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Build Long-Term Customer Loyalty With These 3 Relationship Marketing Strategies

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BY MICHELENA HOWL 

Customer relationships shouldn’t end after a sale. In fact, the best relationships never end.

The key to building a successful brand is to resonate with customers. That’s a challenge for any brand at any time. But in 2024, it will be even more difficult than usual.

For starters, the days of buying third-party customer data based on tracking cookies to re-target customers across social media and the internet are ending. Complicating matters is a 2024 political campaign season expected to crowd out most of the available re-targeting ad inventory. And finally, social media fatigue is setting in across the board.

But when one door closes, another opens. The challenges above merely represent the end of an old era, which means we’re at the beginning of a new one … one where brands establish authentic (and thus more powerful) relationships with their customers that build long-term customer loyalty.

The result is a win-win for all. Brands acquire better and more actionable data and insights about what their customers want. Applied correctly, this then means customers can get more relevant, timely and personalized offers through the channels they prefer.

And it’s all possible by following three simple steps — Find your audience. Get to know them. Make them superfans.

Here’s a quick overview of each of these steps, supported by the latest data from our recently published Marigold 2024 Global Consumer Trends Index report.

1. Find your audience

The best place to find your audience is to pay attention to those who visit your website. Turning visitors into customers is relationship marketing 101.

For too long, brands have relied on tracking cookies to accomplish this. But not only are cookies going away, customers don’t like them. However, they do like relevant offers based on their interests and preferences.

Consider the following insights from the Marigold Consumer Trends Index:

  • Indirect tracking tools like third-party cookies are considered “creepy” by 61% of customers. Yet, 68% say getting reminder emails about items they left in an online shopping cart is “cool.”
  • Getting ads from unknown brands based on location is again considered “creepy” by 64% of consumers. But 59% are fine receiving messages based on their interests (like hiking, running, etc.)

In other words … stalking is creepy. Conversations are cool. So, a far fresher strategy is to make each site visit an opportunity to connect. With on-site forms and interactive experiences, brands can directly collect the information needed to determine the right product-market fit with far greater granularity than just a note about which web page was visited.

By establishing interactive experiences on your site, you can analyze consumer interests, organize them into customer segments, and ultimately deliver personalized offers based on what you know they’ll like.

2. Get to know them

Once you’ve converted unknown visitors into established contacts, you can start engaging them with useful and interesting content to get to know them even better. After all, your customers have all the information you need to know. All you have to do is ask. Data acquired this way is called “zero-party data,” and it’s the most valuable information you can collect.

Of course, you must give them a reason to do so first. The vast majority of consumers are willing participants in a value exchange, where they trade personal data about themselves in return for something of value or interest.

The “value” in the value exchange can take several forms, according to the Marigold Consumer Trends Index. Saving money is a top incentive. A majority of consumers find value in discounts/coupons (91%), loyalty points/rewards (89%), early/exclusive access to offers (83%), a chance to win something (81%), unlocking content (60%) and brand community (55%).

But money isn’t the only incentive. Customers have data needs of their own — exclusive content like previews, eBooks, guides and other insights into your niche make the “cost of entry” participation in a survey, poll or quiz easy to collect zero-party data.

Surveys are one of the top formats for collecting zero-party data. These can take different forms, from new customer surveys to surveys about their experience with the products, thoughts on products they’d want in the future, or even why they stopped buying your products are all useful.

Just make sure the survey is executed properly. Our own global study found that 66% of consumers are more likely to complete brand surveys if they are easy to complete, while another 55% pointed to how the survey will be used as a factor (such as informing the development of new products or services).

Doing this right is important because once collected, zero-party data allows you to create highly personalized and dynamic content and product recommendations, coupon codes and promotions for your most loyal (and valuable) customers.

3. Make them superfans

Relationship marketing is more than just finding and getting to know your customers. It’s about keeping them loyal as well, and there are many ways to accomplish this.

