Customers are the heart of your business. They keep it alive.
Unfortunately, they are also the hardest to find and keep.
But to dig a little deeper; finding new customers is infinitely more difficult than keeping existing ones. Acquiring a new customer is anywhere from five to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one, according to the Harvard Business Review.
What’s more interesting is that retained customers are more valuable than new ones. A business could experience up to 95% increase in profit with a 5% increase in customer retention. If you want to focus your attention on keeping your existing customer base, you'd be doing well by yourself.
One of the truly valid ways of keeping your existing customer base happy is through social media. It has been said to represent a low-cost way for companies to engage customers in two-way dialogue and develop deeper relationships.
But how do you go about it? We highlight five simple tips here:
1. Find out what your customers are saying about you
Social listening plays a key role in customer retention. It helps you find out where customers frequent online, what they think about your services, which of your products they are talking about and what they are sharing online.
These insights will help you know the type of content your audience likes. And more importantly, it’d help you determine the sort of improvements to make on your product.
2. Use social media for real-time customer support
Asides from providing helpful, interesting and relevant content on your social media, your social media accounts are a great way to maintain excellent customer support. The average social media user wants their inquiries answered in 30 minutes or less.
Responding on time to customer questions, inquiries and complaints is an important component of your business that can keep customers happy.
And when your customers are happy, they not only stay with your business, they also tell their friends about you.
3. Ask for user opinions
Your social media is an effective way to poll opinion about your business. People on social media are always eager to share their opinion.
If you conduct user polls creatively, it could end up being a great way to keep your customers invested in your products.
For example, rather than share a customer survey with everyone on your social media, identify the top percentile of your most engaged followers to send them the survey. Let them know you are sending the survey to only a ‘few top followers’ and have them know what you’d be doing with their feedback.
The latter part is important so they’d understand that their opinions aren’t just going down a drain of KYC answers and therefore they will be motivated to fill your survey.
By doing this, you won’t only get feedback (which you need to improve your product) but also get a buy-in from your followers who now know they are an active part of your product development.
They get a sense of ownership that will often make them keep buying from you and also share your product with their friends.
4. Offer a rewards program
What do people love more than inclusion in an exclusive group of VIPs? A free gift for being in the exclusive group of VIPs.
If you have a list of your most engaged followers, you can infuse it with value by running an exclusive contest or giveaway to that group. Promise a gift that is valuable to them.
Like the previous idea of polling their opinion, this one will also make them feel invested in your company because you’ve identified them as super-users.
Also, when you give people free things, they are psychologically beholden to repay the gift. So, oftentimes, when a user hasn’t patronised you before, they are encouraged to do so.
5. Share bundled items on social media
On platforms like Instagram and Pinterest, image-centered posts could help you increase the value of your customer. Updates about creative combinations of your product will increase the amount of your products a user buys.
When you are creative with how you combine these products, you will not only succeed in increasing the per-sale value of your customer, you will also extend their lifetime with your brand - because people love creative.
How are you growing your business with social media? Tell us it the comments.
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