Businesses today are fighting tooth and nail for people\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n
Not only are you battling against direct competitors, you also have to contend with crowded inboxes and a general public that\u2019s being outright bombarded by thousands of \u201cbrand messages\u201d every day.<\/p>\n
Which leads to the question: should <\/i>you be constantly chasing new customers, waving your hands around hoping that someone stops to pay attention? Sounds ineffective and exhausting, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n
Picture it. Your sales team is working overtime to hit numbers that seem out-of-reach. Your marketing team is running out of ideas for fresh campaigns.<\/p>\n
Wouldn\u2019t it make more sense to reach out to people who are ready for you to sell to and<\/i> already know your brand?<\/p>\n
Short answer: yes. And you might save money and energy doing it too.<\/p>\n
Enter the world of customer marketing.<\/p>\n
In this guide, we\u2019ll break down the benefits of marketing to existing customers and more importantly, how you can start doing it right now and give your business a much-needed boost. You\u2019ll learn:<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n Let\u2019s kick things off with a definition of customer marketing we can work with.<\/p>\n Customer marketing is marketing that\u2019s focused on selling to your current customers\u2014rather than new prospects or leads. <\/i><\/b><\/p>\n You\u2019re probably already familiar with these customer marketing tactics:<\/p>\n The concept of customer-based marketing is simple: engage customers that already know and trust you. Don\u2019t get it twisted: customer acquisition still matters.<\/p>\n But don\u2019t underestimate the untapped value of your current customers. To keep your business growing, you need to first track how much your customers are spending and how long they stick around. This is your baseline and gives you a more tangible starting point.<\/p>\n Below, we\u2019ve broken down the three biggest benefits of business-to-customer marketing.<\/p>\n No surprises here. You\u2019ve probably heard the oft-parroted statistic that says acquiring a new customer will cost you more than upselling or cross-selling the ones you have. (If you can market to existing customers and do it well, it should also translate into a better customer retention rate<\/a> over time.)<\/p>\n If nothing else, customer marketing can make your employees\u2019 (and your) jobs easier.<\/p>\n Fact: the probability of selling to a current customer is between 60% and 70%1<\/sup> (compared to 5\u201320% for new prospects). From Marketing and Sales to your Customer Support<\/a> team and beyond, your employees will probably have an easier time sealing the deal with existing customers compared to new ones.<\/p>\n The beauty of marketing to existing customers is that you’ve already done the hard part: gaining someone\u2019s trust. Now you just need to keep it. Don\u2019t squander all that hard work you did to earn that customer\u2014you should always be looking for ways to improve your customer experience<\/a>.<\/p>\n And today, when trust can matter as much as your service\u2019s quality or value,2<\/sup> customer marketing is a useful channel that you can use to get ideas for how to improve your business after<\/i> you\u2019ve earned that trust from customers.<\/p>\n Maybe that means expanding your services. Perhaps you have to introduce a new price point.<\/p>\n Think about it. You\u2019re going to learn a lot more about where your company is winning (and losing) from a decade-long customer compared to someone who cancels their contracts after six months. This again speaks to why long-term customers are so valuable. They\u2019re treasure troves of insight.<\/p>\n Customer marketing means more customer interactions<\/a>.<\/p>\n Calls. Emails. Social shout-outs. The list goes on and on.<\/p>\n These interactions go hand in hand with building tighter customer relationships<\/a>, improved customer experience analytics<\/a>, and a better customer experience<\/a>. Which then results in more referrals and positive word-of-mouth from your customers that translates into more<\/i> business.<\/p>\n And given that customers who come from referrals tend to have higher lifetime values and produce more referrals themselves,3<\/sup> we\u2019ve come full circle as to why customer marketing matters so much. Chances are you already do some form of customer marketing. For example, do you produce a company newsletter? Do you do check-in calls with new customers? What about exclusive offers and discounts for existing customers?<\/p>\n That said, these sorts of strategies aren\u2019t always effective by default. Here are a few customer marketing tactics that will really bolster your strategy.<\/p>\n One of the biggest challenges of customer marketing is that interactions are happening in so many different places.<\/p>\n Timely communication with your customers is key to keeping them engaged for marketing purposes. This is where it\u2019s useful to have a tool that consolidates all of your customer communications in a single platform.<\/p>\n If you have a robust digital customer engagement platform<\/a> (like RingCentral!), the main benefit is that it keeps you from having to bounce between the phone (since you can make calls right in the app) and your email inbox or social channels. Inbound or outbound, your customer conversations are just a click away.<\/p>\n For example, here\u2019s how this looks in RingCentral\u2019s Contact Center dashboard<\/a>:<\/p>\nWhat is customer marketing, anyway?<\/h2>\n
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\n<\/a><\/p>\nWhy you should put together a customer marketing strategy<\/b><\/h2>\n
1. Customer marketing creates loyal, long-term buyers that spend more<\/h3>\n
2. Customer marketing empowers you to improve your service<\/h3>\n
3. Customer marketing encourages positive relationships and referrals<\/h3>\n
\n<\/a><\/p>\nThe basics of building an effective customer marketing strategy<\/h2>\n
Pay close attention to customer concerns across all channels<\/h3>\n