Admit it—you’ve been to a few sales meetings, and while you can’t remember a single thing the leader said, you most definitely remember what they looked like. Whether they were 5’10” with a head of voluminous black hair, or 5’4″ with straight brown hair, you remember the general way they held themselves. Why? Because these people communicate emotions more than they communicate words, and their body language is a huge part of it.
Buying behavior is a complex process that requires a blend of intuition, psychology and marketing expertise. Every business owner wants their visitors to buy more and stay longer, but most of them don’t know what works. So how do you sell more? You need to understand what makes people buy. The good news is that there is a lot of free data available to this end, but finding the right information can be a daunting task.
How do you keep customers buying more? No matter what the product or service, know that there is always a way to go beyond the expected. And when it comes to marketing, there’s no exception. So, how do you keep customers buying more? What do you do to turn your marketing dream into a reality?. Read more about customer retention hacks and let us know what you think.
Retaining a client is 5 times less expensive than acquiring a new one.
As a result, client retention is critical to the success of your Ecommerce company.
What is the definition of client retention?
Customer retention refers to the capacity to persuade consumers to return for further purchases. According to research, recurring consumers spend more than one-time customers, making client retention a top goal for any Ecommerce company looking to expand. According to research, retail Ecommerce sales are expected to reach $548 billion by 2024, so you’ll want to make sure your client retention strategy is strong enough to grab a piece of that pie.
This article will go through the methods you may take to increase client retention. We’ll also look at fundamental concepts like consumer attraction and conversion. So, how about we get started?
For Ecommerce Businesses, There Are Five Customer Retention Strategies and Tools to Consider
Many companies make the mistake of putting a lot of money on client attraction. Sure, if you don’t bring in new consumers, your company may go out of business. Attracting customers, on the other hand, is not the key to company growth.
Customer retention is essential for company success.
As a result, you must devise methods to assist you in retaining the consumers you have attracted. You’ll also need the appropriate tools for the task.
Why is it so essential to keep customers?
I’ll tell you a few reasons why:
- enhances customer loyalty
- encourages the use of referral marketing
- improves the return on investment
- boosts the average order value (AOV)
In terms of return on investment, research indicates that a 5% improvement in customer retention may raise revenue by over 25%, depending on the sector, product, and other variables.
With that in mind, let’s look at five client retention techniques to help you develop your Ecommerce company.
1. Recognize the Customer Journey and Tailor Your Customer Experience to It
Understanding the customer journey is one of the first stages in developing a successful client retention strategy. Meeting or surpassing your customers’ expectations is at the core of client retention.
To accomplish so, you must first comprehend the client journey and then optimize each stage for good customer experiences (CX).
Customers will keep coming back for more if you can keep them pleased.
How do you go about doing that?
Know Who You’re Talking To
Knowing who your audience is enables you to create customized messages and experiences at each step of the journey. Return sales rely heavily on personalized experiences. Use the following to get a better understanding of your target audience:
- To collect demographic and psychographic data about your target audience, use audience research tools like surveys and quizzes.
- To better identify your audience demographics, use social media platforms and tools like Facebook’s Audience Insights.
- Buyer personas may be created using tools like HubSpot.
You must first understand who your target audience is and what they want before you can design and optimize customer journeys that successfully retain your consumers. You can guarantee that each touchpoint is relevant in this manner, resulting in a good customer experience and, as a consequence, greater customer retention rates.
Create a Successful Customer Loyalty Program
Creating a client loyalty program should be a part of your customer experience.
Customer loyalty refers to a customer’s desire to purchase from you again and again. Loyalty programs encourage them to do so, allowing them to enhance the lifetime value of their customers (CLV). It boosts revenue and, more crucially, improves customer retention rates when it is well-designed and implemented. Here are some pointers and resources to help you create a successful client loyalty program:
- Understand what incentives are important to your consumers.
- Define your loyalty program’s rules. This covers the types of rewards associated with each activity as well as which activities are awarded.
