One of the biggest mistakes ecommerce store owners make is they neglect their existing customers in pursuit of new ones. While lead generation is essential for business growth and success, meeting the expectations and needs of your existing customers can be just as important.
Did you know that a 5% increase in customer retention rate can improve your profits by a whopping 75%?
Also acquiring new customers is costly. Another research reveals that attracting new customers is 5✕ more expensive than retaining existing ones.
So if your sales conversion strategy revolves around lead generation only, it’s high time you think about making a profit from your existing customers.
Why Is Customer Retention Crucial For Your Business Success?
Compared to new customers, existing customers tend to spend more on your products. Also, your existing customers are more likely to give your new products a try than new leads. Ecommerce stores should therefore implement sales conversion strategies that can help them create a loyal customer base that stays true to them no matter what.
It’s More Cost-Effective
It’s cheaper to keep someone in the fold than trying to forge a new relationship. Your existing customers are already familiar with the nature of your business and your products.
Having a customer retention strategy as your sales conversion tactic will enable you to save a lot on your marketing budget.
How?
Word-of-mouth recommendations and by existing customers can be more result-driven and lucrative than any other marketing effort. Give this research a read. It clearly states that 60% of loyal customers will talk about their favorite brands with people in their social circle.
Loyal Customers Are More Profitable
more revenue than unengaged customers. While existing customers are more profitable, make sure you do not take their loyalty for granted. Remember, your goal as an online seller is to increase your lifetime profit instead of a one-time gain.
Loyal Customers Are More Forgiving
Loyal customers are more likely to give brands a second chance than new customers. In other words, they’re more forgiving when it comes to poor service issues - just don’t let it happen too often, though.
It Can Drive Customer Acquisition
Customer acquisition is an ongoing process that requires you to constantly hone your products to stay ahead of the competition. Your loyal customers can help you achieve your customer acquisition goals by providing genuine feedback.
You can get in touch with your existing customers through surveys and ask them about their feedback. Also, ask them what kind of changes could help to improve their experience with your business.
Once you have genuine feedback about your products from your existing customers, you can use that information to spot new growth opportunities and more customers.
Now that you know why customer retention is one of the essentials of your sales conversion strategy, we can now have a look at 18 proven tips for maximizing profit from your existing customers.
18 Proven Tips For Maximizing Profit From Your Existing Customers
1. Conduct Market Research
Before you implement any strategy, you need a goal. Evaluate your present customer retention rate. For example, if your current retention rate is 10% or below, you must set an achievable goal.
Here, you must also take into account the type of product you're selling. If you offer a product that your customers need daily, you can set precise and more ambitious goals.
Similarly, if you want your customers to try unique products or invest in things that they already have, you'll need a conservative goal for your business.
The next step is conducting thorough market research to have a deeper look into the market you serve. The idea is to know more about your existing customers, listening to what they say across different platforms, and getting feedback from them through surveys and interviews to further improve your sales.
2. Stay In Touch After Completing The Initial Sale
Present-day customers have plenty of options. You’re lucky if they have chosen you over your competitors. But as we said before, you must not take your customer’s trust and attention for granted.
Once you complete the initial sale, do not disappear. It’s crucial to stay in touch with your buyers to build long-lasting relationships.
Follow up frequently by offering value-driven offers so that they come for more. The biggest perk of retargeting your existing customers is that they’re already familiar with your products. All you need to do now is to engage them to improve their experience with the product.
3. Offer A Personalized Experience Tailored To Your Customer’s Needs
What sets small businesses apart from others is the fact that they have to serve a smaller number of customers. That lends a wonderful opportunity for your business to offer a personalized experience to your customers.
For example, you can send a personalized thank you note after a customer makes a purchase. Similarly, you can use your customer’s name in emails and text messages to make the entire communication process look personalized and tailored to your customer’s needs.
4. Upsell And Cross-Sell
Upselling and cross-selling are proven ways to bring buyers back to business. With upselling techniques, you can convince your customers to invest their money in more expensive products or services.
Cross-selling, on the other hand, enables you to persuade your buyers to purchase related products to the ones they already own. For example, if you sell designer footwear online, you can cross-sell accessories to provide an all-inclusive package to your buyers.
5. Reward Your Loyal Customers
Rewarding your loyal customers can go a long way. Loyalty programs have a massive impact on customer retention. Offer freebies, discounts, or a cashback offer to your VIP customers to keep them coming back.
