Tips for Retention Marketing [Hint: We’ve Seen 15X ROI]

For most businesses, it’s more expensive to acquire new customers than it is to retain existing ones. If a prospect has responded to your acquisition marketing efforts in a positive way, and then made the effort to buy your products or sign up for your services, that’s a conversion win!

After you’ve high-fived your team (or yourself), it’s important to not get too comfortable, because you can’t assume first-time buyers (FTBs) automatically transition to lifelong customers. Having a retention marketing strategy is just as crucial to keep them in the spending zone with your business, and to keep your profit margins growing.  

Main Goals of FTB Retention Campaigns:

• Thank new customers for their business
• Show appreciation with a small gift or freebie
• Include special offer or discount code to motivate next purchase

At Modern, our own marketing team launches retention marketing campaigns to FTBs and existing customers, in order to show clients we value them and to keep our business top of mind. Internally, we refer to it as our Retouch Program, and we’ve seen an average of a 15X return on investment, which more than pays for the campaign!

Retouch involves sending thank-you cards for any recently completed orders from FTBs and/or returning customers. First-time buyers receive a special gift with their thank you card to show our appreciation for their business. This offer and message is segmented by order activity and is personalized from their assigned Direct Marketing Specialist. This campaign offers a nice incentive to order again and is paired with a follow up email.

Below are some examples of the personalized creative we’ve developed for Retouch. If you’re a current customer, some of these campaigns may look familiar to you.

Bonus Ideas for Marketing Retention

Add Personalization
With your customer data, try addressing clients by their names, referencing the product or service they ordered, suggesting like items they may be interested in, and segmenting offers based upon their purchase amount and type. For print, you can utilize Variable Data Printing (VDP) technology to achieve this. For digital, you can use standard to more complex codes to personalize data fields.

Be Helpful
You can avoid a flurry of customer inquiries (especially from FTBs) by following up with a series of information that covers logical next steps, useful guides and videos, and pro tips relating to your products or services. Not only does this help educate your audience and create an atmosphere of continual support, it also keeps your brand front and center.

Go Multi-channel
Print promotions and direct mail have a lot of physical staying power with customers, but you can use other digital touches as follow-up, such as email and text message reminders for thank-yous and expiring offers. You can encourage FTBs to follow you on your social channels and @mention your business with a photo or your product/service to receive a bonus offer. Depending how cool your campaign is, you may get some organic shares and likes from your audience (something we have experienced at Modern Postcard).

Change It Up
Don’t let your marketing retention themes get stuck in a rut! Depending on your typical customer buying cycle, it’s good to have a campaign theme at least once a year. If your customers are buying several times a year, you may consider refreshing your retention marketing every quarter. You want to avoid clients receiving the same creative and offers too many times.

Understanding your customers and their buying trends will help you better segment your marketing efforts. As your business grows, you may have varying levels of retention campaigns that are personalized to different customer groups and their order activity. But, don’t get overwhelmed. If you have zero retention marketing in place, it’s best to start out simple with a follow-up program that thanks your customers and provides an incentive to keep the orders flowing. Acknowledgement and thoughtfulness put you miles ahead of your competitors that aren’t making much effort in those areas.

Ready to Retain Your Clients?
Modern Postcard offers a variety of print products and personalized direct mail campaigns to help your business reach out and impress first-time buyers and regular customers. Call today or visit us online to get started.

By Jessica Biondo, Marketing Communications Manager, Modern Postcard

Call a Direct Marketing Specialist at 800.959.8365