We’ve already established that customer loyalty grows from a place of good experience and positive reinforcement. But how do you set your sights to intentionally make those things happen in the online world? Let’s dive into why brands struggle to retain customers online.
The struggle is real
Many brands are faced with huge challenges while trying to retain customers online, especially in highly competitive marketplaces. If there’s a single element of your business that a customer doesn’t like — the digital space has made it incredibly easy for them to consider other options, find an alternative and make the transition faster than ever before.
[bctt tweet=”It’s easier than ever for customers to consider other options and find an alternative. ” username=”marketmox”]With that in mind, there are some very specific hurdles we face that makes customer retention even more difficult:
Message misalignment
How often do you click an article or ad you’re interested in, but immediately lose interest when you see the content behind the link? It’s more common than you might think. The misalignment of marketing messages and the content or details we link to is a huge red flag to many potential customers. It destroys their trust in your brand and makes it significantly less likely that they’ll click your links again.
Cost comparison
In many industries, it’s currently less expensive to acquire new users (growth) than it is to retain existing customers (loyalty). For this reason alone, many businesses struggle have a hard time keeping customers. The investment is significant in comparison and the immediate payoff may not always be obvious. However, peek at the lifetime value (LTV) of longtime customers and it becomes very clear that we need to put more effort on keep customers engaged over longer periods of time.
[bctt tweet=”Sadly, it’s less expensive to acquire new users than it is to retain existing customers.” username=”marketmox”]Optimizing for loyalty
When optimizing for growth, we look at marketing strategies that will expand reach, engagement and, ultimately, your bottom line as quickly and efficiently as possible. While this works really well for startups and early stage businesses, and can certainly be applied to others, a focus on growth alone will only help you to achieve specific goals.
In optimizing for loyalty, we have an entirely different set of goals to address and, most of them, are customer-oriented. Get started by:
Putting the customer first
To keep customers, we need to make their experience with your brand a priority. As you make decisions, ask if the outcome is in the best interest of your customer. Build an experience that they’ll want to return to and it will become significantly easier to retain customers online.
[bctt tweet=”Make their experience with your brand a priority. #customerretention” username=”marketmox”]Providing value
Take a look at your online presence and consider what type of value you provide to your customers. Do you offer free insights? What about exceptional professional guidance? Do your products solve a specific problem? Or did you build an online tool to make lives easier? Whatever it is, be sure to emphasize the value of what you bring to the table for your customers.