To start, talk with your customers using the information you’ve collected in the steps above. Personalized email and text messages, delivered at the right time with the right actionable information, will make your customers feel heard and appreciated. Both are critical first steps to establishing customer loyalty.

According to the Marigold Consumer Trends Index, more than half (51%) of consumers still report frustration over receiving irrelevant content or offers. On the flip side, 85% of consumers say their favorite brand treats them like an individual, and 78% of consumers say they are likely to engage with a personalized offer tailored to their interests.

But unless your email/messaging platform is integrated with your zero-party data collection platform, that might prove difficult. Relationship marketing requires an integrated approach, with clear connections from the first step to the last.

Of course, creating personalized messaging with data collected from users requires being sensitive to privacy concerns. Respecting these concerns opens up another opportunity for brands to create customer loyalty and maintain it. According to the Marigold Consumer Trends Index:

  • 77% of consumers cite data privacy policies as either important or critically important to maintaining their loyalty, second only to product options/availability, and above customer service and support.
  • Roughly half of consumers do not trust social media platforms with their data, and 68% are actively sharing less data with social platforms over concerns about how that data is used.
  • 63% of consumers will pay more to shop with the brands they’re loyal to.
  • More than 70% of consumers cite the following as either important or critically important to maintaining their loyalty: customer service/support, offers/promotions, data privacy policies, product/service quality, options and availability.

 

Remember, loyalty is earned on multiple fronts — with every customer interaction. In other words, you have to build that loyalty through authentic and personalized communications, respect for customer privacy, and of course, a product that delivers on customers’ needs.

Like any good relationship, your relationship with customers is not a transaction. It’s not a journey from point A to point B that ends with just a sale. It’s a circle … an ongoing virtuous circle. Because the result of good marketing is to establish a relationship. And the best relationships never end.

BY MICHELENA HOWL 

ENTREPRENEUR LEADERSHIP NETWORK® CONTRIBUTOR. COO of Marigold

Sourced from Entrepreneur

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3 Ways to Use Authenticity to Build Customer Loyalty

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In recent years, the word authenticity has become the smart marketer’s approach to building customer loyalty, and with good reason.

The truth is — people are fed up with companies churning out perfectly polished brand images, well-crafted press releases, and corporate statements that sound like a publicist wrote them. They’re tired of some corporations turning a blind eye to the reality of their business (toxic workplaces, unfair wages, and poor working conditions for factory workers), or for that matter, lying about it all.

In reality, customers have become savvier, sassier, and more vocal about what they expect (and often demand) from brands these days. That’s one of the compelling reasons why smart brands are leading with authenticity, rather than relying on it as a last resort.

As Jeff Bezos, the Founder of Amazon says, “Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.” To help create a more influential brand that people rave (instead of rant) about, here are some helpful tips to think about when planning marketing and communications campaigns.

Whether you’re just starting a company or have been in business for decades, here are three ways to use authenticity to build customer loyalty in today’s times.

Engender trust from customers

To start with, authenticity inherently breeds trust. When customers get a better sense of the types of people who run a company, they begin to trust them more. Whether the message is coming from a brand founder or a social media marketing team, one of the keys to engendering trust amongst your customer base is to be open, honest, and transparent with them. Express your values, show your integrity, and share your beliefs in a way that reflects your brand identity.

For example, if you produce goods, consider posting Instagram stories that take your audience on a “behind the scenes” tour of your factory. Show your customers that the factory has undergone a social accountability audit and meets standards (for fair treatment of workers and safe working conditions). These are just some of the things that consumers care about, as human rights have become an aspect that customers consider when deciding which brands to support.

Create deeper connections

Another way to use authenticity in your marketing approach is to think about the human-to-human interaction.

Whenever your brand launches a marketing campaign, posts on social media, or engages with customers online, focus on creating deeper connections with them. They want to know that you care about their needs, are listening to their complaints and value their feedback.

