• Know who your customers are: their demographics, cohort groupings and life stages.
• What do you know about why they signed up? Does your database keep track of that?
• One way to think about your customer’s demographic is to understand what search engines they prefer
• If you receive an opt-out, look for patterns. Why did they sign up originally and from what source.  If one source or offer repeatedly generates the highest drop-out rate, then that marketing channel and message needs to be reconsidered or adjusted.

Nurture your Customers with Tactics Tailored to What You Know About Them

• Unexpected delights, e.g. new offers or surprise giveaways or premiums, can help improve retention. Consider testing new offers on an A/B split basis to see which ones improve retention, increase ROI, improve Lifetime Value, etc. One caveat:  don’t appear to being gratuitous or condescending and make sure what you “give” is relevant to each customer segment.
• Test the timing of any nurturing tactics. At what point in a customer’s tenure on your list should you offer those unexpected items? What engages the customer for both the short- and long-term? Test varying offers against each other during key times.
• Engage with your customers on a regular basis via one (or more) of the many Social Media tools at your disposal.  These platforms give you even more individualized insights into who they are, what they want, how happy they are with your company and its products or services.
• Based on past results and/or anecdotal information as to what has worked and what might work to keep them in the fold, develop a plan or matrix of possibilities going forward.
• Try surveys to identify build your knowledge base:
  • Surveying canceled clients can help  you learn what went wrong
  • Surveying active customers helps identify the greatest opportunities for payback
  • Assign targeted deliverable options to each of these segments.

One of the advantages of email and web-based communications is that it can create strong customer loyalty by reassuring the customer every step of the way. Before the customer even has time to wonder whether something has been taken care of properly, send an email notification that it has. You will find this step especially important when marketing to the many segments of the boomer and senior demographic.

Bottom line:  test, test, test. Until you try variations on each marketing tactic in a systematic way, you won’t know what to do with the demographic information you’ve gathered. You need the demographics to segment your tactics, and you need the tests to impact your ROI.

Amanda and Bob

Psst….Pass It On—and Get a New Customer for Less!

How many of us can resist sharing a good deal with friends?  That’s the premise behind “pass-along” offers and discounts. Quite simply, you offer current owners of your product a pass-along discount that the owner can use or pass along to friends, neighbors, relatives or “good” social marketing contacts. If the discount is greater than anything offered to the general public, your customer will be doing “friends” a favor by passing on the discount. And, you’ll have a delighted new customer at significantly less acquisition cost than you would normally incur.

There are other advantages to this strategy as well. Friends of the customer are able to see your product in use or hear firsthand from someone they trust about, say, the great job the new mower does on their lawn. As long as you’ve taken the time to build a good relationship with your customer, the only added incentive (read: marketing cost) it takes is a special pass-along discount cost.

This is not the time to cut back on costs. Make the offer a worthwhile proposition for both the existing and new customer. When you consider that your customer is doing all the advertising and selling work for you, and that your promotional costs are slashed as a result, you can afford a significant discount.

Where Do I Do This?

Choose just about any channel or vehicle for your pass-along offer. Your web site, a letter or postcard, newsletter, blog, Facebook or Twitter—all are good choices. Just be sure to explain the concept of your program in clear and honest copy—and repeat this concept often!  Results seem to improve when you give some believable reason for any discounts, premiums or incentive.

To add further believability to your pass-alongs, provide a space for the owner to endorse the discount on behalf of a friend. And don’t forget to let your customer know that the discount may be kept for personal use. Just be sure to time your pass-along offers correctly, e.g. you don’t want to send a customer an offer for a discount on a product that he or she just purchased!

Tell ‘Em Joe Sent Ya…or Getting More (Qualified Leads)

It’s crucial to maintain good relations with your current customers, but list-building is still a vital part of any marketing plan. One of the most effective ways to gain qualified leads is through “member-get-a-member” and “friend-get-friend” referral offers.

In a future post we will discuss more about how this is best done—for low cost and without alienating your customers. If you’d like some immediate coaching, get in touch for a quick consult.