How to Reduce Churn Rate: 12 Best Customer Retention Strategies
Jul 25, 2023
10 min read
Running a successful business can often feel like trying to fill a leaky container. No matter how many customers you attract, there always seems to be a percentage that slips away. This phenomenon is known as customer churn, and it poses a significant challenge to sustainable growth for brands. The rate at which customers leave your business is closely tied to their satisfaction levels. If your customers are unhappy with their experience, your churn rate is likely to increase. However, by taking the time to understand the underlying causes of customer churn, you can implement effective strategies to reduce it.
In this article, we will define customer churn and explore in-depth the various factors that contribute to it. Furthermore, we will provide you with five actionable tips and customer retention strategies that can help you reduce churn and create a loyal customer base. By implementing these strategies, you can create a positive customer experience, improve satisfaction levels, and ultimately drive the long-term success of your business.
What is Customer Churn?
Customer churn, also referred to as customer attrition, is a critical metric that measures the number of customers who discontinue using a product or service within a specific timeframe. This churn rate is expressed as a percentage of the total customer base and is a key concern for businesses in the technology sector.
In the tech industry, customer churn can manifest in various ways depending on the business model. For subscription-based companies, it signifies customers who have chosen to terminate their subscriptions. Alternatively, for tech retailers, a customer may be considered "lost" if they haven't made a repeat purchase within a defined period.
High customer churn rates pose a significant challenge for brands and technology companies as they directly impact revenue. Understanding the underlying causes of customer churn and identifying at-risk customers is crucial in reducing churn and maximizing customer lifetime value.
What is Customer Churn Rate?
Calculating your churn rate is a crucial step in understanding customer attrition and its impact on your business. To determine your churn rate, you can use a simple formula:
Churn Rate = (Number of customers lost / Total number of customers at the start of the time frame) x 100
Let's consider an example to illustrate this calculation. Suppose you begin a month with 1,000 customers, and over the course of that month, you lose 250 customers. To calculate your churn rate for that month, you would divide the number of lost customers (250) by the total number of customers at the start of the time frame (1,000), and then multiply the result by 100.
Using the churn rate formula:
Churn Rate = (250 / 1,000) x 100
Churn Rate = 0.25 x 100
Churn Rate = 25%
In this example, your churn rate for the month would be 25%, indicating that 25% of your customer base discontinued their relationship with your business during that period.
What is Customer Retention Rate?
Customer retention rate can be described as the percentage of existing customers who remain loyal to the brand/service/product past a certain time frame.
Knowing your customer retention rate is certainly useful as it helps you to understand what keeps the customers coming back to your company better. Not only that, but it also can bring in opportunities that can help you improve customer service.
It helps you understand what works and what doesn’t. Once you have a grasp on the concept of how efficiently or poorly your company is able to retain its customers, you can plan to increase your CRR.
What is a Good Churn Rate and Why Does it Matter?
A churn rate is the percentage of customers who stop doing business with a company over a period of time. A good churn rate will vary depending on the industry and the business model, but a 5% churn rate is generally considered to be a good target.
There are a number of reasons why customer churn matters. First, it can be expensive to acquire new customers. The cost of acquiring a new customer is typically 5 times more than the cost of retaining an existing customer. So, if you have a high churn rate, you are constantly spending money to acquire new customers, which can eat into your profits.
Second, in DTC marketing, customer churn can indicate that there is a problem with your product or service. If customers are leaving your business, it is important to understand why they are leaving so that you can address the issue.
Third, customer churn can lead to a loss of revenue. If you have a high churn rate, you will be losing out on repeat business from your existing customers. This can have a significant impact on your bottom line. Here are some additional points to consider:
- A high churn rate can be indicative of poor customer service. If customers are leaving your business because they are unhappy with your customer service, you need to take steps to improve your service.
- Returning customers are your most valuable source of revenue. Once a customer has made a purchase, the chance of them returning to your store increases significantly. So, it is important to focus on retaining your existing customers.
- Reducing customer churn by even a couple of percentage points can translate to massive revenue gains for your business. So, it is worth investing in strategies to reduce your churn rate.
Why Does Churn Happen?
There are many reasons why customers churn, but some of the most common include:
- Price: If your product or service is more expensive than a customer is willing to pay, they're likely to look for a cheaper alternative. This is especially true if the customer has experienced a "price shock" after signing up for a subscription plan at a significant discount and then seeing the price increase to its regular rate.
