Data holds the key to re-engagement and customer retention

It’s no secret that most marketing dollars are spent acquiring new customers. According to the Harvard Business Review, acquiring a new customer can cost 5-25% more than working to retain existing clientele, depending on what industry you’re working in. Having a retention and re-engagement plan is important to saving the customers you’ve already invested in obtaining. Knowing your audience and who is best suited for your product are key components of having a successful re-engagement program.

Here are 4 ways you can use data to help strengthen your re-engagement and retention efforts.

Surveys speak volumes

Before discussing how to re-engage wavering customers, there is an important first step – ensuring you’re targeting the right customers. If retention is an ongoing issue for your company I would highly recommend a survey for your recent inactive customers. Ask them why they aren’t buying from you right now – is it price? Location? Service?Even if you only get a few responses, it can help shed some light on a larger looming issue. Also, be sure to cross-reference your survey results with your customer segments; it may be that your offering is better suited to a niche audience. Why spend time trying to re-engage an audience segment not suited for your product?

Build a reason for them to return

Loyalty programs are all the rage today, and if done well, are extremely effective at retaining customer segments. Understanding your strengths as an organization and building a program that incentivizes repeat business is just smart. Create your loyalty program around your strongest customer segment. Determine why they do business with you and what makes them return time and again. You should be working to acquire similar folks and when you do, your loyalty program will work to keep them engaged.

Don’t become forgotten

Successful re-engagement for an inactive customer requires consistent dialogue. Don’t allow more than 30 days to pass without communicating something to them. Until they tell you to stop communicating through an opt-out or other request, you should continue to remind them why they chose you in the first place, while keeping your name top-of-mind.

But frequency is only a part of this important strategy – the other part is ensuring your communications are sending the right message to the right people. Hopefully you’ll have some data to help you out here – do you know what they purchased the first time, or what white paper they downloaded from your website? Whatever you do know, you should be sure to use to your advantage. Use your purchaser profile to determine who and what you are communicating. Save your time and effort for those you may actually win back – to everyone else you’re just being annoying.

Get the Win-Back!

Examine your inactive audience specifically to find common threads.Use these commonalities to understand what your audience is looking for and design a customized win-back campaign. Examples of a win-back campaign could be offering a loyalty rewards bonus for $100 in purchases or a free car wash with your next visit to the car parts store. Yes, it may cost you a little bit to win back inactive customers, but it’s worth it! You save money in the long run by not having to acquire more to make up for the loss. And if you are successful in winning them back, they may be more loyal to you this next time.

No matter which way you approach re-engagement and retention with your customer audience, let the data experts at B2E recommend the data points that can enhance your strategies. We can also help analyze your customer data and segment your audiences in useful ways. We’re ready to help you re-engage with data!

Katelyn