In this competitive digital world, acquiring new customers is difficult but at the same time retaining old customers is also demanding and exhausting. However, it is important for your brand to retain old customers and build a loyal customer base.
The post-purchase moment in the customer journey can be a game-changing deciding moment, where you can predict that the customer will be a one-time purchaser or a loyal customer. According to a study, 95% of marketers stated that email marketing campaigns were successful in completing their business goals.
A successful email marketing campaign will target these customers with post-purchase emails that will encourage engagement rate, loyalty, and revenue. Customer retention is important for your business as they are already familiar with your brand although customer retention can be tough. However, combining customer retention with marketing automation can make this process smooth.
Marketers know it is easier to retain old customers than to acquire new ones, so they prefer an email marketing campaign that is cost-effective, efficient, and engaging. According to research, 20% of your customers contribute 60% of your sales. In this article, we’ll learn what our customer retention emails are, the benefits of using marketing automation, and best practices or tips for customer retention!
What is a customer retention email?
Customer retention emails are sent to existing customers to build and enhance customer relationships, drive sales, and build social proof. Customer retention emails are cost-effective, enhance customer experience, increase revenue, build social proof, and promote brand loyalty.
Customer retention emails can be composed differently but their aim is to strengthen the customer relationship, motivate them to continue the use of your product, and remind them of the interactions they had with the brand. They also provide additional information, latest updates, discounts etc to the customers. These emails can be personalized to enhance the customer journey. These emails make them feel that you value them. Customers may have signed up for a newsletter, purchased a product, or visited your website. A retention email is sent to all to remind the users of their last interaction with them and to showcase the value of your product.
Some examples of customer retention emails are transactional emails, thank you emails, cross-sell, up-sell, review requests, welcome emails, promotional events, cart abandonment, interactive emails, etc.
Many studies state that it costs four to five times more to acquire new customers than to retain existing ones. So this simple strategy that can increase revenue, promote user-generated content,
The benefit of using email marketing automation for customer retention
Here are some of the benefits of using marketing automation for customer retention
- Helps in building loyalty and trust: Small and medium enterprises don’t have the same trust and loyalty as big companies have. By sending automation emails your customers remember your brand. These emails help in communicating product value to your customers and help in building trust and loyalty.
- Boost Engagement: Marketing automation boosts engagement by sending personalized emails. It makes the users feel special.
- Customer Lifetime Value: By sending marketing automation emails you provide information to the users about products and your brand. This promotes brand loyalty and increases sales. You can make each customer more productive and make more sales from a customer during their customer journey.
- Cost-effective: It is a cost-effective strategy to increase your sales. Acquiring new customers costs more than retaining old customers.
- Attract New Customers: When you retain old customers, they become your brand advocates. They spread positive word of mouth which attracts new customers.
- Customer satisfaction: To keep your customers happy you must maintain constant communication with them. You must maintain a constant touch with your customers during important events of their customer journey such as adding a product to a cart, making a purchase, etc.
- Personalization: According to research, 76% of customers expect a personalized experience. Marketing automation segments the data automatically such as on the basis of demographics and behavior. On the basis of this Segmentation, you can send personalized messages.
- Relationship building: Automation emails help in building relationships. These emails set up triggers and workflow which are automatically sent to their customers based on their actions.
- Data-driven decision: Marketing automation collects and monitors data from customer interactions such as open rate, clicks, cart abandonment, etc. By utilizing data, you can make smart data-driven decisions. They can optimize customer retention emails.
- Reputation Management: Marketing automation emails help in establishing positive customer relationships. They act as social proof and spread positive word of mouth. This helps in building a positive strong online reputation.
- Increase Sale: According to Marketing Metric, the success rate of selling to an existing customer is 60-70%. In Fact the value of a loyal customer multiplies with time.
- Creative Freedom: There is a creative feature in composing such emails. You should create emotion-evoking messages. Have creative storytelling and create attractive emails.
Tips for customer retention
Some of the tips to improve your marketing automation for retaining customers are
- Loyalty program: Reward your loyal customers with loyalty schemes and programs. customers have stated that coupons generate 68% loyalty. Also, 82% of customers feel that they will continue using a retailer if they offer them frequent discounts. Loyalty schemes or programs motivate customers to stay connected with the brand.
- Cross-sell and up-sell: Targeted cross-sell and up-sell campaigns target customers with products and services that match their interests and preferences. There are 60%-70% chances of selling to an existing customer compared to 5% to 20% chances of selling to a new customer.
- Customer feedback: By accessing the customer feedback and reviews you can improve your marketing automation. It indicates that you care about your customers and identify future opportunities. Customers trust reviews as if they an advice from a close friend.
- Win back past customers: Never forget your past customers. An automated email is sent to past customers to re-engage and reconnect with them. Ideally, you should reconnect with your old customers after three months of their last purchase. You should send follow-up emails with a drip campaign where emails are sent after 1 to 2 months.
- Personalization: Try to send personalized emails. Use their first name or highlight their preferences or products purchased by them.
- Segmentation: Segment your target audience into different segments based on demographics, preferences, and behavior. It helps in better targeting and fulfilling your marketing objective.
- Content: Create engaging, relevant, and informative content. Create your content on time. Try to create educational and entertaining content.
- Call To Action: Create engaging and attractive CTA that are clearly visible. Your CTA should motivate your customers to perform a desired action. Make sure the link connected to the CTA is correct.
- Work on the subject line: Work on the subject line of your emails. Your subject line should be appealing so that it compels the customers to open your email. Also, it should be relevant to the content of the email and avoid using spam words.
- Campaigns for special occasions: Create emails for special occasions such as birthdays, anniversaries, and festivals. Try to create personalized emails for such occasions. Your customers feel delighted and special. You can also offer some special discounts on such events.
- Communicate informative content: Always remember to create informative emails where you provide product value to the customers. Provide relevant and informative content that enlightens your customers about your products and services.
- Storytelling: Follow a hierarchical storytelling process. Make sure you keep your users engaged and grab their attention.
We have learned about email marketing automation for customer retention. It helps in increasing your engagement rate, building trust & loyalty, attracting new customers, relationship building, and making smart data-driven decisions. Also, it is a cost-effective way to increase sales and customer loyalty. Lumia 360 caters to small and medium enterprises. We are experienced in creating relevant, engaging, and informative content for such enterprises. We have increased their customer base, no. Of likes and website rank with our content. To know more about our services and plans, email us at info@lumia360.com or call us at 514-668-5599.
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