Have you ever heard of Retention Marketing?
If you haven’t, you’re not alone.
Most people are focused on acquisition marketing, or getting new customers.
And while that is a big part of your online business, retention marketing should not be neglected.
So, what is it?
Retention marketing is the activities you use to increase the likelihood of a customer making additional purchases from you while focusing on the increased profitability of each future purchase.
In plain English, it’s what you do to keep your customers coming back for more and spending more money in the process.
And while this won’t ever be the ONLY way you build your business, you can definitely increase your return on investment (ROI) from your current and past customers by getting them to purchase from you more often.
When you participate in retention marketing, your goal is to increase how often a person comes back to buy from you and their frequency of purchases – how soon they come back to buy after the last purchase.
When these two metrics increase, so will your CLV, or Customer Lifetime Value.
And when the lifetime value of your customer increases, so do your long-term profits.
When Do You Need To Start Retention Marketing?
If you have only recently started your online business, or you don’t have many customers to speak of, retention marketing will be something you do later on.
Most of your marketing activities will be geared towards acquiring new customers, or acquisition marketing.
Later on, though, once you have some sales under your belt, and have begun to build your list, retention marketing will come into play.
These two marketing strategies used together, are what build strong, profitable businesses.
Why Is Retention Marketing So Important?
A returning customer can be substantially more profitable and are more likely to convert than a first-time customer.
Successful Affiliate Marketers will tell you that the relationships you build with your email list, your social media followers, and your customers are essential to having a successful online business.
Retention marketing helps you nurture those relationships, which leads to an increase in brand loyalty and a stronger trust in your opinion.
Keeping in touch with your customers and providing them with helpful, quality content and information helps to keep you in the forefront of their minds when new products and services in your niche come to their awareness.
Not only that but when your customers are happy, they are more likely to refer their friends to you.
That doesn’t happen to marketers who simply collect their money and run, only sending an email when there is a new product to sell.
Most of the time, for those kinds of Sellers or Affiliates, each customer is a one-time purchaser who has no reason to think of the Affiliate again.
Their emails go unopened and they must constantly try to find new people to sell to.
But, that’s not what you want to happen with your Affiliate Marketing business, is it?
We didn’t think so.
As we mentioned before, Retention Marketing helps you to increase your customer’s lifetime value, or LTV.
LTV has to do with a customer’s or client’s worth to your business and can be used to determine how much to spend on future marketing campaigns, acquiring new customers or retaining current customers.
Email and social media marketing can help you with your retention marketing efforts to build loyalty, trust and in turn, increase your profits.
Retention Marketing Can Help Lower Your Customer Acquisition Expenses
In fact, three different studies agree that it costs 5-10x more to get a new customer than it is to keep a current one.
And, the cost of bringing a new customer up to the same level of trust & loyalty (and profitability) of a current customer can be up to 16x more expensive.
By now it should be pretty clear that retention marketing is pretty important if you want to build a successful, long-term, profitable affiliate marketing business.
So, What Are Some Retention Marketing Strategies You Could Use?
Top-Notch Customer Service. If you are a Seller, we cannot stress enough the importance of providing exceptional customer service.
At times, this may call for going above and beyond the call of duty, but be sure that your efforts will not be lost on the customer you are serving.
You can turn what could be a negative experience by someone who has purchased your product or service into a positive with just a little bit of effort.
The level of support your customer receives when they need it is a very important factor in their decision to come back and buy from you in the future.
Keep In Touch. Don’t let your customers forget who you are. This is where your blog, email and social media marketing can do the most good.
Post and email regularly with quality content that is helpful, entertaining and inspiring.
Don’t reserve your correspondence to only the times when you want to sell something.
Make Sure Every Product You Offer Is Extraordinary. Don’t be the Marketer who sells everything that they can get approved for. Actually make sure that what you recommend to your followers is worth their money.
Is it going to help them achieve their goals? Is it something that they can actually use and works the way it is supposed to? Is it even related to your niche? Is the Seller someone who has proven to be on-the-ball when it comes to customer support?
These are just some of the questions you should ask yourself before pitching a product to your subscribers.
Ask For Their Opinions. One of the best ways to learn how to serve your customers better, and increase your customers’ loyalty in the process, is to simply ask them what they need.
Ask them to give you feedback, answer questions, participate in a poll, or provide some sort of feedback on what you could do better.
Then, use the information you’ve gathered to improve your marketing activities.
JVZoo spends a lot of time going over the recommendations of our Users and implementing new tools, integrations, and features when we see that there is a need to do so.
We are dedicated to providing a platform that fits the needs of our Users and makes their jobs easier, their campaigns run more smoothly, and gives them the best experience possible.
This same dedication and loyalty should be shown to your own customers.
Whether you are an established Affiliate Marketer or a Product Creator who has a team of Affiliates selling your products for you, retention marketing should be something you are actively participating in to build a lucrative online business that will last for years to come.
