The Art of Customer Retention

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
WhatsApp
Email

Unlocking the Power of Customer Retention in Today's Digital Marketing Landscape

In today’s rapidly changing digital marketing landscape, customer retention has emerged as a critical component for businesses. A recent study has demonstrated that a mere 5% increase in customer retention can result in a remarkable 25-29% increase in revenue and an impressive 25-95% increase in profitability. This immense potential for ROI underscores the significance of prioritizing customer retention in a company’s marketing strategy.

Surprisingly, according to Gitnux statistics, the average customer retention rate remains below 20%, and retention rates above 35% are considered exceptional for businesses. This implies that many companies are losing significant customers and revenue due to a lack of emphasis on retention strategies.

However, keeping customers engaged is not only about retaining them; it’s also about building long-term relationships with them. In the fiercely competitive B2C marketing landscape, customer loyalty can make or break a company’s success. Thus, it’s essential to provide customers with solutions to their problems or needs and establish a relationship with them.

To achieve significant ROI and long-term success in the digital marketing landscape, companies must prioritise customer retention through retention strategies such as personalised communication, exceptional customer service, loyalty programs, and continuous product improvement. By adopting these measures, businesses can create engaging and long-lasting relationships with their customers.

"Our loyalty program is the cornerstone of our digital flywheel, bringing together our mobile app, ordering and payment, loyalty and CRM initiatives, and personalized marketing. It is a powerful tool that enables us to deepen customer engagement and extend customer lifetime value, while driving incremental transactions and revenue growth"
- Kevin Johnson, Prior CEO of Starbucks.
Chapter two

The Trust Factor: Building Brand Alignment with B2C Marketing

B2B and B2C marketing are vastly different in focus and strategies. While B2B marketing prioritises building relationships with other businesses and providing targeted solutions to specific business needs, B2C marketing concentrates on convincing potential customers that a product is the ultimate solution for their unique needs or problems. Trust and brand alignment are pivotal factors in B2C marketing, as consumers are more likely to do business with companies they trust. Unfortunately, only 48% of customers trust companies in general, with 36% having no trust at all, emphasising the importance of earning the trust of customers and building robust relationships.

To build strong relationships and increase customer retention rates, companies should tailor marketing efforts to the unique preferences and needs of each customer. By leveraging data and analytics, businesses can create targeted marketing campaigns that appeal to customers on a personal level, leading to increased customer retention rates and profitability.

In B2C marketing, maintaining consistent brand standards across all divisions is crucial, allowing for standardisation on a smaller scale than in B2B marketing. In conclusion, successful B2C retention strategies involve prioritising the needs and desires of the customer, building strong relationships, offering personalised experiences, and maintaining consistent brand standards across all divisions.

Chapter two

The Importance of Experience: Customer-Centric Roles in Digital Marketing

In B2C marketing, customer retention is a crucial component, and digital marketing professionals in this field must possess experience in both B2B and B2C environments to effectively identify target audiences and devise digital campaigns that captivate them.

B2C marketing objectives often involve enhancing brand awareness, generating leads, fostering engagement, driving sales, and increasing customer retention. Customer retention generates greater profit than customer acquisition, making it essential for businesses to allocate resources to retaining customers and ensuring customer satisfaction. Effective customer retention strategies can improve customer lifetime value, leading to a growing customer base that can help reduce acquisition costs through positive word-of-mouth advertising and good reputation.

To enhance customer retention, businesses can track essential retention KPIs such as customer retention rate and utilise retention marketing strategies that nurture and uphold customer relationships.

Aligning departmental strategies and collaborating can help customer-focused companies synchronize strategies across support, sales, and marketing teams. Both B2B and B2C businesses prioritise customer retention, and customer retention specialists are key members of the customer success team whose performance indicators include devising innovative ways to retain existing customers and reducing customer churn. Good interpersonal and communication skills are also crucial for digital marketing professionals to ensure effective collaboration across departments and with customers.

Chapter two

Unlocking Potential: The Role of Customer Experience Teams

Indeed, customer experience (CX) teams are pivotal in delivering the best experience possible for customers. One of their primary objectives is to ensure customer satisfaction and loyalty. They achieve this by creating positive experiences that lead to long-lasting customer satisfaction. CX teams strive to provide exceptional experiences at every touchpoint, from initial discovery to purchase and beyond.