- Poor onboarding process: Subscription and SaaS companies need to make it easy for customers to get started and understand how to use their products or services. If the onboarding process is too complicated or confusing, customers are more likely to churn.
- Lack of engagement with complaints/customer feedback:Customers want to feel like their feedback is valued and that their concerns are being addressed. If you don't respond to customer complaints or feedback, they're likely to take their business elsewhere.
- Poor customer service: Poor customer service is a major turn-off for many customers. If your customer support team is unresponsive or unable to resolve issues promptly, customers are more likely to churn.
Strategies to Improve Your Churn Rate
- Listen to Your Customers: Focus your efforts on retaining the customers who are most profitable for your business. Identify your most profitable customers, track their usage and engagement, reach out to them regularly to offer support and discounts, and make sure they're satisfied with your product or service.
- Proactive Communication: Reach out to your customers before they need you, and provide them with resources and support to help them get the most out of your product or service. Send welcome emails and onboarding materials to new customers, share product updates and new features with existing customers, ask for feedback regularly, and respond to customer inquiries promptly.
- Roadmap For New Customers: Help new customers get started with your product or service by providing them with a clear roadmap of features and functionality. Create a clear and concise onboarding process, provide step-by-step instructions for using your product or service, and offer resources and support to help new customers get started.
- Offer Incentives: Give customers a reason to stick around by offering them discounts, promotions, or loyalty programs. Offer discounts, promotions, or loyalty programs to encourage customers to stay, give customers a reason to renew their subscriptions, and reward customers for their loyalty.
- Feedback: Collect feedback from your customers early and often to identify and address any issues that may lead to churn. Send surveys to customers to get their feedback, set up a feedback forum or chatroom, and ask customers for their thoughts on new features or products.
- Churn Analysis: Use data from churned customers to identify the signs of customer dissatisfaction so you can prevent churn from happening in the future. Track customer churn rates, identify the reasons why customers are churning, and take steps to address the issues that are causing churn.
- Maintain the Competitive Streak: Keep your product or service up-to-date with the latest trends and technologies to ensure that your customers are satisfied with their experience. Keep your product or service up-to-date with the latest trends and technologies, offer features that your competitors don't have, and make sure your customer service is top-notch.
- Customer Service: Empower your customer service team to solve problems and make things right for customers, even if it means spending money to do so. Be responsive to customer inquiries, solve problems quickly and efficiently, and go the extra mile to make customers happy.
- Community: Build a community around your product or service to create a sense of loyalty and belonging among your customers. Create a forum or online community for your customers, host events and meetups for your customers, and share customer stories and testimonials.
- Dedicate customer success managers (CSMs): Provide your most valuable customers with dedicated CSMs who can help them get the most out of your product or service. Assign CSMs to your most valuable customers, provide CSMs with the resources they need to help customers succeed, and track customer satisfaction with CSMs.
- Focus on the right customers Make sure you're attracting the right type of customers who are a good fit for your product or service. Define your target customer persona, market your product or service to the right people, and make sure your product or service is a good fit for your target market.
- Long-Term Plans Offer long-term subscription options or extended access to your product or service to give customers a reason to stay. Offer long-term subscription options, give customers extended access to your product or service, and provide incentives for customers to renew their subscriptions.
In Conclusion
Customer churn is a costly problem for businesses of all sizes. By following the tips in this article, you can reduce your churn rate and improve customer retention. Focus on creating a great customer experience. This means providing excellent customer service, listening to customer feedback, and staying up-to-date with the latest trends and technologies. Identify your most valuable customers and focus your retention efforts on them. These are the customers who are most likely to spend money with you and refer other customers to you. Use data to track your churn rate and identify the reasons why customers are churning. This will help you to target your retention efforts more effectively.
Saffron Edge can help you to reduce your churn rate and improve customer retention. We offer a variety of services, including customer surveys, customer feedback analysis, and churn prevention strategies. To learn more about how Saffron Edge can help you, visit our website or contact us today.
