I don’t know if this is one of those business axioms that has already been stated, but if it’s not, it should be: The best customers you’ll ever acquire are the ones you already have. What do I mean by that? Well, simply that the cost of attracting, nurturing, and ultimately converting prospects to customers will always be higher than the cost of selling existing customers more of your products or services. There’s even a term for this concept: customer lifetime value. And while companies tend to associate content marketing with generating leads and closing new deals, it is equally powerful when it comes to retaining existing customers.
Get More Business from Existing Customers with Content Marketing
Using content marketing to increase customer lifetime value involves some of the same principles as marketing to prospects, but there are are some key differences. Here are some things to keep in mind:
- Develop special customer-focused content. While many of the pieces of content you create for general consumption will be appealing to existing customers, you should also develop pieces exclusively for them. For example, they may find an ebook on “Getting the Most Out of Product XYZ” to be very useful. And the fact that you’ve created it shows that you are interested in helping them maximize the return on their investment.
- Focus on quality over quantity. You don’t need to contact your customer base with nearly the frequency you do your prospects—just enough to let them know you care about their needs and their satisfaction.
- Take the sting out of any thorny issues. Your most recent software release had a few bugs. Rather than trying to sweep that fact under the rug, create some content on how to manage them. You’ll save your tech support team some calls and your customers will appreciate the transparency.
- Invite a different kind of engagement. Of course you want anyone you contact to engage with you. But your customers have a level of knowledge about your products and services that can make that interaction more of a collaboration. You get great input and they get a feeling of “ownership” in your offerings, which will make them a more vocal brand advocate.
Maximize the Value of Your Inbound Marketing
As a top inbound marketing and content marketing agency (with teams in Colorado Springs, CO, Springfield, MO, and Olympia, WA) we help clients nationwide implement marketing automation tools (like HubSpot) and utilize those tools' capabilities to their fullest. This includes generating new business and increasing customer retention to boost the lifetime value of existing customers. How can we help you meet your conversion and retention goals? Let's find out!
