Creating & maintaining a loyal & engaged customer base

Making a sale is great; what is even better is making repeat sales from the same shopper, and then telling all of their friends about you so that you get even more business. In an online marketplace where retailers are ten a penny, making your brand stick positively in the memory of shoppers is difficult, but not impossible.

If all of your marketing activity is based around your personas and their questions and needs, the journey doesn't end when a transaction is made. Your customer still needs you, whether it’s for customer service enquiries or for you to tell them you've just stocked a line of tops that would go brilliantly with the jeans they ordered last month. Going above and beyond the norm with customer service, exclusive offers and generally letting customers know how much you value them, makes a big difference to brand perception.

Some potential ideas for ways to engage with your retail audience post-purchase could include:

• Tying in your email marketing content to purchase behaviour – segmenting your mailing list by the types of product bought to ensure your email content is highly relevant and personalised to every customer – but not just offering more of the same. What would be the next step in their buying journey?
• Offering exclusive content, competitions and offers for existing customers and social media followers
• Dial up the customer service and engagement time spent on social media to help ensure your customers feel listened to and valued
• Randomly choose customers/followers to surprise with a free gift or something to brighten up their day e.g. ice lollies delivered during a heatwave

TOP TIP: Invite engagement and user-generated content, give things away to surprise and delight and give people a reason to speak well of you. The kinds of personal endorsements that result from this fairly minimal activity help to keep and make new customers in a way that brings a great return on investment.

For more information about any of our digital marketing services, feel free to get in touch today on 0800 011 9715 or .