4 PROVEN DIGITAL MARKETING STRATEGIES TO GAIN LOYAL CUSTOMERS

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As you progress in your business, customer acquisition simply isn’t enough. You have to start making new plans for your existing customers as they move along the engagement funnel, taking them from awareness to conversion, and then finally to loyalty.

Acquiring loyal customers is an integral part of growing your business. Not only do you have to pay attention to it to make your current customers happy⁠, your growth is also highly dependent on how much and how often you sell to them. While increasing your customer base is an option, it’s 6x more costly than simply focusing on your current customers.

With that in mind, we’ve prepared 4 proven digital marketing strategies you can use to retain your current customers and keep them for the long haul.

1. Strategize with Existing Customer Data

When thinking about loyal customers, you want to make the most out of the customer data you already have. Based on your past marketing activities, you’ll know how certain customers respond to your promotions and engage with your platforms. You’ll have a basic understanding of how they behave. 

As such, you can use the data to further classify your customers into different segments. These segments can range from basic information like demographics or locations of your customers to insights regarding their purchase frequency and triggers. 

Extracting these types of information from your available data will give you an understanding as to the types of campaigns you can run and experiment with.

Using customer data can also be as simple as asking them what they want. You can run periodic customer surveys to know their preferences when it comes to products, communications, and plans for the future⁠—if you want to keep them, then you’ll have to anticipate what they might want later on.

2. Go Omnichannel

To keep your customers, you’ll want to maintain your relationship with them by keeping up a strong presence. The expression, “out of sight, out of mind,” has never been more true in today’s world, with an unlimited supply of information and distractions within reach at any given time.

Given this, you’ll want to be where your customers are, at the right moments. Because those right moments are hard to plan for, it’s best to be visible across multiple channels.

We suggest using these three channels to do this effectively:

Email

Contrary to popular belief, email is still king. In fact, recent statistics show that 99% of consumers check their email everyday. If you want to stay in touch with your customers, using email is your safest bet.

Beyond statistics, the design of email as a platform is highly personal. This means that it’s easier to maintain rapport with email versus other platforms.

Use this to your advantage by sending out simple birthday discount promotions or regular check-ins, to show your customers that you know them and care about them.

Social media communities

Customers today make decisions based on social proof—especially in countries like the UAE. This means that they’re more likely to support companies a lot of people rally behind. 

One strategy that digital marketers simply must capitalize on to make it in today’s world is using social media communities. More than just a page and ad activity, these are features like Facebook groups that current customers are invited to join.

These groups can serve as announcement boards for early access to new product offerings or promotions for your current customers to see first, as a reward for their continued patronage. This will further strengthen the feeling of exclusivity among your customers because they benefit directly from the decision to remain loyal to your company.

Moreover, social media communities are the best way to engage with your customers firsthand by answering their questions, giving them tips, and providing solutions to their problems.

Display ads 

Display ads are often used for awareness, but it can also be used for creating loyalty by retargeting. Put simply, retargeting is delivering your ads to people already in your customer list, either to push new promotions, or reinforce ongoing ones.

Using display ads allows you to be in the same space as your competitors, to remind your customers that you’re always there.

3. Invest in Better UX

Your website is a critical tool in your digital marketing strategy, but simply having a website isn’t the end of the line. You have to make sure that your customers have the best experience when browsing your website.

Remember: the goal of customer loyalty is to make customers want to come back for more. You’ll want them to build a habit of checking out your content and new products, and you want them to have a pleasant time when they do.

The last thing you want is to stress your customers out with an overwhelming amount of information on your website. To avoid this, it’ll help you a great deal to invest in having better UX design: creating an experience for users that won’t require them to think, but instead allow them to browse and shop with zero friction. It’s making using your website as seamless as possible.

Investing in UX design doesn’t have to cost you a lot of money—you just have to keep your website neat and simple, easy to use, and responsive. Part of having a great UX is also making your calls-to-action clear and easy to find, to lead your customers to the actions you want them to complete.

4. Work Rewards and Incentives into your Brand DNA

To secure your customers’ loyalty to your products and/or services, you’ll want to make it hard for them to switch to your competitors. We don’t mean chaining them to your physical store—only that you can achieve greater retention through smart offers that your customers can’t refuse, delivered regularly.

For example, you can provide your customers discount coupons as a reward for their past purchases, encouraging them to spend more down the line. You can adapt this strategy into something more sustainable by creating a points system, offering your customers the chance to accumulate reward points as they make more transactions with you. 

Finally, you can implement an affiliate or brand ambassador program for your superstar customers who make regular purchases. You can do this by making unique discount codes for these customers to share with their respective networks, and then rewarding them for every person that uses their code.

All they’d ever need to do is talk about their love for your company’s brand, and use their influence to help nudge your sales in an upward direction. Because they’ve been working with or buying from your company for a while, their opinions about your brand are more credible. This means that their friends and followers may soon become your customers as well.

Conclusion

In a world that’s all about generating new leads, you can’t afford to neglect your existing customers or the benefits that securing their loyalty can bring. Keep these four strategies in mind when planning your marketing efforts, and always remember that some of the best customers you’re bound to receive may have already spent on your business.

To start integrating these and other digital marketing strategies to your business today, head over to Igloo to get in touch with an expert. Our seasoned performance marketers are trained to help you make better sense of your marketing and to help you bring your plans to fruition.

https://www.weareigloo.com/4-proven-digital-marketing-strategies-to-gain-loyal-customers/