- To determine your consumers’ loyalty, use metrics like the Net Promoter Score. This will assist you in determining the effectiveness of your customer loyalty program and the amount of effort required to enhance it.
- To design and implement customer loyalty programs, use customer loyalty programs like ReferralCandy.
Customer loyalty programs should never be an afterthought; they should be an essential component of your overall customer retention strategy.
Do you have a company that is both B2B and B2C?
BigCommerce B2B Edition, my post’s sponsor, makes it simple to provide various price lists and goods to different client groups. You may also customize your customer loyalty program based on the kind of client you have.
2. After the First Transaction Is Completed, Follow Up
The ultimate aim of most Ecommerce businesses is to make a transaction. However, you must follow up with your clients after the initial transaction is done if you want to keep them. You may use the following follow-up strategies:
Build meaningful relationships through email
After a purchase, many Ecommerce companies send a thank you email. But, in order to keep your clients, you must do more than just thank them. You must establish significant connections with them.
That is why it is critical to follow up after a transaction. Here’s a recipe from Zoe’s Kitchen to get you started:
Following up with consumers after a purchase allows you to develop lasting connections with them. You must demonstrate to your clients that you can offer additional value in order for your follow-up to be successful. You may accomplish this by sending follow-up emails like:
- Updates on products
- Emails that cross-sell and upsell
- feedback questionnaires
- emails with promotional content
- emails with useful information
Ecommerce systems like BigCommerce come in useful in this situation. It offers a lot of features that will help you expand your company. The automatic email tool and integrations are one of them, and they’ll let you conduct follow-up efforts. Creating follow-up campaigns is a breeze with BigCommerce’s completely configurable email templates (using code or the text editor). This is particularly true now that you can use discount codes and coupons in your email templates to boost conversions.
When it comes to customer onboarding, be proactive
One of the most important stages in ensuring that a first-time client becomes a recurring purchase is customer onboarding. All of the actions you take to earn your clients’ confidence and turn them into loyal customers are referred to as onboarding. Here are a few pointers to help you improve your client onboarding:
- To welcome and nurture new consumers, use email marketing.
- Invest in interactive content to keep consumers engaged and to collect more data for hyperpersonalized experiences.
- Create a tutorial if required to teach your consumers how to utilize your product properly.
Customer onboarding is a crucial follow-up procedure that enables you to demonstrate your appreciation for your customers’ achievement. It will be simpler for you to keep them once they notice that.
3. Create Customer Loyalty Programs by Segmenting and Targeting Existing Customers
Your encounters with consumers have uncovered a gold mine of data at this point. Every contact aids in the creation of a more complete picture of each client.
This is valuable information that can be used to segment your clients.
Segmentation is essential for creating targeted, customized marketing. When it comes to client retention, segmentation is key to developing successful customer loyalty programs for your current customers.
Segmentation is critical for improving your chances of developing a customer loyalty program that will help you keep your current clients.
Because each segment’s requirements are distinct, you must develop customized incentives and experiences for them in order for your loyalty program to succeed. The following are some examples of segments you may want to consider establishing among your current customers:
- high-spending individuals
- abandoners of shopping carts
- coupon collectors
- first-time purchasers
Platforms like BigCommerce excel in this regard as well. It comes with a built-in tool for creating loyalty groups, which makes it simple to target certain parts of your client base for your customer loyalty program.
4. Allow Order Modifications
Creating memorable experiences for your consumers is crucial to client retention. Allowing your consumers to modify their orders after they’ve made a purchase is one method to accomplish this. A client, for example, may change their mind and demand a product in a different size, color, or style. Allowing consumers to modify their purchases is a breeze for BigCommerce users. This is possible due to the platform’s order modification capabilities.
Allow your client to exchange their purchase for the one they truly desire if this occurs.
One of the outcomes is that your consumers will have greater faith in you. It demonstrates that you care about them and are ready to go out of your way to make them happy. Of all, a high level of trust can only mean one thing: increased client retention.
