Did you know you can earn more by selling to returning customers rather than acquiring new customers?
As a business owner, it’s important that you get new customers going to your store. After all, customers are the only thing keeping your business going. Most eCommerce owners make the mistake of thinking they can only get sales from new customers:
- Acquiring a new customer can cost five times more than retaining an existing customer.
- Increasing customer retention by 5% can increase profits from 25-95%.
- The success rate of selling to a customer you already have is 60-70% while selling to a new customer is 5-20%.
Research reveals that businesses lose between 20-40% of their customers every year. And while it may be normal to have some of your audience lose interest in your brand (the average email list declines 25% each year).
When you retain your current customers as loyal buyers, this helps you to lower your customer churn rate. Customer churn is when existing customers stop doing business with you. After all, what’s the point of getting new customers if they don’t stay for the long run.
Today I’m going to run through six simple ways to get more returning customers to your eCommerce store.
1. Create Win-Back Email Marketing Campaigns
A Winback Email Marketing Campaign is essentially recapturing those customers who bought from you once and left. Or, in the case of software, people who used your service but left.
When you are crafting your win-back email, it’s important to say good goodbye, but with a little gift. Add a special discount or deal to your email. Try not to rinse and repeat a deal you’ve been using regularly on your website. It has to be something big enough to grab your customer’s attention. After all, they might have been ignoring your previous emails and marketing effort.
2. Improve Your Customer Service
Another great way to get customers to return to your eCommerce store is by providing great customer service. Like it or not, the experience customers have with you determines if they’ll buy from you or buy even more.
Dimensional Research found that 52% of consumers say they have made an additional purchase from a company after a positive customer service experience. Not to mention that American Express found that one-third of consumers say they would consider switching companies after just one instance of bad customer service.
Customer service doesn’t just start and stop in your online store’s chat or email. It’s expected throughout every online platform that you’re active on, including social media; that’s why 44% more people think that a brand’s conversations (including direct messaging or in response to a comment posted) are more persuasive than what a brand’s advertising ads.
MailChimp
If you’re having trouble using your online platforms for customer service or not sure how to handle negative reviews on social media, check out our guide on 4 Best Ways Brands Can Respond to Haters on Instagram
3. Reward Customers for Loyalty with Discounts
You can also reward customers for returning to your eCommerce store by tempting them to shop with exclusive discounts and deals.
You can do this by sharing your discount or deals via email or social media, or you can create a customer loyalty program to manage and maintain customer retention better.
There are several reasons a loyalty program will do well to keep customers coming back to your eCommerce store. The most apparent benefit is seeing more repeat purchases since customers can get gifts or rewards as incentives.
Loyalty programs tap into your customer base and offer incentives when customers spend more money in a single transaction. For more on this, check out Maximize Your Customer Loyalty Strategy by Keeping Your Rewards Program on Track.
4. Share Customer Reviews & UGC
User-Generated Content is content created freely by customers who love your products.
Customer reviews and UGC have a crucial impact on your sales as well as enticing returning customers. You’re sharing what real customers have to say about your brand and why others should love shopping with you as well.
Around 86% of millennials believe that user-generated content (also known as UGC) is a good indicator of a brand or product’s quality. The more your followers see others enjoying your products more likely they’d like to enjoy the same experience.
You can reshare UGC that you’ve selected from followers who have tagged you or used your branded hashtag. You can also add shoppable social commerce features to make their shopping experience seamless, for example:
5. Retargeting Facebook & Instagram Ads
One of the best ways to get returning customers back to your eCommerce store is with the help of retargeting ads on Instagram and Facebook.
This type of marketing is particularly effective because the platform uses very specific targeting and tracking data. That means you can determine who sees what based on either their tracking, purchase, or product browsing history. You can create retargeting ads through Facebook’s ad manager by adding a tracking pixel and setting it to track:
- Visits to your add-to-cart page
- Add-to-cart button clicks
- Visits to your purchase/thank you pages.
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6. Create a Referral Program to Keep Sales Going
Referral programs help you retain your current customers, but it also helps you gain new customers as well simultaneously. Customers acquired through referrals have a 37% higher retention rate, and 81% of consumers are more likely to engage with brands that have reward programs.
With a good referral program, you can boost sales, maintain a steady flow of customers. A referral program is different from an affiliate program.
A Referral Promotion allows your customers or fans to earn a reward in exchange for referring their friends to sign up or complete an action for your business.
Summary
The key to a steady flow of sales and website traffic is to attract new customers while taking care of your current customers. Each eCommerce store attention to ensure that their customer’s shopping experience so they come back for more sales and encourage others to join in.
Here’s a quick recap of the six simple ways to get more returning customers to your eCommerce store:
- Retargeting Facebook & Instagram Ads
- Improve Your Customer Service
- Reward Customers for Loyalty with Discounts
- Share Customer Reviews & UGC
- Be Super Active on Social Media
- Create a Referral Program to Keep Sales Going
Read more: How To Treat Your Customers Like Individuals
This article was written for Business 2 Community by Victoria Taylor.
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