Smart brands need to understand how essential customer marketing is in competing in the engagement economy. That's why companies looking to create 'brand evangelists' need to rethink their marketing approach if they are to truly engage their customers.
In this context, it's important to rethink the concept of 'retention marketing'... you don't just want your customer to stay loyal and buy your products or services, you want them to trigger positive word-of-mouth that will generate new sales leads.
Your goal is to increase brand recognition, spread the word and improve your reputation through word of mouth... after all, people tend to trust more and more people who have already used a product or service ! Why not take advantage of this dynamic ?
Here's how.
Welcome your new customers and express your value proposition
Like everyone else, successful marketers want to make a great first impression on their customers (current and potential). To deliver an effective and positive onboarding experience to new customers, you need to be as clear as possible about what you offer, how you work, or what your product's features are :
What should new customers expect from you ?
What is your value proposition ?
How can they measure your reliability ?
How is the relationship managed ? Do you offer ongoing support ?
By answering these and a few other questions, you will be able to improve the transparency of your relationship with your new customers and lay the foundation for a truly lasting partnership. The key is to create a familiar and empathetic environment from the start, where the customer can feel a strong sense of belonging from the very first days after the first contact.
You can read more about the difference between customer marketing and product marketing.
Focus on your best customers
It's all about finding the right tone to effectively promote your value proposition and what you have to say. The most loyal and social media savvy users will promote your marketing campaigns as if it were a game to them. Start targeting them now.
With them, you can build excitement around your brand, including influencers who could attract the attention of new followers.
To encourage engagement within your target user groups, it is useful to segment your customers by level of engagement, spending habits, geographic region, etc. Segmenting users by certain characteristics will allow you to undertake various personalised activities such as : special offers, follow-up and educational content tailored to their specific target audience.
This step is perfect for both marketing strategies with existing customers and attracting new customers through conversion actions. Once the customer is satisfied with your product and, therefore, your business, you can start thinking about selling other products and services.
Stay on top of things
Now we enter the heart of the relationship, what we call customer retention. The objective of this phase is actually to maintain a working relationship with customers : identify a plan and create quality content to share with the group segmented above. In addition, you need to identify the most appropriate time of day to share content for each segment : people have different commitments and habits and respecting them will help you achieve better results.
One way to get to the top of the list would be to use influencer marketing tactics, pushing your already acquired customers to become brand ambassadors. Most people particularly trust recommendations from their friends. Very often, customers seek out the opinions of people they already know because of the trust they place in the brand.