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Guidelines for DTC Marketing for Fashion Brands
Whether or not you are mindful of it, fashion engulfs all of us in varying degrees. We are constantly involved in the consumerism that fashion and the subsequent lifestyle bring. However, that doesn’t mean that we know what goes on at the other end. Fashion Marketing is an art in itself, a delicate dance that blends aesthetics and strategy. It goes beyond simply showcasing beautiful garments and accessories; it is about crafting captivating narratives, building connections, and capturing the hearts and minds of fashion enthusiasts worldwide. But navigating the intricate realm of fashion marketing can be a daunting task; as for its landscape, change is the only constant. It demands constant adaptation and innovation. In this article, we embark on a journey through the realm of fashion marketing, unraveling its mysteries, and uncovering the secrets to achieving prominence in this ever-changing industry. We will delve into the subtleties of what to do and what not to do in fashion marketing, unveiling the strategies that can elevate your brand to new heights while avoiding the pitfalls that can lead to obscurity. Drawing inspiration from real-life fashion marketing examples, we will unveil the tried-and-true tactics that will set you apart from the crowd, ensuring your brand shines like a beacon of style and allure. What is Fashion Marketing? When it comes to fashion marketing, a delicate balance needs to be struck between artistic expression and strategic prowess. It sits at the nexus of advertising and promotion, where fashion is showcased and connected with the right audience through various channels, both traditional and digital. Fashion marketing extends far beyond clothing alone. And these elements form the tapestry of personal fashion narratives, enabling individuals to make a statement and connect with others through their chosen aesthetic. Within this realm, where aesthetics meet analytics, where artistry meets algorithm, fashion marketers deftly navigate a world of high-end language and technological jargon, weaving a narrative that will connect with the people. Since the subject matter itself is so varied and vast, the strategies need to be reflective of that. What Makes Fashion Marketing So Different? DTC Marketing for Fashion brands encompasses both practical considerations and deeper motivations that influence consumer choices. While the primary function of clothing is to provide protection, fashion marketing goes beyond this by guiding individuals on what to wear. It addresses the obvious pain point of our need for clothes. However, fashion marketing delves into the underlying reasons behind our fashion choices. It recognizes that style is not merely about shielding our bodies from the elements, but also about participating in a community and expressing our individuality. Brands have the opportunity to tell compelling stories that resonate with consumers through their marketing campaigns. In addition to understanding consumer pain points and motivations, fashion marketers must navigate seasonal changes and identify optimal purchasing periods for each season. They must also stay ahead of style trends while offering practical options to cater to diverse consumer needs. Price points pose a challenge as well, ranging from affordable and economical to high-end and luxurious. While luxury marketing provides valuable insights, it is essential to recognize that fashion marketing encompasses a broader and more inclusive market. By considering these factors and employing effective strategies, fashion marketers can successfully engage with their target audience and drive sales. What are the Current Trends? Let’s look at some of our favorite campaigns in recent times to help you better understand how the industry works when it goes digital. Ted Baker: The brand implemented an innovative approach to their marketing efforts by creating an interactive catalog or lookbook through a 360-degree film experience. This unique video features a midcentury family in various vignette scenes set within their home and neighborhood. The deliberate minimalism of the scenes effectively emphasizes the clothing showcased. Complementing this, a series of commercial-style videos were released under the hashtag #MeetTheBakers . This creative strategy allowed Ted Baker to engage with their audience and highlight their clothing line's versatility in every day or aspirational settings. While Ted Baker's production was undoubtedly well-funded, the concept of utilizing videos to showcase clothing can be applied by anyone, regardless of budget constraints. By featuring the whole family, such videos provide an opportunity to demonstrate how the garments can be worn by different individuals and integrated into various aspects of life. Whether portraying everyday scenarios or creating fantasy narratives, videos offer a powerful medium to effectively communicate the style and utility of fashion items. DKNY: Th brand effectively harnessed the influence of hashtags and the distinctiveness of its brand name in its #DKNYStateofMind campaign. This hashtag gained significant traction among influencers, bloggers, and content creators. Alongside the campaign, DKNY introduced a new line, complemented by visually compelling graphics that highlighted the letters D, K, N, and Y. This strategic approach allowed DKNY to showcase its clothing and convey its brand identity and message. By leveraging the power of hashtags, DKNY successfully engaged with its target audience and fostered a sense of community and excitement around its brand. The campaign's graphical messages served as both inspirational and promotional elements, effectively capturing the essence of DKNY's brand identity. Through this cohesive strategy, DKNY demonstrated its commitment to its unique fashion aesthetic and conveyed its brand message to consumers in a visually compelling and memorable way. Nike: Fashion marketing can extend beyond merely selling garments and encompass broader causes or philosophies. Sometimes, advertisements adopt this approach, focusing on aspirations that are inherently connected to fashion. The clothing we choose to wear serves as a means of conveying a message or aligning ourselves with certain ideals.Nike, renowned for its