Customer Retention Is King: The Future Of Retention Marketing.
Customer retention has traditionally ranked low as a business priority: as recently as 2012, marketers ranked “driving sales” as their highest concern while “engaging customers” and “building customer loyalty” tied for last place. This is despite clear evidence that existing customers are more valuable than new customers.
The future of Retention Marketing requires action on a larger scale. For long-term success, companies must commit to a new way of thinking that must be implemented from the top down. This commitment can be broken down into three components:
1. Redefine How Customer Value is Measured.
Successful marketing campaigns have high, measurable return on investment (ROI). Acquisition results are easy to measure – sales versus spend – which means a fast, easily visible ROI. Marketing campaigns are then built around driving those numbers at all costs, often by adding discounts and other tactics that eat away at profit margins.
2. Understand and Champion the Need for Data-Driven Technology.
The key to keeping customers engaged, thereby increasing their lifetime value, boils down to an individually tailored customer experience. Providing tailored offers and messaging elevates the customer’s entire shopping experience, which translates into goodwill toward your brand. A decade ago, this level of personalization on a large scale was impossible, but today companies have the technology to accomplish true one-to-one communication with millions of customers.
3. Execute a “Hard Reset” and Restructure from the Top Down.
If the previous components are changes in perspective, the final step is acting on those changes. Companies must execute a “hard reset” on how they define business profitability: Retention Marketing should be on par with, if not ranked above, acquisition efforts.