Retention Marketing: How to Keep Customers Coming Back

TL;DR:

• A good retention marketing strategy will help you nurture existing customers, keep them engaged with your brand, and encourage repeat purchases.
• Zero- and first-party data are cornerstones of effective retention marketing strategies because this information gives you the insights needed to increase customer retention.
• Follow best practices — including getting to know your customers, learning from feedback, and personalizing your marketing messages — to create a more successful retention marketing campaign.
• Email follow-ups, quiz marketing, tailored surveys, and customer loyalty programs are all effective strategies for building customer retention and loyalty.

Which is better: Going out and getting new customers, or keeping the ones you already have? In reality, all brands need to do a bit of both, as churn rates fluctuate over time. But here’s another bit of reality: The more customers you can keep, the better off you’ll be.

That’s what retention marketing is all about. This type of marketing emphasizes building customer loyalty so that you can increase the numbers of repeat customers who frequent your brand, thus making your overall marketing efforts much more cost efficient. 

Keep reading, because we’re going to show you how it works and how to effectively leverage data analytics with retention marketing. Plus, we’ll share the best practices and tactics that you need to add to your customer retention strategy.

What Is Retention Marketing?

Retention marketing is the art of keeping your current customers engaged and loyal — and that’s why it’s the key to making your marketing efforts really pay off in the long term. Unlike the never-ending pursuit of new customers — which is known as acquisition marketing — retention marketing focuses on nurturing existing relationships so that customers come back to make repeat purchases. 

Here are some of the biggest benefits of retention marketing:

• Cost efficiency: While it differs by industry, customer acquisition is generally more expensive than customer retention. For example, in the SaaS industry, acquisition costs can be four to five times more than the cost to retain customers.
• Increased profitability: Loyal customers spend more — up to 67% more compared to new customers.
• Brand advocacy: When customers are really satisfied with your brand, they’re more likely to recommend you and your offerings to others — and that’s free word-of-mouth marketing!

Putting it all together, retention marketing gives you the chance to get a significant return on your investment. While it’s not the only type of marketing that you should be doing, it definitely should be an essential part of your overall marketing efforts.

The Role of Zero- and First-Party Data in Retention Marketing

We talk a lot about zero- and first-party data around here — and one reason why is because these types of data are the cornerstones of an effective retention marketing strategy. First-party data comes directly from your customers through the interactions and transactions they make on your website or across social media. Zero-party data is data that your customers provide voluntarily — like contact information or survey responses.

Together, these two types of data are a treasure trove of information that you can leverage to learn more about your audience segments so that you can craft the kinds of experiences that exceed customer expectations and foster loyalty.

How Data Analytics Fits Into Retention Marketing

If zero- and first-party data represent a treasure trove of information, then data analytics is like having the tools and resources on hand to dig through that treasure and extract all the most valuable bits and pieces. Those bits and pieces are insights that you can use to do to the following:

• Identify patterns and trends in customer behavior to predict future needs.
• Measure the efficacy of your marketing campaigns and retention marketing strategy.
• Identify areas within your marketing or product development that need improvement or optimization.
• Create personalized experiences tailored to individual customer preferences

As you can see, data analytics holds the power to transform your customer data into actionable insights that will help you boost retention and drive growth. In retention marketing specifically, analytics will uncover the details you need to know to craft highly targeted retention campaigns and messaging that speaks directly to your brand’s most loyal customers.

Best Practices for Retention Marketing

You can see why retention marketing is so important — and how data analytics plays into it. Now it’s time to get practical. Keep the following best practices in mind as you build out your customer retention marketing strategy.

Get to Know Your Customers

Truly knowing your customers goes beyond zero- and first-party data — though these types of data will also be a big part of your retention strategy. To really understand who your customers are, you need to move past names, numbers, and metrics to get a firm grasp on specific customer needs, preferences, and behaviors. 

