2021 has been a year for marketing to rebuild, to develop on the winning initiatives from 2020 but critically to alter the approach to cater to the modern digital consumer. Customer interests remain elusive at this time and often, finding the right tone and message for your marketing is nigh on impossible to gauge. How then can we guarantee success?

What is Customer Acquisition, Retention, and Loyalty?

Acquiring, retaining, and reengaging your customer is perhaps the greatest marketing concern of our time. Customers have grown progressively cautious as the year has moved and whether it’s due to layoffs, furloughs or the shift to remote work, consumers feel strongly that they owe brands less. How then, can our businesses make the splash necessary to see their business and sales operations return to normal?

Customer Acquisition – Broadly speaking, Covid-19 cratered customer acquisition and profitability. According to a survey from Arizent, 68% of executives felt that their companies had experienced considerable to moderate challenge where customer acquisitions was concerned due to Covid-19. 84% of the survey respondents also agreed somewhat or strongly that the lockdowns had created a disruptive opportunity as customers have been forced to change their everyday behaviors.

In short, customer acquisition efforts have been hampered by the distance that now separates the business from the shopper. It’s due to this that we’ve seen marketing departments increase their adoption of digital technologies in three distinct areas to counteract the virus’s impact.

• Building Intimacy & Engagement via Digital Channels – Social Media, Apps, Digital Events, these are all touchpoints to engage consumers at. Often users find digital experiences more valuable and novel than the typical marketing approaches, it’s time to consider the value.
• Use Customer Analytics – Every piece of data you gather is valuable and can be used to intuit something about your customers, what do they like, what don’t they like? Make use of it.
• Segment & Target = Divide & Conquer – Once you have a clear idea of who’s buying your product and what they need it for, look at the language, style and persona of your branding. Make it specific to them to draw them in.

Customer Retention – Bringing in customers is all well and good but it doesn’t mean much if you can’t retain and reactivate them further down the line. Customer retention has faced significant pressure at the start of the new decade, and finding ways round blockers has fast become a priority for CMOs.

Based on research from Marketing Metrics, the success rate of selling to an existing customer is 60-70%, while the success rate of selling to a new customer is only 5-20%.  It’s for this reason that the pre-existing customer is so important and why losing them is so detrimental to a business. To halt the exodus some companies are experiencing, executives have begun to take the following precautions.

• Customer Loyalty Schemes – Shoppers like to feel like they’re valued as individuals. Customer Loyalty Programs provide bespoke offers to repeat buyers, keeping them coming back for more.
• Increase Your Social Media Prescence – Keeping the consumer engaged is naturally more difficult if they’re shopping remotely. However, social media provides yet another tool for outreach and communication with your buyers. Personalizing your response presence on social will be essential coming out of Covid.
• Update Your Website – Consumers are beginning to ask, ‘What steps are my favorite brands taking to ensure my safety?’, and they’re going to go to your website to find out. You must make sure that it is regularly updated and that you leave no doubt that you share their concerns.

Customer Loyalty – By tackling both customer acquisition and customer retention effectively, any given brand is better placed to create and maintain a fanbase loyal to their products and services. However, there is one more strategy that executives could consider in their digital marketing to go the extra mile.

Renovating your brand and creating a new brand strategy are radical changes no doubt, but their impression is huge. When only 60% of marketers believe that their brand is well aligned with their long term goals, it becomes clear that there really is no option or better time to experiment.

We already know that customers are looking for brands to align to – both during and after the pandemic – and through an effective renovation of your messaging and values, you can show new and potential consumers that you represent the change that they want to see. This is how businesses can expect to engage customers in the post-pandemic and beyond. After all, if you don’t do it, your competitors will.

Continue the debate at the Digital Marketing Digital Summit, a GDS Summit, where we bring together senior Banking executives who are actively seeking to share, learn, engage, and find the best technology solutions.

GDS Group hosts experts to help experts. We strive to provide an atmosphere for our attendees that enables them to confidently lead their companies through major transformation projects. For information on upcoming events, view our view our Digital Summits. To remain current on our activities, visit GDS Group on LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter.