If you think that your work ends after the sale, think again. Not only do sixty one percent of SMBs claim that over half of their revenue comes from repeat customers, but loyal customers end up being 10 times as valuable as their first purchase, on average.
It’s always fun to chase new wins—and we’re not saying you shouldn’t—but the fact is that nurturing your current customers is essential to really take your business to the next level.
Besides the hard financial incentives, by increasing brand loyalty, you will grow your audience, connect better with your customers and gain insights into what your target audience will resonate with. The long and short of it is, nurturing your customers is a powerful tool to produce more value.
But where do you start?
Know your customer
This may come as little surprise to you. To nurture your customers, you first have to know who they are. Now, there are a couple different ways you can think about this.
We’ll begin with the target demographic. These are the hard facts regarding the swathe of the population you’re looking to connect with. What age are they? What gender? Where do they live? You should know the answers to all these questions and be ready to back them up with hard facts.
But beyond just knowing things about your target, you also need to know who they are as people. If they’re interested in your product, they’re going to share certain characteristics. Take the time to get to know their loves, hates, common challenges, and ambitions.
Knowing all this is half the battle as you’ll be able to produce content and experiences that they truly connect with.
Embrace email marketing
It may have been one of the first online marketing practices, but even today it holds its spot as one of the best. In fact, an incredible 78% of marketers believe that email is important to overall company success.
That said, you need to be careful, especially when you’re dealing with already converted customers and not leads. Because not all emails are created equal, nurturing emails get 4–10 more responses than standalone email blasts on average.
There’s a fine line between nurturing and annoying. The trick is to qualify your recipients as much as possible. Now, since they’re already customers, you’re at an advantage as you know they have an interest in your product or service. But to further qualify them, offer the opportunity to sign up to certain subscriptions.
Whatever magnet you use, whether an ebook, newsletter, or anything else, should inform the campaign you then send out. Every email you send following up should be relevant, valuable, and interest them in some way.
Connect via social media
Know the best way to build a relationship with someone? Talk to them. It’s as simple as that. If you don’t communicate, how are you ever going to get anywhere?
Social media absolutely transformed a brand’s ability to talk directly with their customers. There’s no middle man—just straight, one-on-one communication.
That said, you do need to be careful to ensure that you build trust rather than destroy it. Social media can be a fickle friend for marketers and if the crowd turns against you it could potentially be disastrous.
The answer lies in authenticity. You need to always come across as authentic to how your brand is perceived, and always keep the tone of voice consistent with your brand identity. Where possible, always try to give a personal touch to any correspondence and, above all, be consistent with your engagement!
Heap out the rewards
If your customers are loyal, you should make the effort to show some appreciation once in a while. As is often the case, actions speak louder than words. And your actions can help keep them returning for years to come.
Generally speaking, the reward you give them will have some kind of monetary value. It could be a discount coupon code, a free gift, or a special price. But there are other rewards you can provide, such as early access to a new service or product (although a little discount probably would sweeten the deal there too.)
When communicating with them, remember to always tell them why you’re giving them a freebie. Your customer should always know you’re doing them a favor. If not, they just think that’s the regular price and get annoyed if you charge them the full amount!
Take time to listen
Customer feedback is essential if you want to keep growing your business to reach the next level. It’s also an incredible way to nurture your customers.
The one caveat here is that you can’t just ask for feedback, you also need to apply it. So, any feedback nurturing campaign you launch should have two distinct parts:
- Reaching out to ask for feedback.
- Letting them know how you’ve applied their feedback.
If a customer thinks they’re being listened to, they will appreciate the gesture—and you get a better service offering out of the deal. It’s a win-win really.
Nurturing your customers should be a key part of your inbound content marketing efforts as it’s the best way to increase loyalty, grow your audience, and boost your profits. But we know it can be challenging to execute good nurturing campaigns with all the other tasks you have going on. At Pipeline.so, we offer full CRM capabilities which include email automation, messaging, and other communication features.
Want to find out more? Feel free to reach out and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.
