Increase Your Business Through Your Existing Customers First!

From almost every point of view, it makes better sense to focus your marketing strategy on retaining existing customers rather than on acquiring new ones. Repeat customers spend an average of 33% more than new customers – and you don’t need to spend anything like the time and money to get them! They also tend to give you more referrals. It is a no-brainer therefore that you should prioritize customer retention in your marketing strategy.

Generally, customers become repeat customers because they have a relationship with you, so it is up to each business to foster that relationship and endeavor to ensure that customers do not just disappear after one successful transaction. Like any relationship, the business/customer relationship needs to be nurtured; customers want to feel that they are special and that you care about them. To this end, customer data management is vital. As a business owner or marketing specialist you can foster relationships with your company’s customers by reaching out through regular newsletters, keeping your customers aware of new promotions or developments in your business and showing your appreciation with added value - giveaways or referral fees, for example.

Getting feedback from your customers is another vital part of your marketing strategy. Word of mouth is generally agreed to be the most effective type of advertising so it is worth ensuring that your customers’ experience has been positive. After making a sale or providing a service, follow up with the customer and obtain feedback. If there is anything negative, do whatever is reasonable to correct it.

Obviously, new clients are important and having good relationships with current clients can help a business generate new leads also. Maintaining and managing data on your existing customers also allows you to establish the demographic you should be targeting when it comes to attracting new ones.

Don’t be afraid to stand out from the crowd or ‘go the extra mile’. People have a tendency to take good service for granted and often only comment when something goes wrong or does not come up to expectations. The company that goes that little bit further, however, can sometimes engender a positive feeling in its clients – and that will get that particular company remembered.

Of course, customer data management can be a huge headache; it is likely to be well worth companies’ while to invest in software that will do this for them. An efficient customer data management system, such as that provided by InSite Systems, will offer solutions to all a business’s customer data management needs: mobile data collection that is compatible with smartphones and other handheld devices, a user-friendly messaging solution that allows companies to send e-newsletters and bulletins and a system that allows for the creation and distribution of high-caliber online surveys.