memorable ad campaigns, exemplifies this approach. From the iconic "Just Do It" slogan to the impactful Colin Kaepernick "Believe in Something" campaign, their marketing efforts go beyond showcasing products. These campaigns spark conversations and generate significant attention. By taking a stance on social issues and building campaigns around them, fashion brands can align themselves with specific ambitions or ways of thinking. This can, in turn, persuade consumers to purchase and wear their products, associating themselves with the brand's mission.Such fashion marketing strategies demonstrate the power of aligning with a cause or philosophy to create a deeper connection with consumers. By effectively communicating their values, fashion brands can inspire individuals to buy their products and embrace the brand's mission as their own. What are its Types? Print Marketing: Despite being one of the oldest forms of fashion marketing, print advertising is still relevant in promoting clothing brands. However, its application in the fashion industry differs from other sectors as its primary objective is not immediate sales conversion. Instead, print advertising serves to establish and enhance brand awareness. Within the fashion industry, print advertising plays a crucial role in creating a distinctive brand image, conveying the brand's values, refining its messaging, and crafting its unique story. While the ultimate goal is to drive sales, the approach adopted in print advertising is more subtle and focused on influencing consumers subconsciously.Rather than bombarding individuals with explicit deals and promotions, print ads subtly shape consumers' perceptions and preferences. For instance, by consistently exposing them to a brand's line of products, such as hoodies, the brand establishes a subconscious connection. Consequently, when the weather turns cold, and individuals seek warmth, they are more likely to consider the brand as a viable option instinctively. In this manner, print advertising in the fashion industry cultivates a sense of familiarity and association, making the brand top-of-mind when relevant needs or occasions arise. By leveraging the power of print media, fashion marketers can successfully influence consumer choices and foster long-term brand loyalty. Online Marketing: Online marketing has emerged as a potent tool for fashion brands, aided by the increasing presence and influence of social media. It has become evident that e-commerce marketing holds significant value, with over 80% of fashion marketers acknowledging its thriving nature.Online marketing encompasses various forms of advertisements, each serving a distinct purpose. Among them, "pay-per-click"(PPC) marketing stands out as one of the most popular and effective approaches.PPC advertising enables companies to target their desired demographic more precisely, resulting in cost savings and greater impact. By leveraging this strategy, fashion brands can optimize their marketing budget by reaching the right audience with tailored messages. The inherent targeting capabilities of PPC advertising allow for a more efficient allocation of resources, ensuring that marketing efforts resonate with the intended recipients.With its ability to enhance visibility, engagement, and conversions, PPC marketing has become a preferred choice for fashion brands seeking to maximize their online presence and drive sales. By embracing this type of online advertising, fashion marketers can capitalize on the digital landscape's vast potential and effectively connect with their target audience. Influencer Marketing: Influencer marketing, a strategy that leverages the internet and the growing influence of social media, has become increasingly prevalent in the fashion industry. Fashion brands recognize the power held by influencers and utilize it to their advantage.Fashion influencers hold a unique advantage in that they are trusted by their followers. When these influencers recommend a brand, the likelihood of increased sales is significantly higher compared to traditional marketing channels. This has led 89% of marketers to affirm that influencer marketing provides equal or superior return on investment (ROI) compared to other marketing methods.Fashion holds a significant role in shaping people's identities, making influencer endorsements particularly impactful. If individuals see someone they admire promoting and wearing a specific brand, they are inclined to desire the outfit for themselves. Newsjacking Marketing: Newsjacking refers to a marketing technique where brands leverage popular and trending topics to attract a larger audience and enhance customer engagement. Fashion brands have the potential to take this strategy even further by delving into the realms of politics and cultural movements.By incorporating political slogans on clothes or releasing clothing lines that align with cultural relevance, fashion brands can generate increased visibility and brand recognition. This approach allows brands to establish a sense of authenticity and human connection with their audience.Consumers seek brands that understand and relate to their concerns, and that can either address societal issues or playfully mock cultural phenomena.The effectiveness of newsjacking lies in its ability to capture the attention of individuals who may not have previously noticed the brand. Moreover, it strengthens the brand's image and resonates with consumers, as they appreciate brands that have a clear identity and values. The Do’s of Fashion Marketing Branding: Successful fashion industry names have achieved their status by maintaining a consistent and recognizable look throughout the years. Brands like Nike, Ralph Lauren, and Victoria's Secret serve as prime examples of this approach. Their distinct and cohesive brand image extends beyond social media accounts to encompass clothing lines and print advertisements, resulting in lasting memorability. So much so that they have become integral to pop culture itself.Branding holds exceptional significance, surpassing many other sectors. Fashion marketing revolves around creating a desire in individuals to be at their best, to embrace the most fashionable brands, and to possess stylish clothing.Without a clear and confident branding strategy, it becomes challenging to evoke such emotions in potential customers. Branding