Check out your favourite marketing blog, podcast, or YouTube channel, and you’ll find that most marketing gurus focus on using SEO and how to bring in new customers to your website, and enticing them to sign up with an email address.
This is an excellent approach for generating leads and leading potential customers into the sales funnel and eventually turning them into a buyer.
But what happens after they have bought whatever product or service you are offering?
How do you keep them as a customer over time?
Even though that would-be customer was interested in receiving a free report, eBook, or another free offering, if you aren’t focused on also using SEO, then you are missing out on a substantial number of sales for your business.
While most marketers are more focused on gaining new customers than keeping the ones they have, retention is an area where every business needs to be paying attention.
An in-depth analysis of your SEO is crucial to upping your conversion rate and reducing your churn rate, or the number of customers you lose to attrition, defection, or your competitors can have a vital effect on the success and profitability of your business.
If you are wondering why that’s important, here are some things to consider:
- Retaining an existing customer can cost 5–7 times less than acquiring a new one. In terms of return on investment (ROI), that’s huge!
- According to some industry experts, it is 60 -70% more likely that an existing customer will buy from you than it is to sell to one you’ve just converted.
- When asked, up to 70% of customers who walked away from a business did so because of what they perceived to be poor customer service. Companies that go above and beyond and follow up with existing customers fare far better than those that don’t.
Churn Rates and How to Determine Yours
The first step in reducing your churn rate is to determine just what that percentage is.
The formula for figuring out this number is relatively straightforward and can be determined like this:
Depending on your business model, whether it is a service your customers subscribe to or spend on an average monthly basis or MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue), the value of each customer lost will vary.
The most common way to look at the churn rate is a percentage number.
If you perform an in-depth analysis of your website, it may surprise you at the per cent of customers you are losing.
Many B2B sites have a churn rate between 17%.
When you are losing that much of your existing customer base, it can really add up.
While a 2% churn rate in any given month may be acceptable, you could do better.
A good goal for an online business is to boost retention and reduce the churn rate to approximately 0.5% each month.
Here are some additional suggestions on how to increase retention and reduce churn rate.
Email Marketing Automation
Your company needs to begin the process of retention the moment a site visitor gives you their email address and related information.
By using the contact information that the customer provides you with and with the help of an easy-to-use follow-up email extension, create personalized, targeted emails for your customers.
From the start of the onboarding process, which should include a welcome message and email confirmation to offering them some free, valuable content, you have to get and hold their attention.
Each email needs to be:
- Personalized and memorable.
- Have attention-getting follow-up responses you have created ahead of time, which will provide more value to the customer. Email content can be how to take advantage of your product’s features or pose follow-up questions that the customer may still need to have answered.
Retaining that customer after they have signed up or bought your service is essential.
By sending periodic, personalized content that offers free courses, a webinar, or other information about how to use the product they have purchased to help make them and their business more successful.
Be Customer Focused
Remember that the most significant percentage of churn rates are because of poor customer service.
Because they have bought from you already, it’s vital that you don’t make them regret their purchase.
Chances are, if you treat your current customers like gold, they will be far more likely to buy related products or purchase the upgrades you offer.
The key to any successful business is to find out what makes customers happy.
By using tools like SEO analysis, you can retain more of your current customers by finding out specific issues on your site that lead to higher churn rates and correct them.
- Keep the features and benefits you offer relevant and current.
- Pay close attention to the usability interface. Poor user experience happens most often when your product, service, or customer service interaction is frustrating rather than a smooth or even intuitive experience.
- Make sure that your content is relevant and your branding is on target. Fix any broken links, images, or files and that load times don’t take too long.
- Make customer support links easy to find.
Going the extra mile almost always pays higher dividends in terms of reducing churn rates.
Your customers delight in the extra attention.
The easiest way to accomplish this is to ask them for feedback.
Find out what your customers think of your product or service.
Do they feel they are receiving good value for their money?
Are there additional product features or services you could offer that might enhance their experience?
Once you’ve asked, be sure to listen and then act on the feedback that they give you.
When you have identified the trigger that caused a customer to leave, you can then set about correcting the problem.
Timing Makes a Difference
Your company can instil a strong sense of customer satisfaction when someone is there to answer their questions thoroughly and quickly.
Many SEO companies do this by guaranteeing that their customers can expect to hear from a representative in no more than 24 hours, for example, wherever they have a contact form or customer service email.
Once the customer has been contacted, send a follow-up email or phone call afterwards to ensure that the customer’s needs have been satisfied.
Admittedly, some customers need more interaction with a representative or expert to have their expectations met.
Even when a question or issue with a customer requires more attention, such a level of service is a small price to pay.
The attention and level of service that your company offers to your existing customers can make them more likely to purchase an upgrade or purchase related products and services that you provide to them in the future.
Also Read: How to Create and Execute Outstanding Marketing Strategies
