actions and accordingly suggest items for upsell and cross-sell purposes. By suggesting relevant products which are helpful for their customers, Amazon effectively boosts their sales numbers while retaining their existing customers.
3. Loyalty Programs – Loyalty programs are created in order to make customers feel that they matter for more than just their purchase. This is done by offering them a variety of rewards like cashbacks, offers, gifts, free shipping etc, which helps in customer retention. However, the mode loyalty programs take in case of B2B companies is quite different than that of B2C companies. An effective way to create loyalty programs for B2B companies using marketing automation is to give their big clients access to new products, services and offers. Medecision, a B2B health management solutions company develop webinars which are exclusively available only for their clients as a part of their loyalty program. This goes a long way in customer retention as the clients get information-rich webinars which are unavailable to their competitors. Marketing automation also helps in keeping track of buyer preferences, which can help marketers offer rewards and loyalty plans which are relevant for the customers.
Your existing customers are a great source of revenue and profits. Engaging with them and providing them with a superior experience should be your primary goal. Marketing automation can help you with this goal, thereby boosting customer retention. Know more about our marketing automation services: https://telloquent.com/