To create this program, you could either use an app or cards to track your customer’s purchases.
Generally, a customer earns a point each time they purchase something from your website. Once they collect the required number of points, they’re entitled to receive a reward.
You don’t have to create complicated reward programs. The idea is to help your loyal customers know that their contribution matters.
6. Create A Customer Community
The only thing that can attract your customers and keep them coming back for more is the fact that they feel encouraged, admired, and supported.
One of the ways you can keep your customers engaged is by creating a customer community. This can be as simple as introducing a Facebook group where you can interact with your customers and talk about your products and services.
The good thing about customer communities is that they’re easier to create yet effective enough to improve your customer retention rate.
7. Create A Customer-Focused Support Team
To maximize your profits through existing customers, you need to get everyone involved in the process. Train your employees and let them know the significance of building long-lasting relationships with loyal customers.
For this, you can create a service-centric and customer-focused environment that requires each team member to take care of the existing customers.
Remember, when you focus on providing impeccable customer service, you end up selling more to existing customers.
8. Communicate Well And Engage With Your Buyers
Just like you have to maintain communication with a friend or a family member for a healthy relationship, you have to maintain communication with your customers as well.
Failing to do so may result in a deteriorating relationship. Your customers won’t even think about visiting your website or reading your blogs.
9. Ask For Feedback
When you ask your customers for their feedback, they feel valued. It also gives you insights into how your buyers think and feel.
In case of negative feedback, you have to ensure you’re meeting their needs whenever they get in touch with you for their concerns.
As an ecommerce business, your goal is to ensure that each experience your customers have with your brand is positive and memorable.
10. Share Great Content
Many customers prefer buying from brands that are willing to educate their customers. Whether it’s in the form of product reviews, blogs, or long-form articles, if you consistently share informative content, your customers will surely come back for more.
11. Get To Know Your Customer’s Pain Points
Knowing your customer’s pain points is crucial especially if you’re looking to maximize your profits.
Get into a conversation with your customers. You can either conduct surveys or involve your live chat support team to contact your existing customers.
That goes without saying that the response you get from your customers is precious. You can build your entire sales conversion strategy based on the input you get from your existing buyers.
12. Reduce Friction
Friction is an integral part of a sales conversion strategy. Every online seller faces it at some point in their business cycle.
Do whatever it takes to help your loyal customers stay. Automate your communication processes so that you can keep connected with your customers and resolve their concerns promptly.
13. Focus On The User Experience
Businesses that focus on providing their existing customers with a positive user experience tend to make more profit than businesses that focus on short-term benefits.
14. Keep Your Loyal Customers Updated
As your business expands, your offering also changes. Sometimes you have to exclude products or services just because they don’t provide sufficient ROI.
Make sure you keep your loyal customers informed about any changes in your product line. While you should update your offering from time to time, just ensure whatever you offer to your existing customers is value-driven and worth their time and money.
15. Encourage Buyers To Recommend Your Products In Their Social Circle
Happy customers can act as your brand advocates. Ask your customers to drop their genuine customer feedback on different forums so that other potential customers will feel encouraged and confident about investing in your products.
Turn your social media channels into 2-way communication channels. You can also reward those existing customers who share your content within their social circles. In addition to that, you can also host contests and ask customers to post their pictures using your products to help other customers convert.
16. Customer Lifetime Value
You must make every possible effort to keep your loyal customers engaged. But what about customers you don’t want?
As surprising as it may sound, these exist in many businesses.
While getting rid of those customers can be challenging, you must never opt for unethical business practices. Especially, do not mistreat them using your customer service channels as it can do more harm than good.
Simply, remove them from your automated marketing systems so that they don’t receive promotional emails or texts persuading them to make a purchase.
17. Share Your Knowledge And Experience
Bringing your industry knowledge and expertise to help your existing customers could positively impact you and your customer’s business. For instance, you can offer your services as a strategic consultant willing to help clients achieve their business goals.
People admire such services and are always keen to get them from a brand that is trustworthy and reliable.
18. Track The Data
Last but not least, you need to track data to see how your customer retention strategies are working to drive revenue from your existing customers.
There are many tools available online that you can use to track how productively your sales conversion funnel is working.
We hope this post has cleared some of your doubts about customer retention strategies and how you can use those strategies to increase your profit margins.
Debutify has everything that an ecommerce business needs to retain its loyal customers. Give our premium add-ons a try and you’d be surprised to see how easy it is to engage your existing customers.
Trisha Ballesteros