Customer Acquisition, Retention, and Loyalty

In 2020, marketing has had to think on its feet by instituting several quick fixes and tactical changes to address Covid-19, but a great many of these have not borne fruit. Customer interests are elusive and finding the right tone and message in your marketing seems increasingly difficult, if not impossible to manage.

Customer Acquisition, Retention, and Loyalty

Acquiring, retaining, and reengaging your customer is perhaps the greatest marketing concern of our times. Customers have grown progressively cautious as the year has moved and whether it’s due to layoffs, furloughs or the shift to remote work, consumers feel strongly that they owe brands less. How then, do brands make the splash necessary to see their business and sales operations return to normal?

Customer Acquisition

Broadly speaking, Covid-19 has cratered customer acquisition and profitability. According to a recent Arizent survey, 68% of executives felt that their companies had experienced moderate to considerable challenge where customer acquisitions were concerned due to Covid-19, whilst 84% of the survey respondents also agreed somewhat or strongly that the lockdowns had created a disruptive opportunity since customers have been forced to change their everyday behaviors.

In short, customer acquisition efforts have been hampered by the distance that now separates the brand from shoppers. It is due to this inalienable fact that we’ve seen a marked increase in marketing departments adopting digital technologies in three distinct ways to counteract the virus’s impact.

• Building Intimacy & Engagement Via Digital Channels – Social Media, Apps, Digital Events, these all represent significant engagement opportunities for marketers. Consumers often find digital experiences more valuable and novel than the typical marketing approaches, and as such, they should be prioritized as a matter of course.
• Use Customer Analytics – Every piece of data you gather is valuable and can be used to intuit something about your customers, what do they like, what don’t they like? Make use of it.
• Segment & Target = Divide & Conquer – Once you have a clear idea of who’s buying your product and what they need it for, look at the language, style and persona of your branding. Make it specific to them to draw them in.

Customer Retention

Bringing in customers is all well and good but it doesn’t mean much if you can’t retain and reactivate them further down the line. Customer retention has also seen a big hit in the start to this new decade, and it’s proving particularly difficult to manage for CMOs.

Based on research from Marketing Metrics, the success rate of selling to an existing customer is 60-70%, while the success rate of selling to a new customer is only 5-20%. This, in essence, is why the pre-existing customer is so important to brands and why losing them hurts a business so significantly. To halt the exodus some companies are experiencing, executives have begun to take the following precautions.

• Customer Loyalty Programs – Shoppers like to feel like they’re valued as individuals and look for companies that offer this kind of flexibility. Customer Loyalty Programs provide bespoke offers to repeat buyers, keeping them coming back for more.
• Increase Your Social Media Presence – Keeping the consumer engaged has become difficult as they have moved to remote work and living structures. Digital channels such as social media provide a useful tool for outreach and communication with your buyers at this time and developing a personalized response will be essential when coming out of Covid.
• Update Your Website – Consumers are beginning to ask, ‘What steps are my favorite brands taking to ensure my safety?’, and they’re going to go to your website to find out, make sure that it is regularly updated and that you leave no doubt that their interests are your interests.

Customer Loyalty

By tackling both customer acquisition and customer retention effectively, any given brand is better placed to create and maintain a fanbase loyal to their products and services. From here, they can look to progressively and iteratively develop and renovate their brand with the times to ensure that at all times, the customer is coming first.

To learn more, download the full report here or continue the debate at the Digital Marketing Digital Summit NA, a GDS Summit, where we bring together senior Banking executives who are actively seeking to share, learn, engage, and find the best technology solutions.

GDS Group hosts experts to help experts. We strive to provide an atmosphere for our attendees that enables them to confidently lead their companies through major transformation projects. For information on upcoming events, view our Digital Summits. To remain current on our activities, visit GDS Group on LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter.