How to Increase Customer Loyalty in Your Online Store
Customer loyalty is worth its weight in gold for online stores.
Not only are loyal customers more likely to make bigger purchases, but they’re also more likely to tell their friends and family about your business. In other words, they act as unpaid brand ambassadors who can help you reach a whole new audience of potential customers.
Too often, e-commerce marketing efforts are focused solely on new customer acquisition. But if you want your business to thrive in the long term, it’s important to also focus on customer retention and loyalty.
Best of all, focusing on loyalty and retention can help you maximize your e-commerce marketing ROI (return on investment). That’s because it costs significantly less to market to existing customers than it does to attract new ones.
Here’s how to increase customer loyalty and retention for your online store:
#1. Create a customer loyalty program
Customer loyalty programs are a great way to reward your best customers and encourage them to keep coming back. There are a few different ways you can structure your program, but the most important thing is to make sure it’s valuable and easy to use.
Here are a few tips for creating an effective loyalty program for your online store:
- Make it easy to join and easy to use – The last thing you want is for customers to get frustrated trying to sign up or figure out how to redeem their rewards.
- Offer valuable rewards – You need your rewards to be valuable enough that they actually encourage customers to keep shopping. This could be anything from discounts and free shipping to exclusive access to new products and early access to sales.
- Tailor the program to your target audience – Make sure you understand who your target audience is and what kinds of rewards they would find most valuable.
Once you’ve created your loyalty program, make sure that you promote it. Include it in your emails, on your website and even on your product packaging.
#2. Use CRM software to track customer data
CRM (customer relationship management) software is a must-have for e-commerce businesses. It allows you to track customer data and interactions in one place, which gives you valuable insights into your customers’ needs and preferences.
This information can be used to personalize the shopping experience for each customer and make relevant recommendations. It can also be used to create targeted loyalty programs and other retention strategies.
The Marketing 360® CRM is designed to help you manage all of your contacts — leads, customers, manufacturers, wholesale distributors, employees and beyond — all from one place. Best of all, it’s designed to scale with your business.
#3. Send personalized emails
Email marketing is a fantastic way to keep in touch with your customers and promote loyalty. But if you want customers to really appreciate your emails, you need to make sure they’re personalized.
Personalized emails are more likely to be opened and read, and they can also help you build a stronger relationship with your customers. After all, people are more likely to do business with companies that seem to know them on a personal level.
There are a few different ways you can personalize your e-commerce emails, such as:
- Using the customer’s name in the subject line or in the body of the email
- Including relevant purchase history or product recommendations
- Sending birthday or holiday greetings
By using email marketing software, like the Marketing 360 Nurture app, you can automatically personalize your emails based on customer data from the CRM.
Pro tip – Make it easy for people to unsubscribe. If someone isn’t interested in your emails, there’s no point in continuing to send them. Not only is it a waste of resources, but it can also damage your reputation and hurt your deliverability.
As counterintuitive as it may seem, it’s important to include an easy way for people to unsubscribe from your emails. That way, you can focus your efforts on the people who actually want to hear from you.
#4. Offer excellent customer service
Customer service is important for all businesses, but it’s especially critical for online stores. That’s because customers can’t see or touch the products they’re buying, so they need to be able to rely on the company for help and support.
Did you know that wonderful customer service is one of the main reasons shoppers stay loyal to a brand?
Make sure your customer service team is friendly, helpful and available to answer questions. You should also offer a few different channels for customer support, such as phone, email and live chat.
In addition to offering excellent customer service, you should also make it easy for customers to find the answers they need on your website. Make sure your FAQ page is comprehensive and easy to navigate.
#5. Use social media to build strong connections
Social media can be a great way to connect with your customers and promote loyalty. It’s an opportunity to build relationships, engage in two-way conversations and show customers that you care about more than just making a sale.
Make sure you’re active on the social media platforms where your target audience is spending their time. And once you’re there, focus on creating content that’s interesting, informative and helpful.
Too often, online stores use social media to promote their products rather than truly providing value for their followers and customers. If you want to build strong relationships and promote loyalty, make sure your social media content is focused on providing value.
You should also make sure you’re responsive to comments and questions. Customers will appreciate knowing that you’re listening and that you care about their concerns.
