Retain the customers you have and win new ones

Do you know what it costs to acquire a new customer?

You certainly know it is expensive and difficult. Here is the fact: acquiring a new customer costs ten times what retaining an existing one costs. Yet 63% of marketers still treat new customer acquisition as the goal, neglecting to cultivate the relationships they already have. When retaining an existing customer costs a tenth as much, spending the budget on acquisition does not add up. And by raising the loyalty of the customers you have, you gain free and highly persuasive advocates: your loyal customers.

According to the White House Office of Consumer Affairs, a customer will relay a negative experience to 9–15 people. But if you give customers an excellent experience, their recommendations drive conversion rates 3–5 times higher than traditional marketing tools. Focus only on lifting sales and you lose the potential business your existing customers represent (each one worth as much as US$243). Instead, understand your customers and work out how your product or service meets their needs, or even improves their lives.

Is any of this difficult? Not at all. Through email marketing you can analyse customer preferences from their online activity. When a customer engages with your brand, your product clearly holds some value for them or has caught their interest. Email marketing then helps them extract that value from your brand. Once a customer has a positive experience — and you do need to keep cultivating the relationship — they become a loyal advocate who opens up new business for you.

Email is a personal, everyday communication channel through which you can build that relationship. Over 91% of customers check email daily, and 77% prefer to receive commercial information by email. A personalised welcome email, for instance, is a good start to a long relationship. Email built specifically around customer activity — click history, for example — raises loyalty effectively, because it provides an effective way to meet the customer’s needs. Once those needs are met and they have had a positive experience of your brand, they become loyal supporters.

Remember that existing customers are genuinely valuable. They do not just promote your brand, they place further orders. Retain them, and you gain more new customers as a result.