What is customer marketing?
Definition: Customer marketing is a term used for all marketing activities aimed at retaining existing customers.
Instead of focusing on acquiring new customers, customer marketing changes the focus to existing customers and works on increasing their lifetime value.
These activities and tactics include personalized email campaigns, promotions, and loyalty programs, that engage and build relationships with the existing customer base.
Switching marketing efforts from acquiring new customers to retaining customers who already made a purchase results in increased revenue, less customer churn, more referrals, and increased brand loyalty.
Customer marketing strategies
1. Continuous education
Customer marketing strategies focusing on keeping customers informed are important for building trust, improving customer satisfaction, and viewing the company as an expert in the industry.
Examples:
Webinars for educational content
Webinars for existing customers on education content help the customers stay informed about best practices, the latest trends, and innovations in the industry. Customers get the impression that the company is a go-to expert for their industry-related questions and concerns.
Newsletters for product updates
Newsletters for existing customers on product updates demonstrate investment in customer success, provide a place for feedback, and help companies cross-sell.
Customers become more engaged with the product when they know beforehand how it is used, so this strategy increases customer loyalty and drives revenue growth.
2. Engagement
Keeping existing customers engaged increases the overall customer lifetime value and improves customer advocacy because the brand is more memorable and has an advantage over the competitors.
Examples:
Social media giveaways
Social media giveaways are a good customer marketing strategy because they promote user-generated content and encourage customer engagement.
When a giveaway is limited to existing customers, they feel valued and empowered to share their stories and thoughts about the brand.
Newsletters for personal recommendations
Personalizing newsletters is a good customer marketing strategy for targeting a specific audience. The company provides relevant content for the user, creates a sense of exclusivity and increases click-through rates by providing personal recommendations.
3. Loyalty programs & Personalization
Loyalty programs and personalized offers encourage customers to keep using a company’s service or product because it strengthens their connection with the brand. For businesses, it’s a chance to upsell or cross-sell and increase profitability and customer lifetime value over time.
Examples:
- Spotify
Spotify has a great end-of-year strategy, where the company sends personalized statistics for every user.
- Microsoft
Microsoft has a loyalty program called Microsoft Rewards that allows customers to earn points for using their products and services and use those points to redeem gifts.
Tips for building a customer marketing strategy
- Encourage feedback – Use the feedback from customers to make improvements that benefit them and show how valuable they are to the brand
- Provide good customer support – Fast and precise responses to customer inquiries influence customer satisfaction. AI customer service helps solve simple inquiries in seconds, while customer support agents focus on personalized and complex inquiries.
- Look at data – Getting to know your customers’ habits and pain points is necessary for creating relevant content. Net promoter score, customer engagement score, and retention rate are important metrics companies follow.
- Personalize messages – Reaching out to your existing customers with customer data such as purchase history and preferences will increase customer satisfaction