is pivotal in establishing value and resonance with the target market. Every aspect of branding must harmoniously contribute to reinforcing the brand identity. Central to this process is understanding and embracing the values that matter to both the brand and its target audience. By aligning with these shared values, a meaningful connection can be forged with customers. Social Media and Influencers: Social media marketing for fashion brands shares similarities with print advertising. Its primary objective is not immediate sales but rather to enhance the brand's reputation and increase overall awareness. Utilizing social media platforms, such as Instagram, offers various strategies to achieve these goals. One effective approach is leveraging Instagram stories, which provide opportunities to share sneak peeks of new trends, behind-the-scenes footage, and glimpses into the company's culture and values.Influencer marketing, on the other hand, represents a more traditional marketing strategy for fashion brands. It aims to drive direct and measurable sales through collaborations with influential individuals who promote the brand's products. Additionally, influencer marketing serves as a powerful tool for spreading brand awareness. The growth of influencer marketing has facilitated the identification of verified influencers, and there are now excellent influencer marketplaces and platforms available. Alternatively, fashion brands can enlist the services of dedicated influencer marketing agencies to handle the entire process on their behalf. Partnership Marketing: Once a fashion brand has established its branding, it becomes essential to seek partnerships with other brands. These partnerships can either be within the fashion industry or with companies outside the industry. Collaborating with another fashion brand involves jointly developing a product that reflects the distinctive characteristics of both brands. By doing so, the brands can tap into each other's customer base, reaching a demographic that might have remained untapped otherwise. Alternatively, partnering with a brand or company from a different industry aims to benefit and attract customers from both brand's consumer bases. Such partnerships often involve offering discounts and deals across both companies, incentivizing consumers to engage with and purchase products or services from both brands. To establish effective marketing partnerships, engaging an expert partner marketing agency proves beneficial. These agencies possess the expertise to identify and connect fashion brands with suitable strategic partners aligned with their partnership marketing goals. The Don'ts of Fashion Marketing: Ignoring Audience Segmentation and Targeting A common mistake in marketing is attempting to appeal to everyone. However, this approach often leads to failure as it dilutes the brand's message and confuses potential customers. While it may seem logical to promote products with a broad audience in mind, the opposite effect occurs. Inconsistency in promotional content can frustrate visitors and deter them from following or engaging with the brand. When a brand promotes various offerings that are not aligned, it becomes challenging for individuals to anticipate what to expect. Consequently, they may lose interest and choose not to follow along anymore. Instead, a more effective strategy is to focus on a specific target audience. By identifying the ideal customer and tailoring the brand's promotion to their specific needs and interests, a deeper connection can be established. This approach may repel individuals who do not align with the brand, but that should be seen as a positive outcome. If someone is not a good fit for the brand, they are unlikely to make a purchase anyway. By being highly specific in marketing efforts, a brand can forge stronger connections with potential customers. This focused approach not only helps attract customers initially but also fosters loyalty, encouraging them to remain engaged and return for future purchases. Unilateral focus: Another common mistake in marketing is relying too heavily on social media platforms. While social media can be a valuable tool, it should not be solely relied upon for driving conversions. Research, such as a recent Forbes report, indicates that the conversion rate on platforms like Instagram is relatively low, with only around 3.1% of people becoming buyers. This statistic highlights the need for a more comprehensive marketing approach.Customers typically require multiple touchpoints with a brand before they transition from initial awareness to becoming a customer. Merely posting aesthetically pleasing pictures on social media is not sufficient. To increase the likelihood of converting potential customers into buyers, a well-rounded marketing strategy is essential.One effective approach is to create a sales journey, also referred to as a sales funnel or marketing funnel. This strategy involves systematically guiding potential customers through various stages of interaction with the brand. It aims to build trust and engagement, gradually nurturing individuals from their initial encounter with the brand, such as on social media, to more involved interactions.For example, a potential customer may initially discover the brand on social media, then proceed to visit the brand's blog, sign up for the email list, and eventually become a loyal customer. This comprehensive approach allows for multiple touchpoints and opportunities for the brand to create a deeper connection with the customer. Rather than solely focusing on social media, implementing a well-planned sales journey ensures a more holistic marketing strategy. By strategically guiding potential customers through various brand interactions, trust is built, engagement is fostered, and the chances of conversion are increased. Therefore, it is crucial to develop a comprehensive marketing strategy that goes beyond posting on social media platforms alone. Sleeping on Email Marketing: Stop neglecting to build your email lists! Despite the increasing complexity of email marketing in recent years, it remains a highly effective method of reaching your audience. Unlike platforms such as Facebook or Google, where algorithms limit the reach of your content, email marketing gives you more control. You determine who receives your emails and