For many businesses and marketing professionals, the primary focus of their efforts is to generate leads and then turn those potential customers into conversions. But what happens after a customer or client has made a purchase? It’s just as important to turn that conversion into a lifetime customer, right?
But a surprising number of online marketers and business leaders don’t focus so much on this aspect of reaching customers, despite the fact that it is repeat business and customer loyalty that usually lead to a business’ success, not those flash in the pan sales that only have a short-term impact.
The Importance of Better Lifetime Value
Finding that lead and creating conversions is certainly important, but that’s just a single sale. When you improve lifetime customer value you end up reaping a wide number of benefits. Think about it – would you rather make a single $100 sale and never see the customer again, or create a relationship with a customer who will likely spend $20 or $40 a month for the next few years? Those sales can add up, and it’s a key reason that improving the lifetime value of your customers is so important. Consider some of the advantages that come from improving customer lifetime value.
- Repeated sales to the customer over time.
- Word of mouth thanks to referrals from the customers
- More information on customer habits and spending that you can use for targeted marketing
- The ability to interact and engage with customers in order to draw a greater understanding of their interests and desires.
The basic thing is this – when you build a relationship with your customers that improves lifetime value, you’ll be building your brand and generating loyalty to it. This in turn can mean that you’ll get improved profits and sales and become more visible in the overall online market.
Improving Your Customer Lifetime Value
Boosting customer lifetime value involves two things – giving the customer a reason to stay loyal to your company, and helping them find the various products and services that will be of the most interest to them.
There are a lot of different things that you can do to succeed here, and using ecommerce email remarketing software is one of the secrets you’ll want to remember. With that in mind, we’ve taken a moment to put together a list of 5 tips that can help you improve the overall lifespan of your relationships with customers and improve the chances of generating repeat revenue from them.
- Get Personal – This is one that is often overlooked, but something as simple as using a personal greeting can not only help you avoid spam filters, but can help recipients feel more important to your company. As a result, it can help them open up more of the emails they receive. Include their name in the subject line and in the header to help improve this feeling of familiarity, but go further and consider birthday greetings and specific product recommendations.
- Targeting Matters – Don’t just send out the same emails to everyone in your mailing lists. Instead, use targeted emails with your ecommerce email remarketing software. Gather data to find out what each customer is into and craft three or four different emails based on the different interests of your users. If your software supports it, send out directly targeted emails that are specific to each person on the mailing list based on their shopping habits, past purchases, and wishlist items.
- Don’t Ignore Anyone – Even if someone doesn’t make a purchase, it’s still worth pursuing remarketing efforts. Things like special deals or coupon codes if they give you another chance could push them over the edge from a visitor to a customer. One mistake that marketers make is treating only those who’ve spent money as someone who should be remarketed to. Instead, anyone who has interacted with a company or website should be the focus of your efforts. It will net you better results.
- Offer Them More – When you really want to get improved business results, offer customers more for repeat business. Loyalty and rewards programs that make them feel special can have a big impact. Something like a “loyal customer coupon’ or a ‘refer a friend for 10 bucks off’ offer can help customers return to you. The more you offer to a customer, the more valuable they’ll feel. This doesn’t have to be something huge, but regular emails showing them why you’re worth their money can go a long way towards cementing their loyalty.
- Show Them Their Value – You’re already aware of how important your customers are. But do they feel the same way? Whether you send out a birthday greeting, a holiday coupon, a special product recommendation, or just a thank you for their order, if you take the time to really show customers what they mean to you it can pay off in a big way. Think up unique ways to constantly improve the overall feeling of value that customers have, and send out messages that drive that point home.
All in all, you should be seeing a pattern here. The goal of remarketing shouldn’t be just to try to hard sale another product or service. Instead, it should be used to forge a bond with a customer and help them learn the various reasons that your company deserves their attention. Instead of the plain old cookie cutter spam messages, getting personal and using hard data combined with good email remarketing software could help drive up your profits in a significant way.
If you’ll keep these simple tips in mind you should be able to boost customer lifetime value through the use of ecommerce email remarketing software. Our program can make it even easier, and includes the various features needed to craft email remarketing campaigns that actually get you results for your business. If you’re ready to start getting better results from your online marketing, don’t hesitate to contact us today.