Think in terms of things like their color preferences, how often they order, the quantities and types of products they order, their birthdays, the holidays they celebrate, the value systems that are important to them, and so on. These are all things that can help inform personalized marketing messages — and help you place the right products in front of the right people at the right times.

In addition to these details, it’s also worthwhile to create a customer journey map and use it to study the touchpoints that your customers are encountering along the way. Through the customer journey mapping process, consider the following questions:

• Are you providing opportunities for long-term customers to form an emotional connection with your brand? 
• Are you providing the right information at the right stages of the customer journey (for example, informative content when customers are considering your products, or promotional incentives when customers are at the decision-making stages of the journey)?
• Where are customers dropping off along the customer journey, and what improvements or retention tactics can you use to keep them engaged so that they complete the journey?

This will help you understand things from the buyer’s perspective — and that will allow you to identify the pain points they’re encountering so that you can solve them to create a better customer experience.

Harness the Power of Customer Feedback

Some brands take customer feedback and archive it for “later,” which often ends up meaning that the feedback they receive ends up gathering digital dust until it becomes irrelevant. And that’s their loss — but it doesn’t have to be yours!

Customer feedback is an incredibly valuable tool, kind of like having a crystal ball that gives you insights into exactly what your customers are thinking and feeling. Ask them, and at least some of them will gladly tell you what they like, what they dislike, and what you can do to alleviate customer complaints or make them even happier. 

And when you act on that information, you’ll be accomplishing two things: 

1. Taking steps to increase customer satisfaction (which naturally improves retention)
2. Demonstrating that you’re listening and that you’re committed to making continuous improvements

In addition to creating a better experience, you’ll be making your customer base feel valued, which goes a long way toward helping them to build that sought-after emotional connection with your brand.

Make Your Messaging Personal

Social media, onboarding materials, marketing emails, SMS messages — a good marketing strategy is a multi-channel marketing strategy. In terms of messaging, that means a lot of opportunities to personalize. 

Use the insights you’ve gained through zero- and first-party data collection, feedback, and all the rest of the customer research that you’ve been doing to create targeted messages for individual customers. For example, if you have a particular customer or subset of customers who enjoys a certain product from your brand, keep them informed via email of new product launches that complement their favorite purchases. 

Effective personalized communications can help you boost sales, which is one reason why they’re important. However, just as importantly, personalization is another way to help customers feel valued and to help them build long-term relationships with your brand.

4 Essential Customer Retention Strategies to Implement

Now that you’ve got a grip on what retention marketing is and some of the most important best practices to follow, let’s look at specific strategies you can deploy to reduce customer churn and build brand loyalty. 

1. Email Marketing via Follow-Ups

Some brands go light on their email campaigns, only sending out sporadic messages for fear that too many emails may come across as annoying. This is definitely one case where it’s not so much about the quantity as it is about the quality. If you’re constantly spamming customer inboxes with irrelevant messaging, you can expect to see growing numbers of unsubscribers. 

However, if you take a strategic, targeted approach to email marketing, you can actually build loyalty and boost sales. The key — as with most retention strategies — is to personalize.

And one of the best ways to do that? Send out personalized follow-up emails when customers make a purchase. For starters, it’s the courteous thing to do because you can check in and make sure that the customer is happy with their purchase. It’s also a great opportunity to express gratitude, which is always welcome. On top of that, follow-ups are the perfect time to ask for feedback and to make suggestions for additional products that complement the initial purchase.

2. Personalize and Get Insights With Quiz Marketing

Want the best of all worlds? That’s what you get with quiz marketing. Quizzes are an awesome way to boost customer engagement — everyone enjoys taking them to learn more about themselves and about new products. They’re also perfect for delivering highly personalized product recommendations uniquely suited to each respondent’s answers. 

On top of that, through the responses you receive, you gain valuable insights into customer needs and preferences — and often, new contact information that you can add to your lead list.