5. Provide Exceptional Customer Service
Customer retention is a result of your consumers’ interactions with your brand. Customer service, apart from the shopping experience, is one of the most important aspects of providing excellent service to your consumers.
That is why you must provide excellent customer service.
Customers will view you as a trustworthy partner if you address their issues in a pleasant and efficient way. Despite the fact that your product has a flaw, you would have won their confidence and loyalty.
How can you make sure your customer service is excellent enough to help you keep your customers?
- Provide omnichannel customer service: Make it simple for your customers to contact you by making yourself accessible across a variety of communication platforms. MobileMonkey is one of the most effective customer support solutions for delivering a consistent experience across various media.
- Assign the appropriate agent to the appropriate customer: Evaluate your customer’s requirements and allocate them to the agent most suited to manage them.
- Take notes from your rivals: Examine how your rivals manage customer service problems like as refunds, defective goods, and erroneous billing, among other things. Also, read user reviews and contact their customer care line to get a sense of how good their customer service is.
- Assist your consumers in assisting themselves: Some individuals prefer to troubleshoot and fix issues on their own. Using solutions like HelpJuice to create an easy-to-navigate knowledge base can help you accomplish exactly that.
Providing exceptional customer service will definitely help you earn your clients’ loyalty. People want to know that if anything goes wrong, they can count on you to respond quickly and effectively. Poor customer service, on the other hand, will lose you clients and, eventually, your company.
Bonus Tips/Pro Hacks for Customer Retention
Customer retention is all about giving your consumers memorable experiences. Here are a few of more options:
Customers Should Be Asked to Create Profiles
Customers may enter significant dates such as anniversaries and birthdays when they create profiles. This enables you to send customized product suggestions and reminders for the important occasion.
Create a Partner Program
Create an affiliate program where pleased consumers may earn money by recommending your goods. Aside from the income possibilities, an affiliate program helps your consumers feel like they’re a part of your company. As a consequence, consumer loyalty has increased.
Construct a Community
People like being a member of a unique group. As a result, building a community around your business is a great approach to increase client retention. Creating an exclusive Facebook group where you post information related to your business is one example of this.
Let’s take a step back and look at how you may acquire and convert your consumers now that you know how to keep them.
Three Strategies for Attracting Customers to Your Ecommerce Business
Customer retention is one of the most important aspects of company development, yet it is impossible to have retention without attraction. So, let’s have a look at a few methods to get people to visit your Ecommerce shop.
1. Have Excellent SEO to Attract Organic Visitors
Paid advertising, particularly for a new Ecommerce shop, are an excellent method to acquire momentum. If you want to play the long game, though, you’ll need to invest in a solid SEO plan. The primary reason is that SEO is one of the most effective methods for attracting organic visitors. Here are a few pointers to assist you with your Ecommerce SEO:
Allow the professionals to handle it
If you have the funds, hiring a firm to handle your SEO is one of the simplest methods to improve your rankings. Hiring an SEO firm offers the following benefits in addition to freeing up your time to operate your business:
- Access to the appropriate tools, resources, and personnel.
- Change your approach quickly to keep up with the ever-changing SEO environment.
Take a DIY approach to SEO by learning the basics
You don’t have enough money to hire an SEO firm?
Then you may do your own SEO.
While understanding the ins and outs of e-commerce SEO will take time and effort, it will help you better grasp what it takes to attract the appropriate visitors to your shop. So, invest in a few of SEO classes or learn how to drive traffic to your Ecommerce shop on your own.
Make use of an ecommerce platform that was built with SEO in mind
When choosing an Ecommerce platform, many businesses ignore the importance of SEO. Before you buy on a platform, be sure to look at its SEO capabilities. One of the reasons BigCommerce is one of the finest platforms available is because of this. Here are a few SEO-related things to look forward to:
- URLs that are completely customized.
- Editing robot.txt files is possible.
- To reflect any changes in product names, use 301 redirects and URL rewrites.
