It’s far easier (and cheaper) to sell to happy, existing customers than to find new ones.
When you gain the loyalty of a current customer, you don’t just reap the rewards of continued purchases from that person; you also get his vocal advocacy as he endorses your brand to his peers and social networks.
Every “Like” you get on Facebook is potentially viewed by that person’s entire social network, acting as a digital stamp of approval.
The takeaway: it’s not acquisitions versus engagement. It’s acquisition as a first step to better engagement. Shift your mindset away from having to choose between these two paradigms, and instead start focusing on the big picture, and you can have it all.
Companies spend most of their marketing budgets on customer acquisition, but once acquired, those hard-won customers tend to languish.
Marketers invest their hard work and precious dollars in pay-per-click ads, online promotions, and electronic coupons to get customers to make that first purchase, but once those customers are in the door, they’re left largely to their own devices. And this is particularly prevalent with companies marketing exclusively to consumers.
Yet, nurturing customer relationships is a crucial element of marketing, and budgets need to start accounting for this. One of the biggest trends I see happening now is that companies are finally starting to emphasize this over acquiring new customers.
Now marketers are turning their attention to investing in the customer lifetime value (CLV): acquiring new buyers, growing their lifetime value, and converting them into advocates.
And thanks to advances in technology, marketers can listen and respond to customers at every stage of their journey, keeping them engaged and helping accelerate them toward purchase decisions.
Hopefully this will have given you some food for thought…