In previous decades, companies would market to consumers like a one-way street. More often than not, their executive teams would hide behind FAQ pages on websites and rely on call centres shielded by 1-800 numbers. But, nowadays, everyone is essentially a click away. This means the power has shifted to give customers a louder voice (which can either be an asset or a liability to you, depending on what they’re saying about your brand).

Smart brands use social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to actively engage with their audience. Instead of just constantly promoting and selling, their teams make sure to reply to comments and questions, to answer disgruntled complaints, and to even spotlight raving fans (which make them feel valued and recognized). Just like any relationship, both parties need to feel valued and heard. So, think about your online marketing approach as a two-way dialogue, which will create deeper connections and more loyal customers.

Evoke a sense of humanity

Finally, when you focus on authenticity as a core part of your marketing efforts, you evoke a sense of humanity. Whether your company donates funds to charities or actively supports worthy causes, brands that show care for humanity often go further in the eyes of consumers than those that are only profit-oriented. A perfect example of this is TOMS, the shoe brand that has earned strong brand loyalty through its philanthropic business model.

Authenticity has become one of the most important aspects to incorporate into any marketing and communication strategy. The more effectively that you can connect with, listen to, and relate to your customer base, the more loyal they’ll be. And, that, we know – is one of the keys to a lasting business.

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Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe

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7 Actionable Ways To Reduce Churn And Increase Customer Loyalty

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By Sam Thomas Davies

Churn is one of our least favorite words. And when we hear it, it usually means one thing-We’ve lost a customer. Like it or not, churn is an inevitable part of any business owner’s life. But it doesn’t have to keep you up at night. While it’s impossible to eliminate churn entirely, it is possible to reduce it.

Churn is one of our least favorite words.

And when we hear it, it usually means one thing:

We’ve lost a customer.

Like it or not, churn is an inevitable part of any business owner’s life.

But it doesn’t have to keep you up at night.

While it’s impossible to eliminate churn entirely, it is possible to reduce it.

And in this post, I’ll show you 7 strategies for reducing churn and increasing customer loyalty.

Without further ado:

Let’s go get ‘em!

Reduce churn with these proven email examples

Writing emails to reduce churn can be a daunting task (especially if you’re short on time).

To make life easier, I’ve put together a list of 29 amazing examples of emails that help improve customer loyalty and more.

1. Make a good first impression

You’ve probably heard it before:

A good first impression is key!

Whether you’re on a date, at a job interview, or browsing Netflix for the next movie to watch—first impressions count (and they count a lot).

It’s not always easy to make a good first impression (trust me, I’ve had my fair share of embarrassing moments), which is why it’s at the top of my list.

When onboarding new customers, you don’t always have the opportunity to charm them with your winning personality, so you have to let your product do that for you.

The goal, then, is to create a seamless onboarding experience that gives new customers a quick overview of your product and get them started right away.

Thus, no 30-minute video guides demonstrating all its features, or long onboarding processes that require completing a million steps to get started.

Think about it:

You’ve just bought a new car. What’s the first thing you wanna do?

Read the manual?

 

Customer Onboarding

No—you want to take it for a drive and see how fast it can go.

The same applies to other products.

Get users started using your product right after purchase, and let them experience how awesome it is.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t follow up.

Once you’ve gotten them started, you should offer them advice on how to make full use of your product.

This is the part of the onboarding process where you show them the results they can achieve and make your product indispensable.

If you make your product indispensable you’ll naturally reduce churn.

What problem does your product help your customers overcome? And why is your product the best tool to do so?

If you can answer these questions and convince your customers your product is the best solution, you’re already well on your way to reducing churn.

This brings me to the next item on my list.

2. Offer value to get value

You’re probably tired of hearing me say this but I can’t help myself because it’s so important.

Value is the only thing your customers want from you.