Here’s a great example of a quiz that Unilever created with Jebbit for their Liquid I.V. brand. As customers go through the questions, this quiz collects details about beverage and flavor preferences — and along the way, it captures names, ages, and email addresses too.

It’s been a super effective way for Liquid I.V. to engage their customers. They’ve reported 93% customer engagement on this quiz and a 74% quiz completion rate, and they collected 45,000 qualified leads — along with loads of other zero-party data that they can use to create future personalized marketing messages.

3. Nurture Customer Relationships With Tailored Surveys

Much like quizzes, tailored surveys are an invaluable way to get insights into your customers’ preferences. You can set them up with the same functionality as a quiz — featuring easy-to-answer multiple choice questions that target a particular topic — or you can leave space for users to provide their own feedback. Either way, the information you get will help you fine-tune your product lineup, marketing efforts, customer service, and more.

To see how well tailored surveys can work, look no further than Publisher’s Clearing House (PCH), which has a business model that focuses on gathering consumer insights. Prior to partnering with Jebbit, PCH sent out traditional surveys to their more than 22 million panelists — and did quite well, getting a 25% completion rate.

Then, PCH partnered with Jebbit. Through Jebbit, they created tailored surveys — like their “What’s Your House of Fun Slots Style?” survey — quickly and easily, saving tons of time on the creative process both while using templates and when building them from scratch. Customers loved the results. With the new surveys, their completion rate soared to 70%. This represents millions more data points collected for PCH plus vastly increased customer engagement.

4. Use Loyalty Programs to Bring Up Your Customer Retention Rate

Just how powerful can a loyalty program be? A recent survey reveals that 55% of adults say that points and rewards systems are the top way to keep them coming back — and that’s followed by 54% who say that exclusive discounts encourage them to return. 

Loyalty programs are not only a fantastic retention marketing tactic but also another great way to put existing customer data to work. (As with most retention marketing techniques, the reverse is also true. You can use loyalty programs to gather data too.) 

For businesses that want to reduce customer churn, loyalty programs can be the ultimate retention hack since they actively reward customers for repeat purchases. They also have the added element of exclusivity. Members of rewards programs can help customers feel like they’re part of a special VIP-only club. 

To create a truly rewarding loyalty program — for both you and your customers — leverage the zero- and first-party data you’ve collected to create personalized offers designed to keep them coming back for more. For example, customers enjoy getting free birthday gifts, and businesses can use the information collected (like ages, birthdates, and location) to further refine buyer personas and the marketing campaigns designed around them. 

You can also increase both customer lifetime value (CLV) and average order value (AOV) by incentivizing repeat purchases of favorite products, or by setting up a points program in which customers can earn rewards that they can later use for discounts. 

Referrals are another element that you can add to loyalty programs (though you can create a separate referral program, too). Make referrals part of your loyalty program so that you can easily offer rewards points or other incentives for customer referrals. Then sit back and watch as members become brand advocates, spreading the word about your brand among their friends and colleagues in exchange for the perks that you’re offering.

Finally, you can even award loyalty points when customers interact with your Jebbit experiences, like quizzes and surveys.

Make the Most of Retention Marketing With Jebbit’s Personalized Experiences

As you can see, retention marketing should be an essential part of your overall marketing efforts. Compared to acquisition marketing, it’s cost effective — and it transforms consumers into loyal customers who make repeat purchases and sometimes even go on to become brand advocates. Effective retention marketing requires a blend of zero- and first-party data plus a few essential best practices and techniques that you can deploy to engage your customers and exceed their expectations.

Jebbit is here to help on each of those fronts. Create quizzes, surveys, and other interactive experiences that give you the ability to serve up personalized content and recommendations to your loyal following. These experiences will allow you to collect even more data that you can channel back into your marketing efforts. Plus, you can reward loyalty points to your customers for participating.

Ready to learn more? Schedule a strategy call to see what Jebbit can do for your brand.