Remember that social media can be an effective extension of your customer service. Just like you would answer the phone or respond to an email promptly, you should respond in a timely manner to questions and concerns of feedback on social media.
#6. Send out offers via text message
Sending text messages is a great way to stay in touch with your customers and promote loyalty. After all, people are more likely to read a text message than an email. And if you send texts sparingly, your customers are more likely to pay attention when you do send them.
Make sure the offers you send via text are relevant and targeted to each customer. You can segment your text message list by factors like purchase history, location or even the type of device they’re using.
And just like with emails, you should personalize your text messages whenever possible. Use the customer’s name in the message and include relevant information, such as their order history or product recommendations.
Pro tip – Only send texts to people who opt-in to receive them. That way, you’ll avoid annoying your customers and damaging your brand.
Sending text messages is a superb way to promote customer loyalty, but only if it’s done right. Not only is sending texts to people who don’t want them a bad marketing strategy, but it’s also illegal.
#7. Request and listen to customer feedback
Another important way to promote customer loyalty is by requesting and listening to customer feedback. After all, how can you improve your business if you don’t know what your customers want?
There are a few different ways to collect customer feedback. You can send out surveys, use social media or even just ask people directly when they’re making a purchase.
Once you have the feedback, it’s important to listen to it and make changes accordingly. Show your customers that you’re listening by implementing their suggestions. That way, they’ll feel valued and appreciated — two important factors in customer loyalty.
Pro tip – Make it a point to respond to your reviews. Good or bad, customers will appreciate knowing that you’re listening.
Plus, when you respond, it gives you a chance to tell your side of the story and show off your customer service chops to anyone who may be reading your response.
#8. Create a customer referral program
Customer referrals are one of the most powerful marketing tools available. After all, people are more likely to listen to a friend or family member than they are to a stranger.
One of the best ways to promote customer loyalty is to create a referral program. And there are a few different ways to do it:
- Give existing customers a discount for referring new customers
- Give new customers a discount for being referred by an existing customer
- Give both the existing and new customers a discount
You can also get creative with your referral program. For example, you could give away free products, offer exclusive deals or even enter people into a contest.
Pro tip – Make it easy for your customers to refer their friends. The easier you make it, the more likely they are to do it.
You can promote your referral program on social media, send out email blasts or even include a link on your receipts.
#9. Take advantage of retargeting
A retargeting campaign is a great way to stay top-of-mind with your customers and promote loyalty. What’s more likely to encourage someone to come back to your store: a generic ad or an ad for the exact product they were just looking at?
There are a few different ways to do retargeting. The most common is through display ads, which are the ads that show up on websites like Facebook and Google.
You can also retarget customers through email. For example, you could send an email to someone who’s abandoned their shopping cart or even just someone who hasn’t made a purchase in a while.
Retargeting ads are so powerful because they’re highly personalized. And when done right, they can be extremely effective in promoting customer loyalty.
Pro tip – Use retargeting ads to cross-sell and upsell your products. For example, if someone buys a product from your store, you could show them an ad for complementary products.
You could also use retargeting ads to promote your loyalty program or even just to remind people of your existence.
#10. Promote user-generated content
User-generated content (UGC) is a tremendous way to show off your happy customers and promote customer loyalty. That’s because people are more likely to trust what your customers have to say about you more than what you say about yourself.
There are a few different ways to get more UGC for your online store:
- Create a branded hashtag – Having a branded hashtag makes it easy for you to find user-generated content on social media. All you have to do is search for your hashtag and voila!
- Run a contest – This is a great way to incentivize people to create UGC. For example, you could run a contest where people have to post a photo of themselves using your product and use your branded hashtag. The person with the most likes wins a prize.
- Run a survey – You can use survey software like SurveyMonkey or Google Forms to collect customer feedback. Just make sure to ask questions that will actually give you valuable insights.
Once you’ve collected UGC, make sure that you promote it! Share photos of customers using your products on your social media profiles, showcase video testimonials on your website and highlight reviews in your marketing materials.
Customer loyalty is extremely important for online stores. By taking advantage of e-commerce marketing strategies, like retargeting, social media marketing and email marketing, you can increase customer loyalty and ultimately boost your bottom line.
Marketing 360’s e-commerce marketing platform has everything you need to build customer loyalty, from email and text message marketing software to a fully customizable CRM.