There’s no recipe for the perfect email, but here are my own best practices when it comes to writing an effective email that generates engagement:

  • Focus on how the customer can get the most out of your newsletter or product
  • Don’t list all the features of your product—let your users experience it for themselves
  • Be personal—never send from a no-reply email
  • Ask people to answer your email—what would they like to get out of your product? Do they need help getting started? Do they have ideas for new developments? Show them that you care about them and that you are interested in hearing what they have to say

Value doesn’t have to be a free gift or a discount, it can just as easily be you offering to be available and telling your new subscribers that you value them.

This is an example from our email onboarding flow where we encourage users to engage with our product and get even better results.

 

Best Practice Email

At Sleeknote, we believe praising our users when they achieve great results is an important part of reducing churn.

We segment our emails based on event triggers and conversion rates which means every email we send is relevant to the person who receives it.

Thus, when a user has a conversion rate above 3 percent, we send them the above email telling them how great they’re doing.

This email has a click-through rate of 28 percent which is a great indicator that these emails increase engagement.

Furthermore, we invite users to chat with one of our experts to help increase their conversion rates further.

These emails provide value to both our users and us. We know that if our users get results using our product, they are less likely to churn.

3. Set and meet customer expectations

What is the number one reason people churn?

The product doesn’t live up to the expectations.

I know there might be a million other little things that can have an impact on churn as well, but all in all, this is why people churn.

With the vast amount of information available to consumers online, and the competitive market, it’s  never been more important for businesses to be transparent in everything they do.

This is why the first email in your onboarding process needs to inform visitors what they’re going to get and what they can expect from you

Don’t make promises you can’t keep. Be honest.

If you promise your customers something and you don’t deliver on that promise, your churn rate with skyrocket.

Today’s consumers have very high expectations for businesses and products.

According to eMarketer, 47 percent of consumers want more personalized experiences with brands, and 38 percent of consumers want more transparency from brands.

One of the best ways to reduce churn, then, is to exceed these high expectations.

Do that one thing that makes users feel special or go that extra mile. It doesn’t require much, but it makes a huge difference when it comes to churn.

(We had a chat with Peter Shankman who knows everything about happy customers, so check out our post How to get the Happiest Ecommerce Customers in the World for more information on this).

One example of how you can do that little extra is our “You’re awesome” email flow (Yes, we actually named it that).

This flow consists of 10 emails with the sole purpose of telling our customers how awesome they are:

 

Praise Customer Email

This email, for instance, is sent to our customers when they reach 5000 new leads, just to let them know how great they’re doing.

Giving your customers a sense of success, and achievement is a great way to reduce churn.

Here are some examples of how you can do “that little extra”:

  • Send them a personal note in their parcel
  • Include a little treat (perhaps a small pack of gummy bears) in their first order
  • Praise them when they achieve something
  • Offer a discount when they have purchased an item from you 10 times
  • Send them a personal message on their birthday

There are many small gestures you can do that don’t require much effort or resources, so it’s just about getting started.

However, you have to accept that you’ll always have customers whose expectations can’t be met no matter how transparent you are or how great of a result they’ve had with your product.

As a huge Pokémon fan, it pains me to say this but: You can’t catch ‘em all.

4. Focus on competitive advantages

There is one question consumers repeatedly ask when considering a new product:

“Why is your product better than your competitors’?”

And it’s a question you need to have the answer to if you want new customers, but also if you want to lower your churn rate.

If people know why your product is the best from the very beginning, they are much less likely to churn if they become customers.

Why?

Because they know they won’t find a better product out there, and thus, are less likely to churn.

So how do you tell people this without sounding like an arrogant salesman?

One way of showing people how your product is superior to other is to create landing pages on your website where you compare yourself to all your competitors.

One of my favorite examples of this is from Groove.

They’ve created a landing page for each of their main competitors and compared their services so potential customers can get a quick overview of what the two services offer, and why Groove is the better option:

 

Freshdesk Vs. Groove Landing Page

Once I saw this, I knew that we needed to do the same with our product.

