Marketing is dead, and loyalty killed it, says Alexander Jutkowitz in Harvard Business Review. According to Thanx, 64% of revenue is generated by 25% of customers. What is responsible for Apple financial success is astonishing 78% customer loyalty to iPhone. How to achieve such effects? Marketing Automation will help.
What loyalty means?
Loyalty means existence of some added value which makes customers choose that particular product/ service/ store, even if there are reasons to buy from competitors.
Loyalty involves more than just retention. If you have the only shoe shop in the area, customers obviously come back, but they do so out of dependency, not loyalty. Only when another shoe shop will appear in the neighborhood, customer loyalty and added value could be possibly measured.
Added value
Added value is a feature that defines uniqueness of a product/ service/ store and creates fundaments for long-term relationship with customers. It could be:
- Sense of security
- Sense of belonging
- Product exclusive feature
- Quality of customer service
- Advantageous loyalty plan
- Values or ideas behind a product
- Lowest price guarantee
Anything that bring customers back, even if competition offers similar – or even the same – goods.
Boosting customer loyalty with Marketing Automation
But mere uniqueness is not enough, because the form of our communication also determines customer loyalty. That’s why you need marketing automation. Here is a list of ideas to improve it:
- Innovative loyalty programs using beacons: therefore you will be able to abandon traditional, archaic loyalty cards and count each customer’s purchase, both online and offline, automatically. What a convenience to customer! Read more on creating loyalty program.
- Gathering knowledge allows to build relationship: the more you know about customers, the more relevant offers you can address. Personalization is impossible without advanced behavioral and transactional analytics.
- 1:1 Marketing. Dynamic content and e-mails are the base of long-lasting bond with customer, because they show that you treat him individually and adjust offers to his/her particular needs. Also find opportunities to say thank you to them, ask for opinions and suggest complementary products
- Use analytics to improve content quality: with content marketing you can not only educate your customers, but also discuss values you share, what is crucial for establishing loyalty. 30% of customers say that shared values are one of 3 top reasons for being loyal to a brand. Hence invest in content and optimize it. Read more about content marketing and marketing automation synergy.
- Segmentation: vital for creating dedicated communication for loyal customers. Let them know how important they are for you, prepare special offers for them, maybe create a separate email template for them?
- Lead Scoring to identify influentials. Some of your customers do amazing job recommending your products, sharing your content or engaging in discussions at forums. According to Malcolm Gladwell’s “law of the few”, products become iconic due to engagement of few people (characterized either by profound knowledge, or many contacts, or talent for persuasion). That small group can spread the word about your brand more efficiently that any advertising campaign. Lead Scoring helps you identify such customers and answer their specific needs.
- Birthday e-mail: little big thing. Works better than any mass wishes.
- Remind of benefits: if you offer any kind of benefits to loyal customers, remind them of it if they haven’t use it. It will show your clients that you care for them.
- Measure: don’t just repeat common knowledge that making actual user buy is 7 times cheaper that bringing new one. Use advanced analytics offered by Marketing Automation Systems to measure ROI of your loyalty improving actions, and optimize them.
Customer loyalty is above all about building long-term relationship. In the world of stimuli-overload, many distractions and strong competition, it becomes a condition sine qua non to successful business. It takes not only uniqueness of an offer, but also precise, personalized communication, possible only with Marketing Automation.
And how do you build customer loyalty?
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