How To Increase Returning Leads via Online Marketing: 4 Ways You Can Work With What You’ve Already Got.

Sometimes it’s not all about ‘in with the new and out with the old’ – especially when it comes to a profitable Marketing Strategy. Many times we have had clients report “they’re returning customers it doesn’t count”. Their personal goal for new acquisition overshadows any perceived importance of returning custom being a complementary addition to their overall results. Don’t get us wrong, it is incredibly important to keep a healthy funnel of new prospects in order to grow your business, but often nurturing the leads you have already worked for can fund the marketing activities for Brand Awareness.

Ultimately, if your product and service are satisfactory to most, getting a customer to return should be an easier sell. This means that they will require fewer touchpoints online to be persuaded to purchase again. Having a streamlined retention Marketing strategy can help you to:

• Upsell additional products or services
• If your product/service is renewable encourage repeat purchase
• Improve word of mouth potential amongst your clienteles peers (referrals). 
• Extend the lifetime value of your clients
• Become the ‘go-to’ brand in your niche/industry/area.

There are several ways you can remarket to your previous business ‘wins’. Below you will find a simple summary of some of the channels we would recommend to improve the longevity of your leads and ultimately profitability to your business.

Remarketing Using Emails

To use emails to effectively remarket to your past clients you must consider the lifetime value of your product or service. This in turn will dictate the frequency of your communications and how aggressive you can approach contact. If your goods/services are perishable within a certain time frame, consider automated funnels to remind users of your offering a few weeks ahead of the ‘end date’ for best results, for example, if you are a subscription service. For businesses where multiple complementary products could be purchased over a short period of time, you can send out blanket emails based on seasonality for example, this is particularly good for clothing brands and gift companies. 

It’s also important to consider what relationship your customer already has with your business. Do they engage with you frequently? If so they need to be presented with everything new! Have they disappeared for a prolonged period of time? In this situation maybe they would need an exclusive incentive (promotion), to encourage them to pick up where they left off. Maybe they’ve only enquired in the past and have not actually committed to investing in your offer? If this is the scenario, you will need to highlight why you are the best choice for what you do. The more you can get in the mind of your customers’ buying habits, the more tailored you can make your email communication funnels – thus making yourself more persuasive to generate desired actions. 

Remarketing Using Social Media Posts 

Posting on Social Media can often produce more positive results than you can accurately account for. It can act as the silent funnel nudging people in the right direction. For someone to actively opt to follow your content in their own personal space is a big deal. Don’t make them regret it! You are now in with their social circle, make sure you are providing value. This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to sell! sell! sell! In fact our advice would be quite the opposite. You need to use this platform to help your fans get to know your business more intimately. Consider asking yourself: 

• Why are we useful to them?
• Can we spark an emotion with our posts? (humour is good)
• What do they want to see?

If you can get people engaging with your brand, you can subtly push them to purchase throughout your communications. On Social Media you really need to consider the value you are providing them to achieve the value you want to obtain for yourself. This channel is very seldom a waste of time but is frequently, and eloquently put, deemed a pain in the arse for a lot of businesses. My advice would be to spend a few hours planning your future posts in one sitting. This way at least you can ensure you are getting something out there, anything additional is a bonus! 

Remarketing Using Social Media Ads

You can use Social Media Ad platforms to engage with past purchases in two main ways;

• By creating event based audiences via the platform based on people who have purchased in the last 180 days
• By uploading your email lists of past purchasers

A popular option for the above strategies is to target those who are hard to reach via email but have purchased a product or service more than once. You can trial several different options to understand what works best for your business. Naturally, the higher engaged users will be more likely to produce the best monetary value. Some of our clients prefer to focus on those who haven’t visited in a while, as it’s a closer strategy to new acquisition. In theory the latter group mentioned are the users that may not have ever returned without a nudge but you are still making the most of that already developed trust you have put the work in for. 

Remarketing Using Google Ads

Your options with this channel will depend on how many leads are being filtered through your online platform. If you have a high volume of over 1000 enquiries/leads a month you can present users with text ads when they are searching generically for a product or service you believe you could satisfy. This helps to ensure that these users come back to you rather than your competition. However not every business is as fortunate to boast this level of volume, therefore the most suitable channel for them would be the Google Display Network. These are graphic ads that appear when a user browses content outside of your own. They act as reminders to pull users back to the website to browse, and hopefully enquire again. You can set a frequency limit of how many times an individual is exposed to your ad to control how aggressive you want to be with remarketing via Google. Options for segmentation of audience timeframes can depend on your current volume of traffic to your website – on top of the considerations of timing, very similar to the Social Media Ads targeting. 

Please note that not all channels will be suitable for every business and there is an element of forward thinking in terms of what messaging your clients might appreciate and what might actually have a deterring effect if you bombard them too intensely. However we passionately believe that you should not overlook the value of retention to your business, especially to fund new lead acquisition. You have already done the hard work to generate trust, don’t let a competitor swoop in and take that from you. 

If you need further advice or assistance on your specific retention strategy online or you just don’t know where to get started please don’t hesitate to contact our team – we’re here to help you!