Thus, I researched our competitors and wrote a comparison for each one, so potential customers get a quick overview of how we differentiate from our competitors.

Those landing pages generate direct free trials which show their effectiveness.

The people who sign up through these pages have already seen how your product compares to others’ and they chose yours.

I know there are other reasons your customers churn, but at least you’ll lower the chances of them switching to your competitors.

When doing these pages, you need to be completely honest. You can’t say that your product is cheaper if it isn’t.

Focus on your skills and all the areas in which you truly deliver a better service or product.

Maybe you have better and faster customer service? Maybe you have more intelligent features? Maybe your product is of higher quality?

But remember: Don’t badmouth your competitors. Stick to the facts and don’t be insulting.

People don’t like bullies, so don’t be one.

 

Compare Competitor

5. Stay on top of new developments

This one can be tricky and it requires a bit more effort.

However, staying on top of new developments, rules, laws, shift in consumer behavior, and other environmental changes needs to be done if you want to reduce your churn rate.

Here’s why.

New developments happen all the time, and you never know when it’s going to have an effect on your product.

As an example, Google announced in August 2016 that they would start to punish websites with intrusive interstitials by January 2017.

This potentially could have created a very negative effect on the use of our product and our churn rate, had we not already started developing a new product that could meet these requirements.

If we had not kept up with new developments and not listened to our customers, we might not have had a product ready in time for the new regulations.

This could just as easily happen to any other e-commerce business.

For instance, if you sell pet food, and an animal rights organization announces that they no longer support the use of a specific ingredient in pet food because it can have a negative effect on animals’ health, could do you do?

You could announce that you’ve stopped using this ingredient and that you’re working on a new and better recipe for pet food.

Granted, you can’t always fully plan for disruptions, but if you stay on top of the game, and take immediate action when it happens, you’ll undoubtedly reduce the likelihood of customer churn.

(To learn more about disruptive technologies and how you can (almost) prepare for them, check out our interview with Brian Solis).

6. Make your weaknesses your advantage

We all make mistakes, but it’s how we handle the aftermath that defines who we are (or at least how people see us).

With new consumers, also known as digital natives or millennials, constantly sharing information, you don’t want that information to be about your mistakes and how poorly you handled it.

It’s all about transparency.

A great example of transparency done right is by Derek Halpern of Social Triggers.

After having technical difficulties for a webinar, Derek sent an email to his attendees, apologizing for wasting their time:

 

Derek Halpern I'm So Sorry Email

Whenever you make a mistake or don’t meet a deadline, you need to own up to it.

Don’t try to make excuses or blame others for your wrongdoings.

Tell people that you’ve made a mistake (before they find out themselves) and tell them how you’re going to fix it.

If you’re always 100 percent honest with your customers, you’ll increase customer loyalty, trust, and reduce churn.

The more loyal your customers are, the less likely they are to churn when you make a mistake (because it will happen at some point—we all make them).

Accept your weaknesses and work on improving them instead of ignoring them.

You don’t want to fall behind the competition so you need to improve constantly.

Listening to your customers is the best way you can identify your weaknesses and learn how to improve.

The best way to discover what your customers think is to survey your customers.

Customer surveys give the most valuable insights into your brand image and how people perceive your product.

Moreover, they offer insanely valuable feedback and create a better relationship between you and your customers.

You show them that you care about their opinion and that you listen to their needs and wishes.

7. Catch churning customers before they know they’ll churn

How can you predict if your customers are about to churn?

It’s not as difficult as it may sound.

You need to identify your “at-risk” customers.

If your customers are consciously or unconsciously in the process of churning, they’re most likely not using your product as much as they previously.

It’s important that you try to re-engage those customers.

This is where segmentation comes into play. You need to segment your visitors based on their interests, their progress, their results, their actions, and so on.

