At MatchCraft we believe that Customer Retention is key to a successful and sustainable business. It is a well-known fact that the cost of acquisition is high, but that is not the only determining factor.
An article published by The Daily Egg, says that existing customers are 50% more likely to give your new product releases a go, and will spend 31% more than new leads. According to Marketing Metrics, businesses have a 60 to 70% chance of selling to an existing customer while the probability of selling to a new prospect is only 5% to 20%.
We believe that Customer Retention is equal parts customer relations and performance. If you rely only on the relationship side of things, without providing performance, or vice versa, your customers will not be happy. Ultimately what will make your products stand out is outstanding results.
MatchCraft CRO, Marc Zaks succinctly summarizes our approach towards retention, “Everything MatchCraft does as a company is focused on not just getting a customer but keeping the customer for our customer. “
To better understand our customer’s outlook on retention and its importance, we spoke with two of our clients who had this to say:
FCR Ireland
Challenge – Based on a monthly analysis, FCR identifies “risky clients” (new, certain verticals or low budgets). They know that their new client accounts are most vulnerable at 18 & 24 months.
Solution –
- FCR uses pre-emptive initiatives to engage clients ahead of their renewal dates and tweak any performance issues. During the stated risk periods, account managers touch base with the clients.
- They offer Google My Business set up as a part of their on-boarding process. They also monitor all of their clients’ GMB pages on an ongoing basis. Normally this service is free.
- Internally, they hold quarterly training sessions for their account managers & sales team.
JPI Media (Johnston Press)
Challenge – JPI Media was experiencing leaky bucket syndrome. One of the primary causes of churn was that advertisers had not been equipped to see the value of their investments. It was determined that the best way to alleviate this issue was to provide customer service training to the sales team, who in turn would educate the advertisers.
Solution – JPI Media adopted a two-pronged approach; making sure that their support reps were educated, about JPI’s product and services, so that they could then educate their customers. They focused on training their Sales team on how to help prospects and clients claim their Google My Business pages.
GMB is a greatly beneficial tool for small businesses as it enables them to show up in Google Map searches. And according to a Google Mobile Movement Study, 88% of consumers searching for local businesses on a mobile device either call or visit the business within 24 hours.
Result – Client churn was slowly brought under control and continues to improve. They are currently moving to a system that will help them monitor initiatives like these more accurately and give them the ability to run reports on a weekly/monthly basis, to see what is working and what needs tweaking.
Lunch-n-Learns
Another interesting tool that is gaining increasing popularity with our clients is organizing Lunch-n-Learns. The idea behind these events is to ensure that advertisers are educated and adopt new products & features. The workshops help advertisers better understand the tools that are being used to manage their campaigns. Workshops are the best way to do mass targeting – one workshop, many advertisers.
Critical elements of a successful workshop are to:
- Offer content that is of high value for the participants.
- Stick to one easily digestible topic.
- Keep it short and sweet.
- Don’t pitch. Educate!
It is easy to conclude that customer retention is critical to successful growth. Investing time and effort in customer retention will not only help build great relationships with your clients but will also lead to better sales opportunities and thus, increased revenue.