- The use of a content delivery network (CDN) will improve the speed of your website.
- To improve your search result listings, use microdata and schema markup.
BigCommerce also provides in-depth guidelines, such as this and this, to guarantee that your store’s SEO is up to par.
2. Create Targeted and Engaging Paid Ad Campaigns
As previously said, SEO is a long-term strategy that takes time to bear fruit. You’ll need to use targeted paid ad campaigns to rapidly generate visitors to your site. According to research, up to $1,000 a month is spent on sponsored ads by 46% of the most popular Ecommerce businesses. Yes, if you want to increase visitors to your business, you must invest in sponsored advertising. The top 16 percent spend upwards of $20,000 each month. While sponsored advertisements are more expensive, they offer many benefits, including:
- Drive hyper-targeted traffic to your website.
- Make more sales in less time.
- Increase brand recognition.
The primary benefit of sponsored advertisements is the quickness with which they generate results. If you’re conducting a campaign or just want to increase your monthly sales, sponsored advertising may be able to assist you.
However, in order for your advertisements to be successful, they must be both entertaining and targeted. To do so, follow these steps:
- Recognize your target market and create a customer profile that fits them well (ICP).
- Choose and understand the platform on which you’ll be advertising, and stick to standard practices.
- Research your keywords and negative keywords thoroughly (Ubersuggest is an excellent tool for this).
- Make ad text that is unique to you.
- Make a decision on the ad format you’ll employ (video, text, etc.)
- Create, manage, and optimize your sponsored advertisements using a campaign management platform like AdEspresso.
- Improve the conversion rate of your landing pages.
Investing in sponsored advertisements may be very frightening. After all, the return on investment is never assured. Creating engaging and targeted advertisements improves the effectiveness of your ads and ensures that you are driving relevant traffic to your goods.
3. Use as Many Channels as Possible to Promote Your Products
When it comes to platforms and channels through which to consume content, today’s customer is spoiled for choice.
As a result, you should promote your goods across as many channels as possible when developing your Ecommerce paid ad campaign.
When it comes to advertising, you need to take an omnichannel strategy.
You’ll be able to meet your consumers wherever they are using omnichannel marketing. It makes creating advertisements that appeal to your customers—ads that convert—much simpler.
What is omnichannel marketing, exactly?
It’s a marketing strategy that assumes your consumers will begin their relationship with your brand on one device or platform and continue on another. With omnichannel marketing, you can provide your consumers a consistent and unified experience across all platforms and touchpoints.
As a consequence, customers have a better experience, which leads to more conversions and, eventually, greater customer retention rates.
This is significant since data indicates that over 73 percent of internet consumers buy across several platforms. Here are some pointers to help you develop a successful omnichannel strategy for your Ecommerce store:
Make every interaction a shopping opportunity
Customers may simply purchase through other channels (such as social media) than your shop, thanks to Ecommerce systems like BigCommerce. You may even sell goods directly on social media using external social media payment processing systems.
Offer Customer Service Across All Channels
Being accessible to your consumers through their preferred channels aids in the creation of a pleasant experience that will entice them to stick with your company.
Make a mobile application
In terms of use, it’s no secret that mobile has surpassed desktop. Developing a mobile app allows you to provide your consumers personalized experiences across various platforms. It also assists you in putting your business in the hands of your consumers.
Having your goods listed on various platforms is a fantastic approach to reach a wider audience. As a consequence, you’ll increase traffic to your shop and increase sales across all of the channels you use.
Bonus Tips/Pro Hacks for Customer Attraction
You may employ additional more sophisticated client acquisition techniques in addition to the three major ones listed above. Here are several examples:
- Use AI: AI can assist you in creating accurate buyer personas and providing customized product suggestions to consumers.
- Make stuff that goes viral: Understand your audience’s pain spots and goals, and tailor your content to meet their needs. Also, ensure that the search purpose is met.
- Distribute your material: When you distribute your content effectively, it gets published on the appropriate platforms and viewed by the right people.
