What Is Customer Marketing?
Customer marketing is the practice of creating marketing strategies and campaigns that are specifically designed to engage, nurture, and retain existing customers. This type of marketing focuses on understanding customer needs and preferences in order to create personalized experiences that will drive loyalty and lifetime value.
In consumer marketing, there are two important focuses:
- Retention
- Growth
Retention
This type of customer marketing focuses on engaging existing customers and developing programs that will encourage them to continue buying from the company or brand. In other words, it’s about forming lasting relationships with customers in order to keep them coming back for more.
Growth
Growth-oriented customer marketing is designed to nurture existing customers and drive additional purchases over time. This can involve upselling and cross-selling opportunities or launching loyalty programs that reward customers for their repeat business.
Customer marketing also involves understanding customer data to create targeted campaigns and offers that are tailored toward each customer’s individual needs. By leveraging data analysis and insights, companies can craft highly personalized experiences that increase engagement and conversions.
What Are Key Customer Markets?
Consumer Markets
Consumer markets are a type of customer market that focuses on selling mass consumer goods and services, including travel, cosmetics, consumables, and more.
Business Markets
Business markets involve companies that focus on goods or services within the business industry. The customer in these markets is the businesses themselves.
Global Markets
Global markets are international customer markets that involve selling goods and services to customers located in different countries. This type of market requires extensive knowledge of cultural differences and global regulations in order to be successful.
Governmental and Non-Profit Markets
Governmental and non-profit customers include organizations such as churches, universities, government agencies, and charities. These customers can come with large contracts, which is why retention of this customer segment is critical.
Benefits of Customer Marketing
If you’re getting started with customer marketing, here are the benefits of implementing a customer marketing strategy at your organization:
Greater Propensity to Buy
A Greater propensity to buy is one of the major benefits of customer marketing. By leveraging data and insights, companies can create personalized experiences that show customers they are valued and appreciated. This, in turn, leads to increased loyalty, engagement, and conversions.
Get to Know Your Customer
Existing customers exhibit natural patterns in their browsing and purchase history, and customer marketing can reveal these patterns for future marketing benefits. You can also get to know your customer better by looking at data that shows things like demographic information and which products are most popular.
Customer Retention
By understanding customer needs and preferences and creating tailored offers, companies can drive loyalty and retain customers for longer periods of time.
Customer Advocacy
Because customer marketing can help you learn more about your customers and their patterns, you can also use this information to advocate better products and services tailored to your current customer base. This can improve loyalty with returning customers and can make a good first impression on new customers.
Keys to a Successful Customer-Driven Marketing Strategy
Leverage Buyer Personas
Properly leveraging buyer personas is key to a successful customer-driven marketing strategy. This involves researching and understanding who your ideal customers are and what they want from their experience with you. You should have a unique buyer persona for each of your product offerings.
Provide Exemplary Customer Service
Showing dedication to providing excellent quality customer service expresses to the customer that you care about their experiences when purchasing from your company. It’s important to be as informative and concise as possible when answering customers’ questions and concerns. Create customer service processes to hold your team to the highest support standards.
Listen to and Engage with Customers
Customers appreciate being heard and will be more likely to support your company when their feedback is considered. It’s important to listen to customer feedback and then create a plan that takes their suggestions into consideration.
Incentivize Loyalty
Prioritizing customer loyalty is key to making sure customers keep coming back. Offering incentives and rewards for loyal customers, such as discounts or free merchandise, can help increase the number of returning customers and encourage repeat purchases.
Generate Referrals with Systems and Strategies
Referrals are a powerful way to drive more sales and grow customer relationships. Make it easy for customers to refer friends by creating systems and strategies that make it simple for them to do so. This can include offering incentives or discounts when referring other customers.
Customer Retention Metrics
The pinnacle of success for any customer-focused marketing strategy are retention and loyalty. To measure the effectiveness of your efforts, consider tracking the following customer retention metrics:
Customer Retention Rate
Definition
The percentage of customers who remain customers over a certain period of time.
