How to plan a customer retention strategy – Part 2

In part 1 of our how to plan a customer retention strategy, we looked at reducing lost or inactive customers, great customer service and staying true to your company ethos by being transparent and consistent.

In part 2 we will look in more detail about some of the top things your business can do to increase customer retention and loyalty, and why they are so important to a good overall marketing strategy.

Company Blogs

Company blogs are an important tool for businesses as they can aid customer retention, attract visitors to the website and provide useful information which can be shared through users’ social media platforms.

Driving traffic to your website

Every blog post that is published is one more page that the search engines index, meaning it is another opportunity for your business to drive traffic to your website through organic search. It also shows the search engines that your website is active even if the internal pages on your website do not change that often; this also spurs the search engines to check your website more often to find new content and helps in the ranking process.

Creating good and unique articles on your blog also provides users with content they can share on social media. This can also help to expose your company to a new audience, remind existing customers about your brand and it’s also a good way of bolstering your company social media posts by tying them in with the content.

Converting traffic into leads

While blogs are great for generating traffic to your website, you still want to convert this traffic into leads, and blog posts give you the opportunity to do just that.

By adding call-to-action (CTA) buttons on your published posts, you can extend the life of the content while generating leads and brand awareness at the same time. Typical CTAs include things like free ebooks, free trials and free guides to provide visitors with more information on a product or service, but can also include links to product pages, social buttons to share or follow and email subscriptions.

Call to action buttons are a great way of generating interest, shares and leads for your business, and are a cost effective way of getting people that are interested in your products or services to sign up to your mailing lists that you can utilise for your advertising strategies.

Loyalty Programs

Loyalty programs encourage your customers to continue to use your services and make frequent purchases. Some of the strategies that you could use include giving existing customers exclusive access to new services and products before the general public, special discount codes or even free delivery on orders.

Loyalty programs reward customers for their brand loyalty, making them feel like a valued customer while at the same time giving the company an array of consumer information into what types of products/services are most popular, which are purchased together and whether certain discount codes work better than others.

When loyalty programs are used efficiently, it can create true brand loyalty and an unofficial brand ambassador who will spread the word about how good your company is.

Questionnaires and Surveys

You may be under the impression that your customers love your products and services and will never choose another company, but they are susceptible to offers from someone else. As mentioned above, loyalty programs are a great way of keeping existing customers engaged with your company, but learning about what your customers want is one of the most powerful tools a business can have to aid customer retention.

Questionnaires and surveys are a great way of generating customer information, meaning that you can tweak your strategies to make sure customers stay with your brand and that new customers will become brand loyal.

Sending out surveys to existing customers serves to find out information on the things you are doing right, customer wishes and wants, and what you are doing wrong so that you can fix them. They can also be useful for new product launches, to measure the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns and give you information on your customer service.

If you find any recurring problems, for example with a certain product or service, or with your customer service team, fix these problems as soon as possible, as these could be the root cause of why people are leaving you for someone else.

Utilising the three cost effective strategies above, you can generate more traffic and interest, help your SEO progress by adding more content to your website, increase you customer loyalty and identify potential problems and fix them.