That way it will be much easier to send targeted emails to them with the purpose of re-engagement.

At Sleeknote, we send trigger based emails to the customers we identify as “at-risk.”

Here’s an outtake of some of the emails we send to our customers to prevent churn:

 

Prevent Churn Email Flow

As you can see, we send emails triggered on which actions our customers haven’t taken.

For instance, we send this email to users who haven’t had an active sleeknote for 14 days:

 

Prevent Churn Email

We always encourage our customers to have active sleeknotes on their sites because it gives them results, and if they’re not getting results they’re more likely to churn.

You need to do the same. If your customers have been inactive for a longer period of time, you should reach out to them and try to re-engage them or ask them why they’ve been inactive (they might be facing a problem that you can help them overcome).

This brings me to my next point—surveys.

We know that some customers churn regardless of our efforts to prevent it.

But there’s one thing you can do that will reduce churn in the long run.

Ask them why they churned.

More often than not, people don’t mind giving feedback when they unsubscribe or in other ways churn.

Send your churned customers an email telling them you’re sorry they’re leaving, but if they wouldn’t mind telling you why they left.

This information is key when identifying areas in need of improvement.

If you use this feedback to better your product and service, your new and existing customers are less likely to churn.

Reduce churn with these proven email examples

Writing emails to reduce churn can be a daunting task (especially if you’re short on time).

To make life easier, I’ve put together a list of 29 amazing examples of emails that help improve customer loyalty and more.

Wrap up

Customers churn and that’s a fact.

But with the right strategy you can lower your churn rate and increase customer loyalty.

Lower your churn rate and make more money. It’s simple math.

I hope one or more of these 7 strategies will help you reduce your churn rate and keep your business in the green for many years to come.

By Sam Thomas Davies

Sam Thomas Davies is the content marketing manager at Sleeknote: a company that helps ecommerce business owners capture and convert more leads without hurting the user experience.

Sourced from Digital Doughnut

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Four Steps for Driving Customer Loyalty With Data Science

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By Pauline Brown.

For most companies, the cost of acquiring a new customer is far more than the cost of retaining an existing customer—often 5-10 times more expensive.

Moreover, 61% of small business owners have reported that more than half of their annual revenue comes from repeat buyers.

Those impressive numbers confirm the 80/20 rule to be true (20% of customers bring 80% of the business); and, thanks to the substantial amount of customer data businesses now have available, many businesses are shifting their primary focus to these customers.

If a business is to retain current customers, then its marketers must truly understand repeat customers’ needs to improve their overall experience with the brand and gain their long-term loyalty.

For most marketers, it is no longer a challenge to collect customer data: Analytical technologies have given us the tools to understand a customer’s actions at every point of interaction with a brand. But many marketers are still struggling to transform that analytical data into relevant information that can help improve customer loyalty.

Fortunately, there are steps marketers can take to harness data and keep churn rates at a minimum.

Companies have been using data science as a secret weapon to generate quickly actionable information that improves customer retention. If you’re interested in significantly decreasing your customer churn rate, here’s how to use the power of data science to define a process that will help your brand keep the customers you’ve already worked so hard to obtain.

Step 1: To identify churners, define your business model

Nowadays, subscription and recurring-revenue business models are everywhere. And no wonder: how customers want to access and pay for goods and services is changing, so companies are in turn changing their pricing models.

The first step in setting up a data-driven approach to increasing customer loyalty is to define the model used by your organization. More than likely, your model will fall under one of two varieties: a subscription model or a non-subscription model. (Netflix and Spotify are examples of a subscription model; Uber and eBay are examples of a non-subscription model.)

Your business model has an impact on the difficulty of determining “churn rate,” which can have different definitions; however, for most businesses, it’s a matter of whether a customer will become a “churner”—i.e., no longer a customer. Churn could also refer to the loss of contracts, MRR (monthly recurring revenue), contract value, and bookings.

