If you asked 100 business owners, what is the most important need in any business, I predict more than half of them will say getting more customers. After all, without customers, how will we ever sell those products and services we’ve painstakingly developed.
Now, you’ll spend the time and money in research, opt-in designs, and advertising to attract the perfect customer to your brand. However, when you look at your numbers, you realize that your audience hasn’t grown.
In fact, your audience may have even declined. Why?
“A satisfied customer is one who will continue to buy from you, seldom shop around, refer other customers and in general be a superstar advocate for your business.” ~ Gregory Ciotti
Well, I’ll tell you why.
The reason is that for every new lead you generate, you are losing 1-2 current followers because you are not nurturing them. Not only are you losing the person who actually subscribed to your list, but you are losing the potential leads that person may drive to your business.
Nurtured customers are happy, engaged, and enjoy spreading their excitement about a product or service they love to friend and family.
In addition, with the help of social media, their reach can be larger than your own advertising and marketing efforts.
So, how do you nurture your current customers? Below is a short list of ideas that may steer you in the right direction.
Boost Your Nurturing Skills Using Analytics
I know, I know…analytics again?
Yes! Before you can nurture your customers, you’ll need to find out more about them. Google Analytics (and other related tools) are an amazing way to gain insight into who your customers are and what they like or dislike.
For example, you can learn the demographics of your audience such as age and sex, their specific interests, their behavior (refers to new vs. returning customers), which devices they view your site on (desktop, tablet or mobile), and even your top pages or campaigns your audience is connecting with. This information will help you determine which segment of your audience needs some nurturing, as well as how to tailor your marketing efforts in the future.
Email Management & Segmenting
Many entrepreneurs believe that emails are just another way of marketing their products and services. While it is true that email marketing is a necessity for your business, emails are not only used for this purpose.
Carefully composed and personal emails are a great way to nurture your existing customers. (Here’s where your analytic data comes in handy!) Using your analytics, you can customize emails for a specific segment of your audience.
For example, suppose your analytics report tells you that 19% of your current audience are return customers. You can tailor an email for that specific audience that includes a special opt-in for returning. Or perhaps your analytics pinpoints a specific blog post that a large section of your audience clicked through. Send them a follow-up email recommending similar posts on your website.
It is always a good practice to segment your audience to be sure you are reaching the right people. For example, let’s suppose your business is an online flower shop. On your website are over 100 different varieties of flowers your customers can purchase. Last month, you published 3 blog posts, one each on roses, violets, and tulips. Using your analytic data (are you starting to see how important analytics are…I’m just saying), you notice that your blog post for violets had the greatest click-throughs, while the post for roses had the weakest.
By segmenting your audience, you can send a custom email to all of your audience who love violets, and a second email to your audience who love roses. Each email will have a completely different message, opt-in, newsletter, etc. Sending one email to your entire list may feel like spam to a large portion of your audience. Segmenting your list is a great way of nurturing those specific customers. Most email management tools allow and often help with segmenting email lists.
Polls & Surveys
What customer doesn’t want to give his or her opinion on your product or service? Polls and surveys are not only a great way to receive customer feedback, but it makes the customer feel as if their opinions matter to you. Social media channels like Facebook and Twitter make it easy to create an exciting poll for your audience. Tools like SurveyMonkey walk you through setting up a professional looking survey your audience will enjoy completing.
Reviews
Did you know that 42% of complaining consumers expect a response in 60 minutes or less?
Entrepreneurs do not have the luxury of getting back to a customer in a few days anymore. And while this may seem like an overwhelming burden, it actually works in your favor when trying to nurture your existing audience. Granted, 60 minutes is a difficult threshold to meet, however, you should do your best to respond to any and all reviews as quickly as possible. Personally, I would respond to the complaint by sending the customer a personal email, and simply acknowledge the complaint on the open social media channel. Regardless of how you respond, you are nurturing this particular customer.
“Courteous treatment will make a customer a walking advertisement.” ~ James Cash Penny, Founder of J.C. Penny
You’ve heard the saying, “when the wife is happy, the household is happy”. Well similarly, “when the customer is happy, the business is happy”. To expand on that quote, when customers are happy, they spread the news. By nurturing one customer, you have potentially gained leads with their friends and family, co-workers, classmates, group members, work-out tribe, church members, etc.
Are you getting the point here? And that’s just ONE customer.
Nurturing your current customers is the best way to not only retain them, but it provides a consistent method of potential lead generation.
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