- Collaboration with influencers: Collaboration with influencers is a fantastic method to reach a big audience that is a good match for your ICP. Followers are more likely to be interested in your goods, which increases the likelihood of them visiting your website (and eventually becoming customers).
Customer retention begins with developing a plan to attract consumers to your Ecommerce business. If you can attract a target audience in the correct manner, you’ll have a better possibility of them converting and becoming loyal customers.
Three Strategies for Converting Customers
To build a loyal client base, follow these three steps:
- Getting the appropriate people to come to your event.
- Getting visitors to become paying clients.
- Keeping your consumers happy.
We’ve previously discussed how to acquire and keep consumers. Now let’s take a look at how you may turn visitors into paying clients.
To begin, what is a conversion?
In Ecommerce, a conversion is any visitor that buys one of your goods. As a result, the conversion rate is the proportion of visits to your shop that become customers.
You will earn more sales if your conversion rates are better. Take our word for it, but don’t take our word for it. Take a look at LARQ’s case study. Their conversions increased by 80% after partnering with BigCommerce, and their income increased by 400% on average year over year.
What methods do you use to boost conversions?
1. Make Fantastic Landing Pages
Your landing page is an important element of your sales funnel as it’s usually the one that does the heavy selling. That’s why you must ensure you create outstanding ones that convert. Here are a few tips to help you do that:
Maintain simplicity: Your landing page should be straightforward to read and comprehend at a glance. Keep your design simple and clean to achieve this.
Only have one goal: Your landing page should only have one goal: to convert visitors. Keep your attention on it.
It’s critical to personalize: Personalize your landing page as much as possible, from matching search intent to utilizing language and images that appeal to the visitor.
Include in-depth product descriptions: Giving visitors a comprehensive explanation of what they’re purchasing is one of the greatest methods to sell on your landing page. Include high-resolution photos.
Use a variety of CTAs: Use the same CTA in many locations on your landing page. This makes it simpler for your visitor to click through and buy when they’re ready.
Use a landing page builder that has been tried, tested, and proven: If you’re a BigCommerce client, you can create landing pages fast and simply using the built-in Page Builder tool.
Your sales funnel would not be complete without a landing page. They not only assist you in targeting particular consumer groups, but they also assist you in increasing the return on your sponsored traffic. As a result, you should spend in optimizing them for your Ecommerce shop.
2. Ensure That Your Website Is Secure in Order for Users to Feel Comfortable Making Purchases From Your Store
Site security is another important aspect that may help you increase conversions. Customers want to feel secure giving you their personal information throughout the checkout process, particularly in light of recent data breaches. You must do the following to guarantee that your site is secure:
Make use of a safe ecommerce platform.
The first step in protecting your Ecommerce business is to choose a platform that is built to be secure. Platforms like BigCommerce, for example, provide site-wide HTTPS as well as additional security features like firewalls, intrusion detection, and more. Your clients will feel comfortable transacting with you if you use a secure platform. It’s critical for increasing conversions.
Multiple Payment Methods are Accepted
When it comes to how they wish to pay for your goods, your consumers will have various preferences. They feel safer when they choose a payment gateway that they are acquainted with.
Providing your clients with a variety of payment choices is a fantastic approach to give them additional options. It also allows you to provide multi-currency choices, which is an important component of enhancing your CX for international clients.
Supporting multi-currency payment options may seem to be a difficult job, but it isn’t with a platform like BigCommerce. BigCommerce supports over 140 local currencies and 65 payment gateways out of the box.
All plugins and third-party integrations should be thoroughly reviewed and monitored.
If you’re going to use third-party solutions to improve your business, be sure they’re from a reputable source. It’s also critical that you keep an eye on them to make sure they’re updated on a frequent basis. Remove it from your shop after you’ve used it up. Third-party apps should be kept to a bare minimum on your site since they may expose your business to vulnerabilities.
