Are You Ignoring Me?
Have you ever had that "Grrrrrr" moment with your bank, internet, insurance or power company.....the list goes on? When you realise you can get a better deal elsewhere as a 'new' customer than you can with your existing provider.
They give you their standard deal, despite the fact you have been with them for yeeeeeeaaarrrs and you know they give sweeteners to new customers. So off you go and take your business elsewhere.
You've probably heard this one a few times:
"It costs 5 x more to gain a new customer than keep your existing customers."
The founder of the Net Promoter Score (Frederick Reichheld) claimed that increasing customer retention rates by 5% increases profits for companies by 25% to 95% - and who wouldn't want that!?
Several speakers at the recent NZ Tech Marketers Group Conference reinforced these principles, for example:
Potential new buyers don't even show up on your 'buyer process' until they are about 80-90% way through the purchase process (Amanda Armstrong)
95% of buyers aren't even in the market right now, but many organisations spend all their marketing energies on the 5% who are (Oliver Allen)
You might be nodding your head, but have you looked in your own business mirror recently?
I've noticed how a number of growing businesses focus only on gaining brand new customers to drive their business growth.
If new business is rolling in and your revenue is increasing, who wouldn't feel good?
When I chat with businesses, it seems that the development and nurturing of existing customers gets focused on quite far down the track, when the business is already very well established.
I don't know if that's true for you?
Nurture Existing Customers
I'm definitely not saying that you should stop initiatives to attract new business, but it is important to look at both new business acquisition and existing customer growth as part of your business strategy.
Understand the differences between "hunting" for brand new customers and "farming" existing ones.
Even (especially) those customers who have been with you for a long time may not know what you do! If you've been going for a while, you've probably added new products, features, locations, channels or service add-ons in recent years. If you're still quite new, you probably will add these over time.
You always communicate these with new customers, but have you looped back and had a discussion with existing customers? It's very annoying to discover an existing customer bought something from a competitor because they didn't know you did it now!
You will need to identify what works best for you and it's important to think about how marketing and sales work together to support this approach.
Grow Your Customers
This is not an exhaustive list, but here are some suggestions to get you started:
Get your marketing and sales teams together to create a plan
Identify and target customers who are likely to have higher potential value - Tier 1 and 2 customers may have a direct connection with your team, with your top customers also having engagement with your senior managers; Tier 3 may be served purely by marketing communications
Develop tools for your team to be able to easily talk with your customers - presentations, brochures, email templates, short videos
Provide training & support - not everyone feels comfortable 'selling' versus consulting & building relationships
Ensure you have metrics in place to measure new and existing business in terms of effort and value to your business
Use newsletters to keep in touch, but provide value
Be creative in how you can get messages across using existing platforms, such as email signatures & invoices
Ask your fans for testimonials, case studies and referrals
Think about webinars, customer-only events, user upskilling
Could you build a community that provides real value to customers? This is not about you selling more products/services directly, but bringing customers together to meet others 'like them' with similar issues and challenges. They will get massive value from each other, you will get reflected glory and positive associations. This is also a good time to have your ear to the ground about what is going on in their worlds - what are their current challenges and opportunities? You'll hear what cheeses them off and potential for future offerings
How do you build relationships in your personal life? Most of us develop deeper relationships with our existing friends in a way that is mutually beneficial. We don't tend to ditch existing friends in order to collect even more acquaintances. It's not really any different here.
If you've got a lot of the basics in place, go back and check if they are still serving you well; and how you can take your tools up a level to really support your business to become even more awesome - in the eyes of your customers.
Don't get overwhelmed if you don't have a growth plan, or the tools and resources yet. Depending on the investment you can make in this (time and $), think about what will you focus on for now; identify a priority for each month or quarter.
You've got this!
