Why It Is Important To Use Customer Data To Drive Repeat Sales
It’s never about how much data you have collected but how you set about using it. Recent statistics reveal that 1% of a retail website’s users generate 40% of its revenue and a loyal customer is worth around 10 times as much as their first purchase. This clearly indicates that retention of customers is even more important than acquisition, when you are already up and running. So the big question, how do you keep your existing customers buying from you?
Work Harder For Repeat Sales
If you have email addresses then use them. It is surprising how many businesses do not engage in emailing their customers direct but that’s a mistake. For e-commerce especially – you can point out specific offers, reductions and important information about your service or product. E-Marketing is one way to do this on a large scale, using software such as MailChimp, for instance.
Use newsletters, direct no-nonsense offers – like 20% off next purchase, free delivery etc. For B2B services this can translate to upselling your service, maybe suggesting to a customer they should add another service to an existing package. You should spell out the differences that extra service will make and offer a reduction with it for a limited time.
Create a sales funnel for repeat business – starting with direct contact with customers, who you know have parted cash for your offers already. Just remember, when you initially collect data like emails, that you must have had the person’s explicit permission to contact them, if this is data from an e-commerce site – this can be a simple tick box under the email registration field.
Highly Customised, Targeted Strategies
The smart money is now on the very specific analysis of customer behaviour and in creating bespoke offers for like-minded sub-groups and even individuals, based on the information you have gleaned.
If you know that a customer is buying a specific type of product at specific times, say for instance, new shoes twice a year in May and September, then make sure you are highlighting you have those similar ranges of products in stock and that you create offers around them (say £10 off) at the right time, so customers stay loyal to your site and brand. This is the simple principle of being loyal to those customers who are loyal to you.
Larger companies use algorithms that monitor customer interaction behaviour to specifically send them the right offers at the right time. Similarly, they employ digital marketing sales teams. These teams don’t just cold call all day, they intelligently analyse customers’ paths to purchase and nurture these people toward repeat sales, with highly personalised targeted offers.
It is possible, with a little bit of time and effort, to understand someone’s buying behaviour to a high level and then to use that information to prompt repeat sales.
If you would like to find out more about how to analyse your customer data and achieve higher growth through repeat sales, drop us a line at [email protected] and we’ll explain the possibilities and potential.
