How To Keep Your Customers Coming Back: 5 Proven Strategies

Written by syedbalkhi | Published 2021/04/23
Tech Story Tags: customer-experience | customer-service | customer-success | customer-rentention | marketing | digital-marketing | ecommerce | business

TLDR Syed Balkhi is the founder of WPBeginner, the largest free WordPress resource site. Most businesses focus mainly on how to attract new leads to their website. But they tend to overlook the importance of retaining their existing customers. Here are 5 of the most effective ways to do that for the best results. Offer loyalty programs on your website to reward your customers by offering them an incentive for shopping with your brand. Offer discount coupons to your customers for their next purchase when they buy a product from you for the first time.via the TL;DR App

Most businesses focus mainly on how to attract new leads to their website. But they tend to overlook the importance of retaining their existing customers.
It is definitely important to have more and more leads for your business to reach your conversion goals. But it is equally important to retain the old ones. The reason behind this is simple.
Your existing leads have visited your website because they are already interested in your business. So it’s easier to convert them than to convince a new user to visit your website and then make a purchase.
Besides, it’s cheaper to re-engage your existing customers than to engage new users on your site. So how do you retain your customers for more profit?
The best answer to this question is to build a strong relationship with your customers. Only then will they be interested in engaging with your brand and make more purchases in the future. There are various ways of building customer relationships. 
Here are 5 of the most effective ways to do that for the best results. 

1. Offer Improved Customer Experience

Imagine a situation in which you buy a product. But you can’t assemble it because the process seems to be too complex. So you contact the support team of the product brand. 
But after waiting for days, you get no reply from them. Now you can neither use the product nor return it because it’s too late for that.
Can anything be more frustrating than that? And after facing such a situation, would you ever want to buy from that same company in the future?
Your customers can experience the same situation if you don’t offer a good customer experience. This will not only damage your brand reputation, but you’ll start losing your customers too. 
Instead of attracting more new leads, focus on improving the experience of your existing customers so that you can retain them. 
You never know what upsets your customers. So don’t neglect any part of your business. For example, sources reveal that a single second delay in your loading speed can bring down your conversion by 7%. Landing a visitor on your website is the first step to having a potential buyer. If your site is slow, your uses won’t give you another chance to prove how good your business is, and they will opt-out immediately.
Other than that, a complex navigation or checkout process on your site, bad product quality, an irresponsible support team, etc., can also add to bad customer experiences.
So make sure to have all your products and services checked for quality before releasing them in the market. 
By doing that, you can easily satisfy your customers and retain them on your website for longer. Also, it’s a great way to encourage them to come back to your site again in the future. And they might even recommend it to others.

2. Offer Loyalty Programs

Another very effective way of increasing customer retention is to create loyalty programs on your website. By creating these programs, you reward your customers by offering them an incentive for shopping with your brand.
Once a user signs up for your loyalty program, make them feel special by offering them some special privileges. For example, you can offer exclusive deals that aren’t available to non-members. This will make them feel more valued, and they’ll love coming back to you.
But not everyone will opt for these programs. So to encourage them to join the program, you can offer them a trial period. In this period, let them enjoy all the benefits that a member can have. It’s a great tactic to increase customer retention on your site and boost your conversions.

3. Offer Discounts

You must have seen how crowded every store is during the end-of-season or holiday sale period. This clearly shows how much people love discounts. 
So use this tactic in your marketing strategy to retain customers on your website. Send a discount coupon to your customers for their next purchase when they buy a product from you for the first time. This will nudge them to come back to your site again and buy more from you in order to redeem that coupon.

4. Create FOMO on your Website

If you’re a marketer, you must have already heard of the term FOMO. FOMO or Fear of Missing Out is a psychological phenomenon that triggers anxiety in people for fear of missing out on a great opportunity. So they try to grab it before it runs out.
This phenomenon is seen more commonly amongst millennials. Studies show that 69% (7 in 10) of millennials experience FOMO.
A good example of using FOMO on your website is when you run a limited period sale. Instead of missing out on the offer, your users instantly take action and make the purchase. You can use a countdown timer to make the trick more effective. When people notice the sale nearing an end, they will feel the urgency to take action. 
Another way of triggering FOMO is to highlight the limited stock availability. Letting people know that your stock is running out is another way of creating urgency amongst your users. When they see only a few stocks remaining, they want to have the product before the stock runs out completely.
Sometimes you’ll have customers who’ll add products to their cart but will exit your website before making the payment. This is called cart abandonment. Using FOMO in your marketing strategy is a great way to decrease cart abandonment and retain your users so that they can complete the purchase.

5. Have a Great Social Media Strategy

If you want to retain your customers, you can’t let them forget you. So keeping your brand fresh in their minds should be one of your key strategies if you really want to boost customer retention on your site. And the best way to do that is to have a great social media strategy.
73% of marketers believe that their social media marketing efforts have been “somewhat effective” or “very effective” for their business. And online stores with an active social presence have an average of 32% more sales than those that don’t have it.
So by using it in your marketing strategy, you too can easily reach your goal, one of which may be to retain customers on your website. For that, you need to ensure that you’re actively engaging with your followers across different social channels. This will increase your visibility and boost brand recognition amongst your users. 
Another way to use social media for business is to create engaging content for your audience. When people find your content helpful and interesting, they’ll automatically start following you, and you’ll start appearing in their feeds more often. Also, make sure to publish blog content that is shareable on social media. Add shareable buttons above or below your content so that people can share it with their friends and followers if they want. This is a good way of increasing brand recognition and gaining trust from your users.
The eCommerce market is booming. And with so many options available for shoppers, it’s difficult to retain your customers for long. But if you know the right strategy, retaining your users can be super easy. The above tips can help you do that easily and increase your sales for more profit.

Written by syedbalkhi | Syed Balkhi is the founder of WPBeginner, the largest free WordPress resource site.
Published by HackerNoon on 2021/04/23