Why ensure the loyalty of your customers? 3 reasons to convince you
A loyalty strategy first consists of knowing your customer, and then engaging in a dialogue with them, and finally winning their trust so that they are a stakeholder in the business. At a time when customers are more and more volatile and where the market’s offer is increasingly expanded, it is complicated to keep your customers. But it is an indispensable component of a consistent and productive commercial strategy.
Are you still uncertain? Here are three good reasons which will convince you to invest time and resources in ensuring the loyalty of your customers.
Ensure loyalty to better spend your marketing budget
According to several studies, acquiring a new customer costs between 4 and 10 times more than keeping one.
Concentrating on your existing customers allows you to immediately achieve cost savings and better allocate your marketing and sales budgets for a business strategy that pays off.
Tom Smith,
Customer bonding programs: How to keep customers for life.
As Tom Smith stated, companies tend to under-estimate the share of the existing customer in their budgetary policy, while they are an asset needed to develop turnover.
The objective is therefore clear: prioritising customer loyalty over the long term before recruiting prospects.
If you are still wondering why it is essential to ensure the loyalty of your customers… it is quite simply because they you will earn more money.
Ensure loyalty for long-term investment
You should always have it in mind that the average basket of an existing customer is 15 to 25% higher than that of a new customer. To go further, the loyal customer represents richness for the company in the long term. As the "Customer Lifetime Value” indicator proves, estimating the sum of the profit that a company can achieve throughout a customer relationship: loyal customers consume more, more often, more regularly whereas new ones generate, most of the time, sales that are low and too infrequent.
Why ensure the loyalty of your customers? Jonathan Linster of LinkedIn specifies that "as marketeers, we should evolve our mantra of always attracting new customers to always helping our customers." It is a more profitable and long-term investment.
Ensuring loyalty to transform your customers into a sales force
The customer experience makes the difference. Let us take the case of Apple, which no longer asks itself the question of why it needs to ensure the loyalty of its customers. The brand has transformed them into true ambassadors. Convinced of the technological superiority of Apple’s products, these enthusiasts have unconsciously recruited millions of new customers.
At the time when the workings of marketing are more and more visible for customers, the best seller of your product or service remains the satisfied customer. Today, more than 60% of consumers place their trust in other users of the brand more than they do in communication. Thanks to their opinions on websites, to their recommendations on networks, to word-of-mouth between peers… they are becoming a new sales force which is making business’ profits grow.
In the era of networking, loyal users are the best sponsors of the business and become the showcase of the brand. It is therefore necessary to listen to and "pamper" them to naturally make the brand radiate.
Why ensure the loyalty of your customers? The message is clear. Because a conquered customer remains THE most cost-effective solution for your sales and marketing strategy and THE best advertisement for your brand. In a future article, we will explore the role and importance of a loyal customer in the recommendation of your business.
