5 retention marketing strategies that will help you retain customers

Looking for the bigger picture? Retention marketing is part of e-commerce marketing.

What is retention marketing?

Retention marketing is the building of a long-term relationship with your existing customers in your webshop. This should be an integral part of your online marketing strategy. After all, keeping customers is just as important as getting them. You do your best to find customers: targeting Facebook, Instagram, Google, you name it. And finally there is a bright spot: your new customer has arrived! That took some effort, which you gladly made up for. It would be a shame if your customer makes the first purchase with you and the second purchase with your competitor. You have spent so much time bringing in your customer in the first place. That is why it is important to use retention marketing. You are not only building a customer relationship, you are also building customer loyalty and the credibility of your web shop.

The benefits of retention marketing

The focus of retention marketing should be to actually keep your existing customers. This is great for your customer base, but for many more things! Below are several advantages of engaging in retention marketing.

• Lower costs: Retention marketing is many times cheaper than acquisition marketing
• Greater reach: Loyal customers are more likely to like your social media posts or open your emails, for example. Therefore, the network of your existing customer also sees your posts.
• Increased sales: Research shows that a 5% increase in customer retention leads to a 125% increase in sales.
• Increase in conversion: You have a higher chance of selling to existing customers than to new customers.
• Higher spend per purchase: Bigcommerce has studied that 10% of your most loyal customers spend three times more per purchase than the other 90% of your customers.

Are you already over the line to turn your ordinary customers into real 'loyal customers'? We are!

How do you calculate your customer retention?

When calculating the customer retention rate or CRR, you need three values:

1. Number of customers at the beginning of the period (Inception)
2. Number of new customers in the period (New)
3. Number of customers at the end of the period (End)

With these three values, the customer retention can be calculated:

CRR = ((end - new) / start) x 100%.

With this formula you can always find out what percentage of your customers came back.

Retention strategies

There are several retention strategies you can use to keep your customers. We cannot say that one works better than the other. It depends on the kind of shop and the kind of customers you have. To start with retention, you need a good system that collects contact details. At Reloadify, we collect customer data that matters. Think about the customer name, email address, purchase history, most viewed categories, average order turnover (per customer), place of residence, number of orders, page views and you name it. This data comes from your webshop and is automatically transferred to Reloadify. Profile enrichment is an important point in your retention strategy. The more you know about your customer, the more targeted your marketing can be.

1. Retention strategy: Reward loyalty

There is nothing nicer for your customer than to be appreciated. You value your customers like no other. But does your customer know that too? Consider a loyalty programme in the form of savings programmes or membership discounts. With a loyalty programme, customers are rewarded if they regularly buy something from your webshop. In this way, you make your customers feel special and they are more likely to remain loyal to your webshop. You can think of what your customers can save for. Be creative! This can be free products or discounts. Or, for example, an early bird ticket to an exclusive sale. We all like it when you get something extra when you buy something, don't we? A loyalty programme increases the customer lifetime value and ensures that the customer spends more with you in the future.

2. Retention strategy: cross-selling

Many marketers sometimes forget that they have plenty of data. Use the data you have in a smart way. In Reloadify, you can see what your customers ordered and when. The order history is easy to see. Analyse it every now and then, so you know which products were bought in which timeframe. By setting up automated emails, you can respond to your customer's purchase history by showing a relevant or similar product offer. An example: your customer has bought shampoo of brand A several times. After purchasing this shampoo brand, your customer receives an automated e-mail containing conditioner of brand A and a hair mask of brand A. With these cross-selling e-mails, you persuade customers to make another purchase from you, because you use the recent customer data and respond accordingly.

3. Retention strategy: Find touchpoints to approach your customer

For marketers, it is a challenge to approach the right customer at the right time. Therefore, develop a plan with touchpoints (contact moments) where you can make contact with your customer. These touchpoints can be about anything: the latest purchase, a new product release, a birthday, a win-back campaign or a reminder for an abandoned shopping cart. Work out this flow and create marketing automation emails around it. This way, you will not miss a single contact moment with your customer and it will also be very personal for your customer.

4. Retention strategy: Create content your customer is looking for

Content is king. Especially now, content is extremely important. Because what do you really want to tell your customer? By sharing content with your customers, you involve your customers in your company. Think about customer loyalty or the use of the product itself. When your customer has bought hair dye, then it is nice to share a how-to video on how your customer can best dye his hair at home. Or... even better: write a nice blog about it. Customers know how to find you for the product, but also for additional information about it. Or... offer cross-selling and up-selling articles, so that you think along with your customer about which products they still need. That's serving your customers!

Do you offer a service to your customers? Then it is nice to tell something about the service with, for example, a white paper. It is also common knowledge that customers like a look behind the scenes. Because who are they dealing with? A web shop can seem very anonymous. Create fun content on your social media channels about who you are and what you do. Give the shop a face. This is how you ultimately build a community.

5. Retention strategy: Personal approach

Wanting to retain your customers is one thing. Addressing them personally is what they want. After all, you are building a relationship with your customer. You don't call your best friend 'friend', you call him by his first name. Your customers are people and require a human approach. A large proportion of purchase decisions are made on the basis of emotion. Give your customers the idea that they really matter. You can do this by addressing them by their first name and by responding to their emotions. It is possible to use the first name in the e-mail itself, but also in the subject line of the e-mail. Has your client not placed an order in a while? Make it clear in your email that you are sorry, for example by starting like this:

Hello first name,

You haven't shopped with me in a while. To be honest: I miss you!

In this way, you use a personal touch and play on emotions. This emotional connection with the customer makes the customer feel connected to your company.

So with e-mail marketing, you should definitely plan for retention marketing to keep your current customers happy. Of course, acquisition marketing is important too. So make a healthy balance here. Which strategy will you use?