Most marketing campaigns focus on getting new customers and making sure as many people as possible know about your brand. This is a vital part of growing your company, as more customers translate to more profits. However, this isn’t the only way to market your business.
One mistake that some businesses make is to always chase new customers while neglecting previous customers. But this is ignoring a huge potential customer base that has already proven to be willing to buy from your business. This article will focus on marketing to previous and existing customers and why it’s so important to your business.
Why It Matters
Repeat customers can comfortably be described as the bread and butter of a business. On average, about 65% of a business’s revenue comes from repeat customers, which means that if you neglect your existing contacts, you could be losing out on over half of your potential profits.
New customers are important, but the journey of marketing to new customers is a lot more time consuming and expensive than marketing with repeat customers in mind, and is less likely to have good results. It’s often much cheaper and more effective to retain existing customers rather than constantly chase new potential leads.
This isn’t to say that you should switch your focus entirely. New customers are vital, and it’s important to impress them with your first interactions. This allows you to get the sale in the first place and can potentially lead to that all important repeat customer.
Another benefit to repeat customers is that they can actually help you get new leads. People talk to each other, and if you have a customer who keeps coming back for more, as well as generating more sales from them, they’re also likely to talk to their friends about your business and make referrals.
Happy customers are more likely to come back, refer your business to other people, and will generate a lot of income over time.
Building a Relationship
People buy from people. Yes, the product matters, but there’s a reason why two salespeople who are trying to sell the exact same product might get very different results. While people are buying the product, they’re also buying a story and, in some cases, a relationship.
So how can you build a relationship with customers? One of the benefits of the small mom-and-pop shop is that these relationships came along naturally, especially for regulars. When you speak to someone face to face, you naturally build a relationship with them.
But if you’re an online business, you can build a relationship in other ways. Blogs and other content allow a personality to bleed through. It’s not the same as a conversation, but it can help the customer feel as though they have a relationship with the brand.
With a relationship, comes loyalty.
Loyalty Schemes
Speaking of loyalty, one way that you can build a relationship with customers and encourage them to stick to your brand is to reward repeat customers. This works for both online and brick-and-mortar businesses.
Even a simple loyalty system that rewards someone with a free gift or a discount can encourage people to keep coming back. While in reality, the system only represents a small discount on the side of the business, it can feel like a game for the customer. People like being rewarded.
Provide incentives for loyalty. Another type of incentive is to offer a discount for referrals. This encourages customers to tell their friends about your business. In return, they might get a discount on their next order and their friends might get a special welcoming discount. But your company gets a new customer who could also keep coming back for more.
Social Media Marketing
Social media is a fantastic digital marketing tool, and it’s great for new customers and repeat customers alike. There are a lot of different ways to use social media to market your company.
If you’re trying to drum up interest in your brand and get new customers, influencer marketing is a great way to do so. You essentially expose your brand to a much wider audience, benefiting form the larger audience of the content creator you’re sponsoring. Affiliate deals are another good way to get more sales, as people already have a relationship with the influencer.
But your own social media account and content matters too. Post regular, interesting content that people will want to follow. This might be behind-the-scenes of your workday, upcoming events and expos, and deals and promotions that are exclusive on social media.
Email Marketing
Another way to encourage repeat customers is with email marketing. This works especially well with ecommerce website, because people are used to provide their email address when shopping online. The trick to email marketing for ecommerce is to make it more worthwhile than it is irritating.
Use it to tell customers about sales, about new products, and to even offer discounts that are unique to people on your mailing list. Email marketing is a fantastic way to stop customers from forgetting about your business. If they’re thinking about buying something, an email is a great way to encourage someone to take the next step.
Great Customer Service
One of the most important marketing tools for repeat customers isn’t really a marketing tool. But it does encourage people to keep coming back.
As mentioned above, people aren’t just buying a product. They’re also buying an experience. Customer service can help elevate a great product and, even if people weren’t completely happy with their product initially, customer service can prevent a potential customer loss.
Customer service is all about providing that experience. So it’s making sure the product arrives quickly and that it’s presented nicely. It’s asking follow-up questions to make sure the customer is happy with the product. And, if someone does have concerns or questions, it’s making sure that they can get their questions answered in a satisfying and timely way.