can employ catchy subject headings to increase open rates.Moreover, most people check their email regularly, providing multiple opportunities for them to see your message. In contrast, social media algorithms may prevent your posts from reaching all of your followers. Therefore, focusing on growing your email list is essential.Even if you don't have a business yet, it is crucial to start building your email list early on for email marketing. Launching a business without an audience to sell to can hinder your success. An email list should be one of your top priorities as it offers higher conversion rates compared to many other marketing methods. With email marketing, you have greater control over communication and can ensure your messages reach a larger portion of your target audience. Skipping Automation: Without proper automation systems in place, marketing efforts can become a time-consuming task, especially for small businesses or startups with limited budgets. It's crucial to establish processes that automate various aspects of marketing to save time and resources. Implementing scheduling tools, automation software, and task bundling can significantly streamline marketing activities. For instance, using scheduling tools allows you to plan and schedule social media posts in advance, ensuring consistent and timely content delivery without the need for constant manual intervention. This approach not only saves time but also promotes consistency in your marketing efforts. By automating marketing tasks, you free up valuable time to focus on other important aspects of your business, such as product development and customer service. It enables you to strike a balance between marketing responsibilities and other operational areas. Additionally, automation helps ensure that marketing activities remain consistent and on schedule, even when you're not actively engaged in them.To optimize efficiency and maintain a healthy work-life balance, it's recommended to upload content in bulk and schedule it for release according to a predetermined plan. This approach eliminates the need for constant daily involvement in marketing activities, allowing you to enjoy your personal time without being consumed by marketing-related tasks.Saffron's Work ...
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10 Ways to Build a Strong Emotional Connection with Your Customers!
Building strong emotional relations with customers is a must to make them loyal customers and maintain sustainable revenue. But doing so requires a lot of effort. However, when you correctly approach, it will be like a left-hand game for you. Here's how you can do this. The UK-based Institute of Practitioners in Advertising looked at almost 1,400 case studies of successful advertising initiatives. They concluded that emotional appeals were more effective than logical ones. In other words, brands do well when buyers feel an emotional connection to them. A major obstacle for many brands is learning to successfully create these emotional connections in their marketing efforts, not just in their campaigns. An emotional connection is a potent tool, but only if it is genuine and authentic. It can go badly when clients sense insincerity or efforts fall short of expectations. When consumers feel that a company is trying too hard to impress them, they tend to turn away. Making authentic, long-lasting connections with your clients is the key to success. Building and keeping these relationships is crucial to succeeding in today's market, where consumers have many options and fierce competition. Why Is It Crucial to Create an Emotional Connection with Your Clientele? Relationship-building with customers is crucial due to its many benefits ranging from an increase in leads to a rise in customer loyalty. Here are the three most important reasons why you should focus on fostering positive relationships with your customers. Increase the Customer's Lifetime Value (CLV) The lifetime value offered to customers grows in direct proportion to the time they remain a customer. If your CLV is high, that means more sales you can generate. You shouldn't skimp on connection building when it comes to customer retention. A Decrease in The Rate of Customers Leaving A recent study found that if a customer has a negative experience with a company, 61% of them will quit making future purchases. Great customer experiences are what keep consumers coming back. Customers won't leave your brand if you consistently meet or exceed their expectations. Improve Customer Loyalty It can be five times more expensive to attract a new customer than to keep an old one. The loyalty of your clientele depends on how well you stay in touch with them. Customers' experience can be improved by providing them with the excellent service they expect. When consumers have a good experience with your company, they will continue to spread the word about it. How to Make Emotional Connections with Customers? 1. Develop Your Sense of Empathy Do they value me as a customer? Does the company respect me as a person and a customer? Many customers attribute their loyalty to a business more directly to how these questions are answered than to the cost of individual purchases. If your frontline workers genuinely care about their customers, it will foster a strong relationship between you and your customers. You should train your team so that they can better build a bond with your customers. 2. Be Authentic Brands die when they become indistinguishable from other brands in the marketplace. The days of using ridiculous corporate jargon to sell products are long gone. Instead, customers nowadays want to feel a personal connection with a brand. The key to achieving this is to discover and subtly promote the things that set your business apart from the competition. Genuinely engaging with clients is the best approach to strike an emotional chord with them. When interacting with customers, it's important to be genuine. At the outset of the conversation, salespeople use to establish instant rapport with their customers by asking open-ended questions about the prospect's needs and interests. For instance, if you know where your client resides, you may mention the city and inquire about what drew them there. If you find out why a customer moved to a certain city, you may start a conversation about their family or favorite pastimes; this can help you connect with them on a more personal level. 