These days are very difficult (Pandemic) for your online business. You need to improve customer loyalty to increase sales and grow your brand. If customers are not loyal, they’ll buy from your competitors.
Customer loyalty is a necessity if you want your online business to be successful.
Marketing Strategies: How to Improve Customer Loyalty and Increase sales
Here are some marketing strategies and tips about how to improve customer loyalty and increase your sales.
- Customer Loyalty and Appreciation
People want to feel appreciated. Your customers could have chosen another brand, but they decided to buy from you. Show them that you appreciate their purchase through gifts and rewards.
- Give Gifts to Customers
It’s no-right to think that if you give gifts you will “buy” your customer loyalty. Remember that your competitors also have loyalty programs. Some customers expect some kind of reward after making a purchase, especially when repeat business is the norm.
If you want to make an impact with your gifts and improve your customer loyalty you need to put some thought into it. It needs to be a gift that provides value to the customer, otherwise, it’s just a waste of your money.
It’s better to give something special. Give them something that feels like a bonus or a prize. And if it’s unexpected all the better!
- Types of Customers and Gifts
Prospective Customers
The best way to add value to a customer is to give them something they need. There are two main types of customers: prospective and current. Prospective clients are those people that are interested in your brand but they haven’t made any purchase.
A prospective client may subscribe to your email newsletter, read your blog, or follow you on social media.
The best gift to give prospective customers is a free prize. Choose something that is trendy and is related to your brand.
You can host a competition and give prizes to winners. People should register using their names and email addresses if they want to take part in the competition. You can hold the competition on your social media page or at a live event.
This competition will boost your brand’s visibility and increase your online followers. People will be talking about your brand.
If it’s a live event, you can give all the participants branded items with your company name and logo.
You can use the competition email list to send prospective clients more information about your products or services.
Send them one week later another email that offers them a discount for being first-time buyers.
Current Customers
You can provide value for your current customers by giving them points. For every purchase they make, they earn points equivalent to the purchase value.
You can also create special VIP loyalty programs for frequent buyers. They spend more on your business. There should be exclusive discounts and gift coupons for this category. Since this category has your most loyal customers, they deserve special rewards.
- Value and Expense
Any gift you give to prospective and current customers must add value to your business. You need to not overspending. Calculate the overall value of a client. How much does a customer spend on your products every month or year?
The value of the gift should be equal to the average annual expenditure of the customer.
Attention! With new customers, it can be tricky because you don’t know if they continue to support your business or they only want the gift and then will disappear.
- Gift Personalization
If you want customers to remember and support your brand, you have to make the gift unique. Look into individual customer profiles. Do they have families? What are their hobbies or interests?
It’s not always possible to know enough about individual customers to get them something highly personalized. You can use more generic gifts, particularly those related to your industry because if the customer falls into your target demographics, they probably have the same wants and needs.
If you want to avoid the guessing game use discounts or cash rewards. Also, you can use prepaid debit gift cards. These gift cards are very popular and many brands are using them.
Gift cards work like cash and can be used anywhere that takes typical debit/credit cards.
You can add your brand logo on gift cards to remind them of your business every time they use their gift card.
It’s important to satisfy your customers. Satisfied customers are loyal to your business, buy more, and advertise your brand for free. So take action now! Create a new marketing strategy, improve your customer loyalty, and increase your sales.