Churn is frequently expressed as a rate, a ratio, or a whole number: for example, “We have a churn rate of 10%,” and, “We churned five customers.”

Identifying churners is straightforward in a subscription model: A customer churns when she requests a cancellation of her subscription. In a non-subscription model, however, you will need to analyze a customer’s behavioral tendencies to identify possible churn—such as the amount of time since he or she last used your company’s services. The primary goal is to determine the specific point after which your customer will no longer use your product or service.

Step 2: Decide on an approach to retain potential churners

Now that you’ve determined your business model, there are many ways you can start retaining potential churners with both short-term actions and a long-term approach. To have the most effective and sustainable impact on customer loyalty, you can try a combination of the following two methods.

1. One-shot, short-term actions to reduce churn

  • Launch special offers in the form of calls, push notifications, free in-game money, discount coupons, etc.
  • To control or measure customer satisfaction, set up customer feedback loops in the form of surveys, on-website or in-app questionnaires, self-service options such as designated review or feedback sections.

2. Longer-term approaches to attack the root of a problem to reduce churn

  • Reduce obstacles to make it easier to purchase your product.
  • Analyze whether your the offer fits your customer base.

Step 3: Create customer profiles (segments) and determine their behavior

What do you need to provide the right offer to your customers at the right moment (i.e., when they are making a purchasing decision)?

The answer: in-depth knowledge about that customer. However, too often customers avoid handing over personal information that can be useful to marketers—such as age, gender, profession, and buying habits. That’s why a data-driven approach is an advantage.

Instead of asking customers for such information, it can be collected and assessed externally. The success of your business is directly linked to a true understanding of your customers, and a data science approach works only when you have a defined target. In a subscription business model, the target is known; however, if you’re operating a non-subscription model, you will first need to define your target if you’re going to understand it.

You can create a customer profile and identify behaviors by asking yourself (or your team) the following questions:

  • Which customers do we care about? Segment your customers based on their behavior, and ask, “Which customers do we care most about?” Regardless of the answer, the only way to increase customer loyalty with this type of campaign is to target a well-defined customer segment.
  • How will we segment new customers? By understanding the extremes of your customers, you can create and refine new customer segments. On one extreme, you will have customers who interacted with your brand at least once, but discontinued interaction afterward. The other extreme will include customers who use your product or service frequently or are heavily engaged with your brand.Once you identify these extremes and understand your customer segmentations, it will be much easier to place a new customer in the appropriate grouping.
  • What makes our churner customers different? You will begin identifying patterns among your churners and define what makes them different fomr others. Make note of, and discuss, these differences frequently.

Step 4: Define and implement a customer-scoring process

Now that you’ve identified your target customers and understand their behaviors, you can implement a method of scoring your customers based on the data you have about them.

Customer traits, such as social information and behavior-based actions, can be used to paint a picture of who they are. Then, you can compute a score that incorporates all relevant customer features to determine exactly how likely that person is to abandon your offerings.

This is the point at which you can harness data science to take over. A predictive analytics platform can be used to aggregate all your customer data, identify potential churners, and calculate a score that predicts the potential loyalty of your customers.

This type of scoring system enables marketers to creatively segment customers and activate the most appropriate marketing strategies for each. For example, potential customer segments and actions for each could be laid out like this:

  • Loyal customers: Take no action.
  • Potential churners (customers you want to keep): Send a special offer via email.
  • Churners: Send a special offer via email.
  • Ambivalent (unsure whether to keep): Send a simple greeting without an offer.

When debating whether to spend money to attract new customers or to take care of the customers you already have, the answer is usually simple: The costs of acquiring a new customer far outweigh the costs of keeping one you already have.

Using the steps outlined above, you can arm your marketing team with the necessary data and customer insights that will help your company not only identify and retain potential churners but also improve the customer experience overall.

By Pauline Brown

Sourced from MarketingProfs

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