Think about it -  your marketing, advertising and promoting efforts all lead towards acquiring new customers. While they are deemed to be effective, these tactics often require hefty investment and lengthy processes that not all small business owners are too keen on.

But did you know that it’s actually easier to sell your products and/or services to existing customers? And that they often spend more money than newly acquired clients? Customer loyalty is a key factor you need to consider when building a successful business. The satisfaction, trust and value customers feel instantly leads to a healthy and long-lasting client-owner relationship.

But what is customer retention really and how do you keep my customers coming back? Are there tips on how to retain customers without having to try too hard? Check out these easy but highly effective customer retention strategies and start building your own following TODAY.

What is Customer Retention?

Customer retention (or often referred to as client retention) is simply the process of turning one-time buyers into repeat customers. The word “retention” stems from retain, and retain is basically just a fancy way of saying keep. So, the goal of customer retention is to keep your existing customers.

The goals and methods of retaining customers can vary by industry but for all sectors, the idea is to provide a level of quality service that keeps people coming back.

How to Improve Customer Retention

There are a lot of ways to carry out customer retention. From interacting on social media, email marketing, and setting realistic expectations, here are the best practices for increasing your customer retention rate.

1) Set Realistic Expectations

Setting realistic expectations is so important when you're trying to improve your customer retention rate – it can have a huge impact on your business’ ability to keep customers.

Let's use the example of shipping times. Most online businesses and eCommerce stores can’t compete with Amazon when it comes to shipping times. But, what you can do instead is work hard to keep your customers informed. Suppose you have a customer who orders something and then has to wait a few weeks for it to show up. They'll either have:

• No idea how long shipping will take, and they become increasingly more annoyed every day that their package doesn’t arrive.
• The right idea from the beginning that it would take a little while, so the two-week wait is in line with their expectations - so it’s really no problem at all.

If the goal is to retain customers, you want to make sure that you’re creating the second scenario above. Transparency is key! There are lots of ways to do it with simple customer retention strategies. To go back to the example used before, you can have your shipping information on your website so it's always there. We also advise that you send emails to customers throughout their experience with you (telling them that their order was received; that their order is being processed; and that their item has shipped).

2. Create a Loyalty Program

Loyalty programs reward your customers by giving them incentives to come back and shop with you.

Once your customers opt into your loyalty program, make them feel special by hooking them up with offers and giving them a sneak peek at your latest products. This royal treatment will help your customers to feel valued, so they know they know they will be looked after again when they return.

3. Be Active on Social Media

If social media is going to be part of your customer retention strategy – and it should be! – then integrate it into the customer journey. Put social buttons in your header and/or footer, on the checkout page and on your contact page. Add social buttons where relevant.

NOTE:  When customers compliment your business on social, thank them for the kind words and then share their love with the rest of your followers to see – this is a great customer retention strategy you need to utilise. You can also improve your customer retention rates by announcing new products, deals, and other updates on your social media accounts. That’s a great way to generate buzz around your social channels and improve customer rentention.

4. Target Customers on Social Media

Let's stay on the social train for a moment - social media can help with customer retention by letting you target past buyers. Did you know, with Facebook and Instagram, you can create target audiences based on pages that your customers visited? That could be a “Thank you” page after making a purchase, or even a certain event.

When it comes to customer acquisition, so much of the targeting that business owners do on Facebook is guesswork. They are educated guesses though( i.e. based on locations, age groups, gender, personal interests etc). But when you use social media to target past customers, it removes the guesswork. You know the people on the receiving end of these ads/posts made purchases on your website, making social targeting a valuable tool for you to try.

5. Use Email

Each email you send can really aid customer retention — even when you’re sending emails that aren’t really about retaining customers. We discussed earlier about how important setting expectations is... well, your  email marketing can be part of that process. From the order confirmation, the shipment-sent confirmation, the follow-up thank you etc, these are great opportunities that you can use to engage your customers and increase your customer retention rate at the same time.

Once your customers become subscribers, you can categories them. For example, you could create categories based on the specific products that customers purchased, how much they spent on their purchase, whether they used a discount code upon purchase, and much much more.

Emails have a great chance of helping you hit your expectations, and if they’re done right you’ll be able to improve customer loyalty and retention in no time.