3. Figure Out What Motivates Your Target Group Connecting on an emotional level with your audience can be fostered by honing in on their driving emotions. Many consumers, for instance, might like the idea of being treated as a special case. In this scenario, marketing activities should be particularly tailored to the individual client. 4. Recognize the Client When a hotel staff greets you upon your entrance, when a server anticipates your order, or when a stylist asks how your mother is doing, we know that the person serving us cares about us. In those times, they become more than just a vendor to us. They may become friends or only familiar faces. Encourage your employees who interact with customers to do the same. Certainly, in some fields, the requisite level of expertise is more difficult to acquire. A server at a local diner knows their regulars better than a customer care representative at a multinational software corporation. Nevertheless, it is possible to make an effort to link a customer's preferences and interests with their service history. This data allows you to show genuine interest in your customer. 5. Get in Touch as Often as You Can Always try to see things from the client's perspective when communicating with them. I mean, what really matters to them? In what ways will you be able to communicate with them in their "language"? Communicate with clients in person and online via channels such as social media. 6. Tell Stories When people learn about one another's backgrounds, they come closer. The same can be said of brands and the individuals who create them. That's why anecdotes are so effective in bridging gaps in knowledge and fostering understanding. People will relate to what you're selling and to you if you present it as a tale. The potential to write and share tales is all around us. Explain what happened to you first. You can connect with your target market by sharing tales about your company's origin, the people who work for you, and the goods or services you're most proud of. Include them in your online writings and on your website. Add some life to these tales with some high-quality visuals. In business, storytelling isn't limited to recounting the past. You can even tell stories in which your future consumers play starring roles. Tell them tales about how your products and services have helped others and how they can help your potential customers. Do not be shy about swapping out hypothetical situations. You can get them to care about your business and your products on a deeper level by appealing to their shared experiences. 7. A Dedicated CRM Can Help You Keep in Touch with Your Clients Customer relationship management, or CRM, is an approach to doing business that focuses on the needs of the company's clientele. Increasing revenue and attracting new consumers requires a thorough familiarity with your current clientele. With the help of customer relationship management software, you can keep track of your client's preferences about the products you offer, as well as their buying habits, geographic region, and even their age and gender. In order to better understand their preferences, requirements, and purchasing tendencies, you can use customer relationship management software to do so. The following are some of the ways in which your company can profit from implementing a customer relationship management system: Discover hidden information about your clientele Better categorize your clientele Try to guess what they want and need The rate at which customers return can be improved Improved speed of client interaction 8. Prioritize Customer Experience The quality of the customer's experience is crucial to the success of any strategy aimed at retaining existing customers. Having loyal customers, keeping existing ones, and getting word-of-mouth advertising are three of the most beneficial outcomes of establishing connections with customers. These strategies have an immediate and obvious effect on your company's bottom line. Loyal clients are worth more to your business since they are more likely to buy from you again and tell others about your company. When clients are content, they tend to stick with a company. Learn about your customers' experiences as they move through the various stages of your product's lifecycle. 9. Get Involved in Your Community Connecting with the community can bring in money, typically with less effort than standard advertising efforts, through collaboration with adjacent firms, membership in a local business association, and exchanging talents. 10. Engage in Social Media Customer Service Providing outstanding service is more important than ever because of customers' changing shopping habits. Customers who have had exceptional experiences with a business are more inclined to buy from that business again. If you give customers several ways to contact you, you can better handle their inquiries whenever they come up. Add features like real-time messaging, phone support, automated email responses, and human agents to your social media monitoring setup. Takeaway! Effective marketing relies heavily on appealing to consumers' feelings. The industry landscape would appear very different if consumers made rational purchasing judgments. The most successful businesses are those that successfully connect with their customers on an emotional level. Emotional marketing can be effective, but only if done properly. Brands need to empathize with their target market, provide solutions to their problems, tell stories in which their target market has an active role, demonstrate that they share their target market's values, and establish themselves as industry leaders to earn their audience's confidence. Lastly, everyone interacting with consumers needs to know how to build rapport with them and why it's important. In order to achieve this goal, it is necessary to provide the staff who interact with consumers regularly with the proper training and resources, as well as to get their support. You can contact our experts; we will help you develop a data-driven strategy so that you can align your content marketing to your customers' requirements. And make a bond with customers on an emotional level that can help you thrive in this fierce landscape. Contact us now! ...