Use tools like FreeScan to scan for vulnerabilities and TrustWave to identify threats on a frequent basis to keep your Ecommerce business secure. Not only can a secure shop protect you from cyberattacks, but it will also help you increase conversions. Simply be sure to invest in a safe Ecommerce platform and, if required, extra security measures.
3. Use a Saver for Abandoned Carts
Cart abandonment is an unavoidable feature of online shopping. According to studies, almost 70% of shopping carts are abandoned at the checkout stage. As a result, if you want to increase conversions, you must solve this problem.
Using an abandoned cart saver is one of the most effective methods to do so. An abandoned cart saver is a tool that enables you to send an email to consumers who have added items to their cart but have not completed the purchase.
The emails are completely customisable with BigCommerce’s Abandoned Cart Saver, enabling you to send customized invitations (with discount codes or coupons) to encourage consumers to finish their purchases.
Other Customer Conversion Pro Optimisation Techniques
Other than the three conversion methods mentioned above, here are some more suggestions for improving customer conversion rates:
- Run tailored advertising: Targeted ads appeal to your target audience’s emotions. They also make your product seem to be the ideal answer to their problems.
- Retargeting: To retarget consumers who saw goods on your shop, use social media advertising, apps, banner ads on websites, or email.
- Fill out forms that are simple to complete: On your landing page, A/B test various form styles to see which one performs best for your clients. Test the amount of form fields, the copy, the location, and other factors.
- Provide free shipping: Another excellent incentive to attract visitors to your landing page to convert into buyers is to offer free delivery. Make careful to highlight this advantage.
- Optimize your checkout page by removing distractions, displaying trust signals, providing various payment alternatives, and so forth. Customers will be more likely to complete their transactions as a result of these incentives.
The first step to client retention is always to attract the appropriate type of visitors. The conversion of that traffic into consumers is the next crucial step. Take your time with both.
Frequently Asked Questions
Have a few more questions about client retention techniques that may help you grow your Ecommerce business?
Let’s briefly debunk a few of the most prevalent myths:
What Is Customer Retention and Why Is It Important?
Customer retention refers to a company’s capacity to create repeat customers from first-time visits. As a result, customer retention rate refers to the proportion of your consumers that purchase from you again after a certain length of time.
What Can I Do to Increase Customer Retention?
Many variables play a role in increasing client retention. However, delivering great customer experiences at each touchpoint is at the core of a successful customer retention strategy.
What Are Some Examples of Customer Retention?
You may engage in a variety of activities to keep clients. Listed below are a few examples: Creating client loyalty programs, utilizing email to develop connections with consumers, and providing exceptional customer service experiences are just a few of the things you may do.
What Is a Good ECommerce Customer Retention Rate?
Many variables influence customer retention rates, including industry, product, and others. The typical customer retention rate for Ecommerce, on the other hand, is estimated to be about 30%.
Customer Retention Strategies for Ecommerce
One-time sales are nice, but they don’t help you expand your company.
You must encourage your consumers to return to your Ecommerce company in order for it to be successful.
That is why it is critical to have a client retention plan.
Growing your company by acquiring, converting, and keeping clients is no longer a pipe dream if you follow the advice above. By putting the advice to use, you may make your goals of expanding your Ecommerce business a reality.
Also, keep in mind that the Ecommerce platform you choose has a significant impact on your ability to retain consumers. Your best option is to choose a platform like BigCommerce, which has built-in client retention tools (including single-page checkout, coupon and discount coupons, and so on).
Which client retention tactics and technologies have proven to be effective in your company?
- Unlock huge quantities of SEO traffic using SEO. Take a look at the outcomes.
- Content Marketing – Our team produces incredible content that is shared, linked to, and drives traffic.
- Paid Media – successful paid tactics with a measurable return on investment.
As you’ve probably experienced, shopping online can be stressful and frustrating. If you’re going to make a sale, there’s a lot to consider, and you know that if you don’t nail it right out of the gate, your customer might just forget and move on.. Read more about how to retain a customer over the phone and let us know what you think.