Calculation
Before calculating customer retention rates, you will want to determine a time period to use as a measure. This can range from the past week to the past year. You will also need to gather data, including the number of customers at the start of the period, the number added during the period, and the number at the end of the period.
The customer retention rate equation is:
Retention rate = (number of customers at the beginning of the period – (number of customers at the end of the period – new customers for the period)) / (number of customers at the beginning of the period)
Churn
Definition
Churn is a term often used in customer relationship management (CRM), and it refers to the percentage of customers who leave a company in a given time period.
Calculation
To calculate churn, you will need to gather data, including the number of customers at the beginning of the period, the number lost during the period, and the number at the end of the period. The churn equation is:
Churn rate = (number of customers lost during the period – number of customers at the end of the period) / (number of customers at the beginning of the period)
Customer Lifetime Value
Definition
Also referred to as CLV, this refers to the way to measure the money that a customer could potentially bring to your business.
Calculation
Customer Lifetime Value is a measurement of the total amount of money that a customer will spend over their lifetime with your business. The CLV equation is:
CLV = (Average Order Value x Number of Purchases) x Average Life Span of a Customer – Acquisition Cost
Customer Centric Growth Metrics
There are a variety of different metrics that can be tracked in order to measure the success of your customer-centric efforts. The most important thing is to track the right metrics, so that you can make data-driven decisions about where to focus your resources in order to grow your business.
Customer Acquisition Costs
Definition
Customer acquisition costs, or CAC, measures the cost to acquire one new customer.
Calculation
To calculate CAC, you will need to gather data, including the amount of money spent on marketing to acquire new customers, the number of new customers acquired, and the average lifetime value of a customer. The CAC equation is:
CAC = (Marketing Spend ÷ Number of New Customers) x Average Lifetime Value of a Customer
Net Promoter Score
Definition
Net promoter score (NPS) is a metric used to measure customer loyalty. It is calculated by asking customers how likely they are to recommend your company to others on a scale of 0-10. Customers who respond with a 9 or 10 are considered promoters, while those who respond with a 6 or lower are considered detractors.
Calculation
NPS = (Number of Promoters – Number of Detractors) / Total Number of Respondents x 100
Average Order Value
Definition
The average order value, or AOV, calculates the average your customers spend on one purchase.
Calculation
AOV = Total Revenue / Number of Orders
Customer-Driven Marketing Strategies
Now that you know all of the key metrics you should be aware of, let’s take a look at the strategies.
Case Studies
Creating case studies gives you better insights into your customer’s stories, purchasing decisions, and feedback.
Reviews & Ratings
Allow customers to leave reviews and ratings on your products or services. This can help you gain insights into customer sentiment, identify common pain points, and improve customer satisfaction.
Customer Surveys
Conducting customer surveys is a great way to get feedback from your customers and better understand their experience with your product or service. It also gives you insights into what changes or improvements they would like to see in the future.
Testimonials
Gathering customer testimonials is an effective way to showcase the positive experiences your customers have had with your company. Testimonials can also help you build trust and credibility with potential customers.
User-Generated Content
Encourage customers to create and share content about their experience with your company. This can be anything from pictures and videos on social media, to blog posts and reviews. User-generated content is an effective way to show potential customers what others have experienced with your product or service.
Influencers and Micro-Influencers
Reach out to influencers and micro-influencers with an engaged audience and ask them to create content about your product or service. This can help you reach new potential customers and gain the trust of existing customers.
Referral Programs
Create a referral program to incentivize your customers to refer others. This can be a great way to increase customer loyalty and get new customers.
Conclusion
By tracking the right metrics and using customer-driven marketing strategies, you can grow your business more effectively. As you continue to gather data, track trends, and adjust your strategy accordingly. With a customer-centric approach, you can be sure that your customers are at the heart of all decisions you make. With this approach, you can acquire new customers efficiently while also building greater loyalty from existing ones.