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3 Most Productive Social Media Optimization Tips You Don't Know
Being a marketer, you must have heard this thing at least for once that “everybody is having their social media page, your company must also have one”. People do things just to follow the trend without having the idea whether it is going to benefit them or not, whether it is going to let you achieve your goals of joining that channel in the first place or not. Before joining the social media channels, a research and analysis is what works always- what we mean is that “knowing what everyone in your industry is doing on the social media channel”. An early research helps you know what’s working and what’s not- so you can develop your strategy without having to learn the hard way. In this regard, Software Advice, a social CRM research firm, shares their early findings from the Social Media content optimization survey, a study conducted by the company on how marketers are making their content visible to social media users. Social Media Optimization Tips You Probably Missed The above talked about survey listed 7 tips for optimizing social media content, but three of them stand out as being very important: using images, videos, or photos, using hashtags and usernames, and targeting specific groups or users who are most likely to respond to the kind of products or service that you sell. 1. Using Photos, Videos and Images As can be seen from the survey, using images and photos stands out as the best way to create engagement than with pictures. In blog posts, it has been reported that images were found to increase engagement by 94%. That is exactly double the engagement an article without images gets. Both Facebook and Google+ were designed by their developers to include high-quality images in their recommended best practices. For Facebook, you must use images that are at least 1200x630 pixels to generate great previews. Even Twitter has now included in-stream images. Well that’s that, but let’s have a look at why images and media are so important: People don’t spend much time reading content on social media, hence the information that is mostly conveyed with images, catches the eyeballs. But things in regards to images that you need to be careful about are that social content with images of people got fewer user engagement in terms of likes, share and comments than posts with no people or with just a part of person. A study conducted by Taggs revealed that when Facebook users encounter a brand image or post of a product, lifestyle, or landscape without a person or just a part of it(hands, for instance), the user is better able to project himself into the image. 2. Use Hashtags and Usernames A key to making your content visible to the public on social media, you need definitely need to use hashtags and usernames. Concept of hashtags is familiar to many people but it also depends on how relevantly they use it in context of their content. In Twitter and Google+, they are required as keywords that ensure your posts are found by anyone using those search terms. Hashtags also provide users a way to communicate with one another in real time, especially on Twitter. Start following a Hashtag and any posts tagged with that hashtag shows up in your stream. In Facebook however, hashtags are used to add depth and commentary to ordinary posts. Like this one: This is more obvious to state that there will hardly be anyone who searches for keywords like: ”illtakeit” or “itfits”. These are more like commentary by a person. But what about people who are not searching and you want them to see your posts? For that, there’s usernames. While using Facebook and Twitter, you can do this with an ”at” sign and the person’s user name. @ChristieMcgrath, for instance. This creates a tag to the user’s profile with that name. In Google+ you can do this by using a “plus” sign, like this: +ChristieMcgrath. This alerts Christie Mcgrath that content is being shared with her directly. This strategy helps in: Extending your reach Increasing your post engagement: likes, shares, comments and retweets and plus ones Introduce you to new people and spark a conversation with them. Probably get introduced to people in that person’s network. 3. Target Specific groups and users Building out your reach is easy but sometimes could be time consuming by using the above two methods. Sometimes, you can use tactics to boost your efforts for quicker results. This strategy comes with one warning that if you go too much overboard, you could become more of a stalker, which will do more harm than good. When you want to build a relationship with a person or brand, you need to pay attention to their social media streams. You need to make sure that these users can achieve their goals, then only they’ll be willing to talk with you. You can join in their groups and start communicating with people. But still we caution you that do not overdo this. You just need to like their posts, share them or retweet them time and again, and sometime you’ll be seen as a friend or a fan to them. Recommendations Use High quality images to increase engagement. Employ hashtags to get your content found. Use usernames to engage specific people. Build relationship with influencers and fans ...
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