How to Keep in Touch With Your Clients

68% of all people leave a business, because of 'perceived indifference' - What are you doing to keep your clients?

You often hear about what you can do to attract new customers to your business, but your approach shouldn't be out with the old and in with the new - customer retention is equally as important as customer acquisition.

Did you know it costs less money to retain an existing client than it does to acquire a new one?It can cost up to 5 times as much to attract a new customer, as well as more time and effort on your behalf.

When businesses don't take the time to nurture the relationships formed with existing clients, they might very well move on to another business. If a client hasn't heard from you in a while, hasn't received any attention or value from you and hasn't felt that you're as loyal to them as they are to you, they'll leave you behind.

This is a common phenomena in most businesses and has been well documented over the years, yet most business owners are not aware of this hole in their revenue - one that could easily be fixed up.

If you're wondering how, it's pretty simple: keep in regular contact with your existing clients while you actively seek to grow your customer base.

We've put together a list of the best marketing tools you can use to do just that:

Email Marketing

Delivering a substantial ROI (return on investment), email marketing is one of the most efficient ways to keep in touch with your clients. They can also be automated, making it super simple and time saving for you.

Often overlooked and underrated as a marketing tool, email marketing creates a touch point with existing clients and is one of the most highly regarded tools for customer retention, with 56% of marketers relying on email marketing as the most effective method of customer retention.

Email marketing can also be a personalised experience. With segmented audience lists, you can deliver more targeted offers to the most appropriate and most likely to convert members of your audience. For example: if your business sells pet food and you've got a special on dog treats, using a segmented audience list can help you target the dog owners in your audience rather than the cat owners.

A segmented email marketing campaign can offer you the following benefits:

• Increases perceived value of your services or products
• Shows you know and care what your client might be interested in
• Increases open rates
• Influences sales leads, ultimately producing greater revenue

Additionally, with greater access to emails through smartphones and tablets, email marketing is more important than ever before.

Personalised Print

With personalised print cards, you can utilise your marketing database to send out personalised, physical cards to your clients. As part of the Bloomtools Database & Email Marketing system, you can have these cards automatically sent to your clients.

Not only does this create another touch point to help strengthen the relationship between business and consumer, it reminds them you're still there for them, providing value and being thankful they chose your business and overall, enhancing their loyalty to you.

Some of the most popular personalised card strategies are:

• Birthday cards
• Anniversary cards
• Welcome cards to new clients
• Christmas cards
• Valentines Day cards

Social Media

We strongly believe in leveraging the powers and tools of social media to retain clients and recent studies suggest we're not alone - 44% of U.S. retail professionals say social media drives their retention.

Crafting an effective social media strategy is an ongoing process that requires time and care. The effort isn't wasted though, as it's an effective way to strengthen relationships with customers.

So, how can social media help customer retention?

• Gives you a platform where clients can directly engage and a platform for you to listen to what they have to say - all of which gives you valuable information you can use to help retain them as clients.
• Add value to your customers through informative content that they can enjoy and learn from. This content most often should aim to solve their customer pain points and show why you're the business they should choose to help them.
• Build your brand image with posts about your business mission, behind the scenes insights or  products and services in action. All of which encourage customer loyalty to a business.
• Allows you to show you care about your clients by providing real-time support.

SMS Marketing

SMS marketing can be a great way to get in touch with your clients on the spot. As with email, SMS can be used to send reminders, value offers or service reminders. If you've got an offer you want to push out fast, you can send it out on SMS and know it's most likely in the hands of your clients almost automatically.

Database Marketing Software

Finally, to make customer retention as simple and straightforward as possible, we've created the Bloomtools database marketing software that includes all the tools you need - from email marketing and online surveys to event management and SMS marketing. With a large range of free email templates and access to all of your contacts in one place, the database marketing tool works seamlessly with your website and CRM. Best of all, it's also spam act compliant.

Whatever tool you choose to use, it's important to remember that customer retention is only one aspect of your journey. Continuing to grow your customer base through acquisition strategies alongside your retention strategy is the most efficient way to get results.

Additionally, we suggest you review the data that these tools and campaigns produce so you can gather a greater idea of what is and isn't working for your audience and harnessing these strengths for your benefit.

Don't continue to lose potential revenue for your business when you can implement simple fixes and strategies to strengthen your client relationships. If you're looking for help getting started with any of the above tools, feel free to get in touch with our digital marketing and internet specialists on (07) 5636 3700 or book a consultation.