It costs about six times more money to acquire a new customer than to sell to an existing customer. With that in mind, your current customers are a resource you simply can’t afford to ignore.
There are huge advantages to focusing resources on cultivating current customers:
It Raises Retention
Remaining “top of mind” throughout the relationship with your customers ensures they continue to come to you for solutions in your area of expertise. Informative content personalized to customers’ individual needs helps improve the value each one gets from your products.
It Raises Revenue
Current customers are more inclined to make purchases with you and less likely to seek out competing brands when their needs are 100% met. Total value per purchase also tends to be higher. You can use customers’ purchase histories to pinpoint unmet needs.
It Raises Acquisition
Satisfied customers can provide a steady stream of referral business. When you come recommended from a source a prospect already trusts, it accelerates the sales cycle. Plus, efforts to expand current customers equip them with insights they can use to recruit others.
A Quick Primer on Marketing to Current Customers
Marketing to your entire customer base is an important part of keeping relationships current and flourishing. Luckily, you can use all of the lessons you learn in initial customer acquisition to help you achieve success with established accounts, too.
Here’s how:
Have a Plan in Place to Communicate With Current Customers
Many B2B brands find success using email marketing to foster deep client relationships. No matter what avenue you choose, however, it’s vital to make sure your customer lists are segmented and you know exactly how and when you plan to connect with them.
Tailor Your Marketing Messages on a Per-Client Basis
If you’ve implemented analytics and a Customer Relationship Management suite, then you have a huge amount of data about your customers right at your fingertips. Use this to refine your marketing messages for each client: Customized messaging supercharges response.
Track Results from the Beginning
Customer marketing focuses on different activities and metrics, so you need to roll these into your existing marketing as cleanly as possible. Core customer marketing activities include holding user groups and events for existing buyers and gathering testimonials.
What about metrics? You’ll want to keep an eye on revenue from cross-sells and upsells as well as renewal rate (or churn) and customer satisfaction. Ultimately, when all of these metrics move in the right direction, they should be feeding into referrals.
Customer marketing is often overlooked, but it can make a tremendous bottom line impact. It only takes a little effort, directed at the right accounts in the right ways, to achieve truly meaningful results.