EMBiz: Retention Requires Incentive

Laurel Mintz

Retention Requires Incentive

Customer Relationship Management Tips

Hi there, Laurel Mintz here with Elevate My Brand. Today we’re going to talk a little bit about retention. Now, when it comes to marketing a lot of times, people think about retention as it relates to your consumer. And of course, you absolutely have to have that conversation. But retention also has to apply to your team to make sure that when you’re delivering, at least on the service side, that the end customer really feels a connection to you, your mission, vision and values as a firm, and the team that you’ve put together. So here are a couple of tips to help you create loyalty on the brand side, but I did want to mention it’s just as important to create loyalty on the company side.

Develop a Loyalty or Ambassador Program

Tip number one is to develop a loyalty program or an ambassador program. Now you can do this whether you’re selling a widget or a service, we call it cross-marketing a lot at Elevate My Brand. But it’s really about getting other people to be loyal and speak about your brand because then you’re opening yourself up to their audience, and again it’s that know, like, trust factor that’s built really really quickly when someone that you’re friends with mentions a product or service and that that company did a really good job for them. So setting up loyalty programs or brand ambassador programs means that a lot of that initial communication heavy-lifting is actually done by those who really appreciate and love your product and service already. 

Personalize Your Messaging

Tip number two is to personalize. This is the era of personalization, I’m sure you’ve heard this a lot in the marketing jargon world. A lot of brands are doing it poorly. I don’t know if you’ve gotten those emails with a misspelled name or if there’s a space where your name is supposed to be. So make sure that you are doing it properly and that really comes down to clean data. Making sure that what’s going into your email marketing systems is the right kind of information in order for you to deliver the right message to the right audience at the right time. And again, that’s really about having clean data, clean email lists, names, addresses, etc. And that’s really so your customers don’t feel like they’re just another number. Right, we hate these blank emails where we know no one is actually talking to you, but if you had just landed on someone’s webpage for a specific, I don’t know, shopping tote because you’re going to the beach and then all of a sudden and email comes in that says, “hey, thinking about going to the beach? We’ve got the right shopping tote for you.” then you really feel like you’re listened to, maybe a little bit stalked, but that’s kind of the new norm in terms of personalization.

Have a Give Without a Get Mindset

Tip number three is having a give without a get mindset. Now you’ve seen us do this through these kinds of pieces of content. Making sure that we’re always delivering, and hopefully overdelivering value to our clients and prospects before we’re actually asking for anything. I do this on a personal note by giving my time to non-profits and anyone who need a little bit of mentorship, but this really goes double for companies, especially if you’re trying to build. Giving away great pieces of content, maybe a free trial period if it’s a digital product, or a little mini version of something if it’s like a skincare line or something along those lines. So just having that give versus get mentality.

Survey Your Customers

Tip number four is making sure that you’re issuing surveys about the content that you’re putting out there to make sure that you’re actually delivering what your customer wants. So many times we have this idea, this egoic standpoint from what we think we’re speaking about our brand to our audience around, and oftentimes you don’t actually ask your audience what they want or if they resonate with that. I can’t tell you how many huge brands that you know we’ve worked with that come to us and haven’t done this at its very base level. I always say opinions are like youknowwhats, everyone has one and they aren’t all pretty, but you can make sure that you can get great feedback that is actionable if you actually survey your audience and ask them for real feedback about the type of content offers, etcetera that you’re delivering to them. And that’s how you create great customer retention, great feedback loops, and ultimately a really really happy audience.