During the holidays, you’re likely seeing more customers than usual come through your doors, virtual or otherwise. Instead of letting them slip out without making a connection, take this opportunity to create a strategy that will keep them coming back long after the wrapping paper gets put away for the year. It’s never too late to embrace a customer retention plan, even though the holiday rush is already well into full swing. Read on for top tips on how to create one.
Get in Touch — And Stay in Touch
Reach out to customers by offering an email list or a mobile marketing strategy. If they sign up, offer them an immediate reward, like 10 percent off their next purchase. This is a great way to make them come back immediately. Offer a bigger sale in January and contact customers via their preferred methods. Just remember to follow Seth Godin’s rules of permission marketing: “Real permission works like this: if you stop showing up, people complain, they ask where you went.” The messages you send out should offer enough value that people look forward to them, not just begrudgingly accept them because unsubscribing is too much work.
Entertain Customers
The biggest winners in social media aren’t droning on and on about what makes their products superior. They’re engaging customers with subtle reminders of their products and making them feel genuine emotions. Oreo dominated Facebook and Twitter for a while with their timely and clever messaging. More recently, Upworthy has laid claim to 87 million unique visitors in November alone. Their secret sauce is simple: They invoke emotion. Whether it’s excitement for a new product, relief over a solution or the warm fuzzies over updates about a company charity, your company can tap into that formula, too.
Become a Teacher
Make your New Year’s resolution be to start a blog or recommit yourself to writing one. With the state of Google and content marketing, you have to have a healthy blog if you want to compete in the digital space. The second goal you have for the year should be to become a leader in your industry. Don’t just blog about your products, blog about industry challenges and potential solutions. It’s hard to give up time and space to something that isn’t a direct advertisement of your product, but blogs are a better space for branding than outright sales efforts.
Customers are generally happy to spend money on companies they look to for kind service, great education and timely messaging (and coupons!) Make sure that you keep holiday visitors coming back through the rest of the year by implementing a customer retention strategy.
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