What’s your primary marketing goal for 2010?
If you’re like 61% of the businesses in this study, the answer is “customer acquisition”. Notice where “customer retention” lands – 15.5%, just 0.5% ahead of “brand building”.
This raises an interesting challenge – on one hand, social media is enjoying budget increases so your business can speak with its customers. And on the other hand, your goals are still locked in the Old World thinking of customer acquisition is where it’s at.
Perhaps we should introduce the left hand to the right hand?
Instead of working at cross purposes, take a step back and rethink your priorities. After all, a sale is a sale – so if you can motivate a current customer to buy more, you still win. Plus, that additional sale costs you less than a new customer’s first purchase.
We’ve all seen the math, we know that most companies don’t break-even on customer acquisition until the 3rd or 4th purchase – so why not invest more time and effort in retaining customers?
I have been hired by companies that joked about how customers were retained “…despite our best efforts.” Delays on delivery and installation. Problems with invoices. No responses to email. No basic information available on the website so the customer could self-serve. No service staff to help the customer when they enter the store – or, worse yet, rude behavior combined with poor training which produces a terrible experience (hello, grocery deli department).
Think about how you can make that first purchase so incredible that the new customer tells others AND looks for ways to do business with you again. Make the most of every contact – think about what’s important to the customer and stop ignoring their personal/individual needs because it’s easier for you to create a ‘One Size Fits None’ weekly sales email instead of a 1:1 personalized/relevant communication.
Do you have a process for making that first purchase a WOW experience? Do you have a process for motivating additional sales – cross selling to other categories or up-selling to the top-of-the-line?
Get creative with your customers because they offer you highly profitable sales – directly and through referrals.
Recommended Read: Check out this post at Hubspot with Joseph Jaffe, author of Flip the Funnel.