To achieve their goals, effective communication across departments through enablement, training, and data-driven processes is critical for CX teams. Companies should make it easy for customers to access their brand and create a seamless customer experience by meeting them halfway on their existing marketing platforms. CX teams should also utilise customers’ digital experiences to understand what is important for different customer segments, particularly high-value customers.

10%
customers are willing to pay up to 10% more for a product or service if they receive an excellent customer experience
Source
: Customer Stats

Customer experience statistics for 2022 reveal that customers are willing to pay up to 10% more for a product or service if they receive an excellent customer experience. By improving customer experience to a satisfactory level, businesses can double their revenue within 36 months.

A dedicated, cross-functional CX team is fundamental to any successful customer experience program. With their focus on customer orientation, agility, and data-driven processes, CX teams play a critical role in helping customers understand products, provide feedback, and unlock the full potential of HR organisations.

Chapter two

Prioritising Loytalty Programs for Long-Term Succes

The impression a business creates on its customers is crucial in influencing potential buyers. Customers share their experiences through different channels like social media, conferences, exhibitions, or user review platforms like Google Reviews or Trustpilot. Thus, it’s essential to prioritize providing an exceptional customer experience.

Customer perception is shaped by both direct and indirect interactions with a business, including social media, online reviews, pricing, quality, influencers, and customer experience. A business can control and improve the quality of the product or service, pricing, and customer experience to enhance customer perception.

Loyalty programs are an effective way to retain customers.

According to Bond Brand Loyalty’s study, 81% of customers are likelier to keep doing business with a brand after joining its loyalty program, and 73% of consumers are likelier to recommend brands with good loyalty programs.

  • Over 90% of companies have some kind of loyalty program. 
  • 77% of consumers participate in a retail loyalty program, 46% have joined a hotel program, and 40% are part of an airline program, up from 72%, 36%, and 31% over the last year, respectively. 
  • The average consumer is a member of 14.8 loyalty programs but is only active in 6.7 schemes. 
  • According to Statista, 49% of consumers were using the cashback feature of their brand loyalty program to redeem when making purchases with the brand, while 32% of businesses were using exclusive membership perks as part of their strategy. [5]
  • The top performing loyalty programs boost revenue from customers who use them by 15-25% annually. 
  • 37% of consumers will spend more money with brands with which they have a retail subscription, as will 28% of consumers belonging to membership programs, and 27% of loyalty program members. 
  • 74% of customers subscribe to free loyalty programs. 
  • Unfortunately, 96% of consumers agree that loyalty programs can be improved. 75% of consumers would switch brands for a better loyalty program. 

These statistics highlight the importance of loyalty programs in building customer relationships and driving business growth. By implementing effective loyalty programs, businesses can not only retain existing customers but also attract new ones through positive word-of-mouth recommendations.

Chapter two

Conclusion

Based on the statistics provided, loyalty programs have become increasingly popular among businesses, with over 90% of companies having some type of loyalty program. The average consumer is a member of 14.8 loyalty programs but only actively participates in 6.7 schemes. However, while loyalty programs can be an effective tool for businesses to retain customers and increase revenue, there is room for improvement.

A staggering 96% of consumers agree that loyalty programs can be improved, and 75% of consumers would switch brands for a better loyalty program.

Therefore, hiring a Head of Loyalty could be the answer for businesses looking to improve their loyalty programs and retain customers.

At Beagle Talent, we are representing such an individual. 

Job Title: Head of Loyalty

Salary: £100k+ 

Key Highlights

  • 30 Under 40 Loyalty Royalty 2022 award recipient at the International Loyalty Awards
  • Head of Loyalty developing a ground-up loyalty proposition strategy & design for a top streaming service.

This candidate is available to interview immediately. If you would be keen to meet, please get in touch with Tim Dixon right away,

Equally, if you have a more specific set of skills in mind – call Tim, and he’ll find it for you. We know people..

Chapter two

I want to hire, who do I contact?

Chapter two

Read more like this

Not found what you're looking for? Send us a message

WordPress Lightbox