Customers are the lifeblood of your business. Whether you sell eBooks, software, coaching, or a physical product (e.g., clothing, electronics, shoes), you’ll fail without loyal customers.
If you’re looking for actionable “no regrets” strategies to re-engage your customers, this in-depth article is for you.
Engaging a customer for the first time can feel much like approaching a crush that doesn’t know you exist. You want to start a conversation, but you also want it to feel natural and sincere. If you come off as too eager or too interested in yourself, they’ll probably move on to a competitor who has a better understanding of their needs. Knowing how to re-engage your customers effectively helps you attract and delight them at every turn in the customer journey.
Once you’ve gone through all of the work of successfully acquiring new customers, the last thing you want to do is lose that customer. That’s why you must re-engage your customers to make sure they come back again. For service personnel, this means creating positive, memorable, and unique interactions with each customer. That’s how you create an experience that sets you apart from your competitors.
Then, let’s review some ways to re-engage old customers. Firstly let’s look at why you need to re-engage your customers.
Reasons You Need to Re-Engage Your Customers
Re-engaging customers is the process of getting customers interested or buying your brand (product or services) again. When you re-engage a customer, you may be trying to:
- Get them to buy your product/services again. Sometimes this is also called “remarketing.”
- Get them to come re-subscribe or re-register with you. These customers may be referred to as “lapsed” or “inactive” customers.
It would help if you prioritized re-engaging your existing customers in addition to acquiring a new customer. It will cost you more to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing customer. It is also easier to sell to existing customers. They are more likely to buy and spend more when they do because they have previously bought from you and know your brand.
Existing customers are already primed to buy from your brand, so don’t let them slip through the cracks. Use re-engagement marketing plans to bring them back.
The Key to Re-engagement: Customer Contact Record
Customer re-engagement is much easier and more effective when your brand is regularly collecting customer contact information.
Customer contact information is essential in customer re-engagement because it allows you to have a communication line with your existing customers. Without an email address or phone number, it isn’t easy to get back to your past customers. So always start your re-engagement strategy with a plan to collect customer contact information. You can do that by:
- Creating a customer database.
- Creating a customer loyalty program.
- Collecting phone numbers or email addresses at check-out.
7 Ways to Re-engage Customers
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Find out why the customer became disinterested in your product.
Find the answers to the below questions, and you will know why your customers stopped buying your products or services and buy from your competitors you. It’s time you take a close look at why your business is losing customers — and what you can do to fix it.
- Were they unsatisfied? If so, why?
- Did they start using a competitor?
- Do they not need your product anymore?
- Did your product or service fail to meet their expectations?
- Did the pricing turn them away?
- Have they moved away from your business?
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Send out customer surveys.
Your customers’ opinions and feedback are essential components for the sustainability and growth of your business and are considered important throughout your customer lifecycle. How do you know if your customer is satisfied? Or dissatisfied? One of the best ways to answer your questions above is by drafting a customer satisfaction survey. Your customers will love being asked for their opinions, and you’ll also learn a great deal from their responses. Create a scheduled plan for sending emails and surveys to request feedback from your existing customer base every few months based on the time that they have been away from your business (like 3 months, 6 months, or a year)
3. Reach out with a “happy birthday.”
From the survey forms filled by your customers, you can get their birthday details, enter each date in your calendar, or Customer relationship management, so you’ll automatically be reminded every year when their birthdays roll around. It’s never been easier to discover someone’s birthday, but the vast majority of salespeople and customer service reps don’t say “happy birthday” to their customers. Stand out from the crowd by sending them a birthday email — or, better yet, send them a physical birthday card in the mail every year.
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Send targeted email marketing newsletter and text marketing campaigns.
Don’t let your customer stray away. Create and send a newsletter that goes out weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly. By regularly getting in front of your existing customers, your brand can stay top-of-mind and prevent your customers from drifting in the first place.
In addition to sending a general email newsletter, also create targeted email campaigns that re-engage customers based on their past behaviors and actions. Design promotional emails and marketing messages tied to a customer’s:
- Past purchases
- Last interaction with your brand
- Location
- Pages visited on your website.
- Links clicked on in previous emails.
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Create a community for customers to join.
Another way to keep your brand top-of-mind with existing customers is by creating a community for them to be a part of. Community forums are a fun way to communicate with customers who are passionate about your business or industry. They bring customers together, giving those who love your brand a chance to tell others why it’s so great. You can also leverage your forum as a customer service resource where reps answer questions that aren’t addressed in your knowledge or FAQs. For example, you can create a Facebook group, online forum, or on-site membership.
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Use digital retargeting.
Digital retargeting or as it’s also called remarketing is the process of placing cookies on or tagging people when they visit your website or social media profiles and grouping them into categories based on which pages they visit and how they engage with your site. Then, you can display ads to those audiences using Google display and social media PPC ads. Retargeting is a tool designed to help businesses like yours reach the 98% of users who don’t convert right away.
This process allows you to get back in front of interested prospects as well as old customers, and you don’t need contact information to make the connection.
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Run promotions/Discounts on your product.
Past customers already know your brand and are interested in what you do and what you offer. They may just need a push to bring them back again. You can give them the push they need by putting on a fun and enticing return promotion/discount that drives them back to your business.
- Sponsor a contest.
- Host a giveaway.
- Introduce new features, products, or services.
- Offer a deal for the customer and a friend.
- Buy One Get One (BOGO) is another common one. This promotion can be applied in two ways: There’s buy one get one freeor buy one get the 2nd item % off.
- Offer free shipping for a buy of a certain amount (let’s say $500).
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Start Re-Engaging Your Customers Today
Existing customers who have already chosen to do business with your brand in the past are precious. Don’t let them fall to the sideway. Work on re-engagement plans to keep your past customers coming back.
In summary, we’ve shown you some of the best ways to re-engage your customers for better retention and transform them into long-lasting clients. Customers will only stay with you if you give them compelling enough reasons for it. Keep in mind that the better your re-engagement methods are, the more connected your customers will feel to your brand. To ensure that customers come back again and again, offer exceptional customer experiences during their initial interactions.