Getting clients to engage with your digital marketing campaigns is half the battle. The other half is making sure they keep coming back. Client retention in the world of digital marketing is key to long-term success, and you’ll want to make sure you’re able to maintain your client base for years to come.
Actually doing this can be challenging, but keeping your clients interested and invested in your company for long periods of time can pay dividends. According to research done by Bain & Company, increasing your customer retention rate by as little as 5% can result in profits improving by more than 25%. Additionally, a survey from SAS and Loyalty 360 says that 68% of new business comes from pre-existing clients.
How do you make this happen? Here’s how you can improve your ability to retain clients while working in digital marketing.
Use Data, Analytics, and Other Technologies to Guide Your Approach
If you want to improve client retention, you should first consider what your client retention numbers already are. The more established your company, the more data you can use. To do this, gather data based on clients’ activity with your company, its website, and its services. Use this data to see what’s working, what isn’t, and how you can keep clients more satisfied and engaged going forward.
There are multiple metrics you can use to determine this, including how often people purchase your products or services, the overall value of what clients purchase, how many clients you’ve lost (aka “customer churn rate”), how often you have repeat clients, and how much your revenue has grown based on your existing client base.
You can also set objectives through KPIs (key performance indicators) and use the data to measure how much progress you’ve made toward hitting them, and how effective your current digital marketing strategies are.
Social Media Should Be Used to Your Advantage in Your Digital Marketing Career
In today’s increasingly digitized age, social media platforms are where client complaints can often be found. This is another pillar of trying to maintain and improve client retention during your digital marketing career, since client satisfaction is a key component in ensuring they keep coming back to your business. Be sure to monitor any reviews about your company that come from clients, and take their feedback into consideration, whether good or bad.
It’s also worth thinking about how to go about responding to social media reviews, especially if anyone makes public complaints on social media about the company. Social media can also be used as a vehicle for different types of retention marketing, such as personalized posts and content that has client retention as its main purpose.
The use of social media for client retention is backed by statistics, too. A study from New Voice Media indicates that 20% of clients would use social media platforms to voice complaints about their experience with a company’s customer service, and a 2017 Microsoft study says that 65% of people aged 18 to 34 consider social media to be an effective customer service platform. On top of this, Globalwebindex has found that up to three hours per day are spent by consumers using social media platforms. For these reasons, social media platforms should be used as a means through which to listen attentively to client desires and concerns, connect with them in personalized ways, and build genuine relationships with the aim of further strengthening these bonds over time.
Marketing Automation Is Worth Using to Retain Clients
Marketing automation is important to digital marketing training. Part of the reason for this is that it offers many benefits, and can be used to your advantage during several different processes. These include online chat services, scheduling personalized emails to be sent to clients automatically, and using email surveys and feedback loops to gauge how satisfied clients are with your services and/or products. Although automated emails are often associated with generating new leads, they can be used effectively for client retention when done right.
Marketing automation can be used to automatically schedule and send follow-up emails with clients after they’ve used or purchased your services, for example. You can also automate responses to various questions through a Q&A, or send automated rewards via email to clients who have purchased a specific amount of your services over time. Regardless of what you use marketing automation for, this process is meant to save time that would otherwise have been used to manually monitor clients and maintain their interest. This type of approach is undertaken with the intention of providing content to clients that resonates with them and continues to affirm the presence and relevance of your brand.
Are you looking to upgrade your skills through digital marketing school?
Contact Cumberland College today!
