The Top Reasons You Should Market to Your Existing Clients

Did you know it costs up to five times more money to acquire a new customer than to sell to a current one? With that fact in mind, it’s clear that your existing customers are an invaluable resource that you really can’t afford to ignore. There are several compelling reasons to focus your resources on encouraging your existing customers to buy again, with some of these reasons listed here.

Increase Retention

When you put in effort to remain top of mind through your entire relationship with your customers it helps ensure they continue coming to you for solutions in your particular area of expertise. By publishing informative content that is personalized to a customers’ individual needs, which is often referred to as account based marketing (learn what is account based marketing here), you can improve the value each person receives from the products or the services you offer.

Increase Revenue

Existing customers are much more inclined to make a purchase with you and they are less likely to look for a competing brand when their needs are being met. The total value per purchase is also usually higher. It’s possible for you to use your customers’ purchase histories to find where their needs aren’t being met and start to meet them.

Also, as your existing customers continue to receive educational messages that are designed to motivate them to make additional purchases, they will buy, which increases your revenue. If you do this properly, you may see as much as a 20 percent increase in your total revenue – all this thanks to marketing to your current customers.

Also, revenue may increase because purchases from current customers typically have higher margins than those that are made by a new customer. With a new customer, you must spend money and time explaining what value you provide, what you offer, and your overall company. This is a step you can skip with your existing customers because you have a pre-existing relationship with these individuals. They already know about your company and as a result, likely trust you. This means that the sales you make to these individuals will cost less than a sale to a new customer.

Increase Acquisition

When your customers are satisfied, they will provide an ongoing stream of referral business. When your product or service is recommended from someone that a potential customer trusts, it will help to accelerate the sales cycle, often significantly. Also, your efforts to expand your current customer base will equip them with the insights that are needed to recruit even more people.

How to Market to Your Current Customers

Marketing to your whole customer base is a crucial part of ensuring the relationships remain current and that they flourish. The good news is, you can use all the lessons you have learned during the initial customer acquisition process to help ensure you achieve success with your established customers, too. Some tips for doing this are found here.

Create a Plan for Communicating with Your Current Customers

There are many B2B (business to business) brands that are finding success using email marketing for creating the deeper client relationships desired. Regardless of the avenue you choose to go down, though, it is essential to ensure you have segmented your customer lists and that you know how and when you should plan to connect with them.

Customize the Marketing Message Based on Each Client’s Needs

If you have already implemented a Customer Relationship Management and analytics suite, there’s good news – you already have a large amount of information about your current customers – all right at your fingertips. You can use this information to help refine your marketing messages for every client. Remember, customized messaging is going to help supercharge the response you receive.

Track Your Results from the Start

Today, customer marketing is focused on various metrics and activities, which means it is up to you to roll all these into your current marketing plan as cleanly as you can. The core customer marketing activities include things like holding events and user groups for your current buyers and for gathering testimonials.

You may wonder – what about the metrics? You need to keep a watch on the revenue from the upsells and the cross-sells and on your renewal rates or churn rates, and overall levels of customer satisfaction. Ultimately, if all of the metrics are moving in the proper direction, they should be resulting in significant referrals.

There are many situations where customer marketing is overlooked; however, you should not let this happen. After all, it can make a huge impact on your bottom line. It takes just a little effort and when it is directed at the proper accounts, the right ways, you can achieve the most meaningful results possible.

Working with the Professionals

If you are unsure how to begin the marketing plan that will encourage current customers to buy again, then the best course of action may be to work with the professionals. They can help you develop a plan that will help encourage past customers to buy again, regardless of the product or service you offer.

If hiring a third-party to provide help with this marketing endeavor, be sure to put time and effort into the decision. Finding the right company for the job will help ensure that you get the desired results and that the marketing efforts have the best possible chance of success. The bottom line is that you should never overlook the importance of continuing to market to your current customers – it can really pay off in the long run.