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February 15, 2016

Often, when marketing people begin doing content marketing, their first impulse is to tell the world about how great their product or service is, in order to draw in more business. But how about your existing business? What strategies, within your content marketing, do you have in place to retain or look after your existing customers?

Customer retention, as a goal for your content marketing strategy, is one of the most overlooked objectives. But we think it should be considered just as important, if not more important, than attracting new customers. Why is this so?

The primary reason is for marketing efficiency--getting more bang for the buck. According to an article published through Salesforce in 2013, it costs 6 to 7 times more to attract a new customer than to retain an existing one. Read about it for yourself at Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2013/08/customer-service-stats.html.

So how do you retain your customers by offering quality content? You can offer tips and techniques about your products or service. It can also be very helpful and engaging to provide stories on how your existing customers have found new uses or applications for your products or services. People love to find out that a "widget" has more uses than they originally thought, because they see more value in the widgets. So make it a part of your content marketing strategy to deliver useful and engaging material to your customers. It will strengthen your relationship with them, helping to build their loyalty while transforming them from customers to brand ambassadors for your products or services.

Distributing a press release to the media to update them about version 2 of a widget is effective at gaining their interest. This will help generate strong media coverage which, in turn, may create interest among prospective new customers. That's a good thing, so keep up the press release updates. (24-7 Press Release Newswire offers tips on distributing your press release through our knowledge base.)

However, since you should already know who your customers are, you can communicate with them directly. If you don't have a good customer database, you should begin to build one right away. Once you have a strong customer database, you should develop a robust content marketing strategy geared toward them. This will help you build repeat or upgraded business and encourage your customers to refer new customers to you. Some businesses will share press releases with this audience which is your own business decision.

Tell stories about good experiences your customers have had with your products or services. Keep sharing tips and tricks; customers find these very helpful and keeps them loyal to your products. Your social media should also be considered as a part of your content marketing strategy. There may be some cross over with the posting of your press releases to your social media as well.

You should also use your content marketing strategy to find out more about your customers and to build a sense of community among your customers. You can do this by running a survey--or simply ask your customers a question that lets you gain better insight about your customers' attitudes, interests and needs. Find out what information they need in order to better use your products or services. Share survey results with them so they feel part of your company's customer community.

There is no doubt, that when used effectively, content marketing is a phenomenal way to draw in, engage and convert new customers. However, equally important is your strategy for communicating with and retaining your existing customers and getting feedback from them, as they are typically your biggest source of business growth and new ideas for future products and services.