In the rush to acquire new customers, have we forgotten the value of those who slipped away? Let’s change that.
We all know the numbers: Acquiring a new customer can cost up to five to seven times more than retaining an existing one. And yet, retailers often focus so much on new customer acquisition that they neglect their existing base. But what if you could reverse this and bring those lost customers back into the fold? The key is CRM.
CRM allows businesses to track and nurture their relationships with existing customers by leveraging automation, segmentation, and personalization. But even more importantly, it provides a deep well of customer data, which you can tap into to win back lost customers, at scale. In fact, according to the Aberdeen Group, companies that use CRM to retain customers see a 27% higher customer retention rate than those that don’t.
CRM in Re-engaging Lost Customers
When customers stop engaging with your brand, it’s not always the end of the road. A well-timed, personalized touch can reignite the relationship.
Here’s how CRM can play a pivotal role in bringing your lost customers back:
- Segmentation – Identification of ‘Who’ to Target and ‘Why’
CRM systems help retailers to segment customers based on a range of criteria: frequency of purchase, recency of interaction, product preferences, and even the length of time since their last purchase. By analyzing these data points, you can easily identify who has drifted away and why.
Retailers like Nike use CRM data to track customer activity, identifying those who haven’t interacted with their brand in months. Nike segments these users and sends them personalized offers based on their previous purchase behaviors, effectively bringing them back into the fold.
- Personalized Messaging
Personalization is not about sending an offer, instead, it is about crafting the right message based on past behaviors, interests, and preferences. Once you’ve identified the lost customers, it’s time to re-engage them. CRM tools allow you to automate personalized messaging at scale, whether it’s a reminder email, an SMS alert, or even a push notification.
Amazon is a master of personalized messaging. If a customer hasn’t bought anything in a while, Amazon will send tailored product recommendations based on the customer’s past browsing history and previous purchases, making the offer feel personal and relevant. This level of customization is made possible through its robust CRM system.
- Automating Re-engagement
One of the most powerful features of CRM is automation. Using customer data, retailers can automatically trigger re-engagement campaigns based on specific actions. Whether it’s an email campaign offering a discount or a reminder of items left in the cart, CRM tools ensure that your efforts to win back lost customers are both timely and relevant.
Key CRM Strategies to Win Back Lost Customers
Now that we’ve established the power of CRM for customer re-engagement, let’s explore the strategies you can implement right away:
- Leveraging Behavioral Data for Targeted Campaigns
Behavioral data can be the game changer when it comes to re-engaging customers. By understanding what they viewed or purchased previously, you can send timely, relevant offers to bring them back into the fold. For example, if a customer has recently browsed your winter collection but hasn’t made a purchase, you can send them a targeted offer with a limited-time discount.
- Using Multi-Channel Touch Points
In the digital age, customers engage with brands across multiple channels. To effectively re-engage lost customers, it’s essential to leverage multiple touchpoints: email, SMS, in-app messaging, or even social media.
For instance, Starbucks leverages multi-channel marketing to re-engage customers who have not made a purchase recently. If a customer hasn’t visited in a while, Starbucks will send them an offer via email, followed by an in-app reminder, and sometimes a push notification, making sure the message gets across multiple times.
- Implementing Loyalty Programs to Incentivize Return Visits
Loyalty programs are not only effective for retaining customers, but they can also be used strategically to win back lost ones. Using CRM, retailers can automatically send personalized loyalty offers to customers who haven’t interacted with the brand in a while. Because offering rewards like points, discounts, or exclusive offers can be an enticing way to bring customers back.
Myntra’s Insider program offers personalized rewards to customers based on their past purchases. The program keeps existing customers engaged and incentivizes lapsed customers to return, knowing that their next purchase can earn them rewards and exclusive deals.
How To Use CRM Data To Drive the Right Offers
- Leveraging Purchase History for Personalized Discounts
A well-structured CRM system helps track customer purchase history, allowing you to segment your audience effectively. For instance, a fashion retailer can offer exclusive discounts on a customer’s next purchase based on their previous buying behavior (e.g., offering a discount on accessories when they buy a new dress).
- Segment by Demographics for Customized Deals
Demographic data like age, gender, and location allows retailers to create segments and send offers that are highly relevant to each group. For example, offering birthday discounts to customers in a specific age range or sending seasonal promotions to those in colder climates.
- Monitoring Customer Behavior for Instant Triggered Offers
Behavioral data tracks how customers interact with your brand, these can be monitored through browsing patterns, abandoned carts, or loyalty program activity. By analyzing this data, retailers can send triggered offers at the exact moment customers are most likely to convert, creating urgency and maximizing the chances of a sale.
- Use Customer Feedback to Come up with Relevant Promotions
Customer feedback gathered through surveys, reviews, and NPS scores provides valuable insights into what your customers care about. You can tailor offers that align with their desires, making them feel heard and valued. Offering discounts on their favorite products or exclusive access to new collections can significantly improve customer loyalty.
Optimizing Customer Journey for Higher Re-Engagement
Before optimizing, it’s essential to understand the customer journey stages:
- Awareness: The stage where customers first learn about your brand.
- Consideration: Customers evaluate your offerings and consider if they meet their needs.
- Purchase: The decision-making phase, where a customer makes a buying decision.
- Post-Purchase: A seamless post-purchase experience is key to re-engagement.
With these stages in mind, let’s explore how you can optimize each phase to increase re-engagement.
- Personalizing Awareness Stage
First impressions matter. Personalized outreach and targeted ads can help you stand out in an ocean of choices. Using data-driven insights from CRM tools, you can create customer segments based on behavior, interests, and demographics, delivering relevant messaging that grabs attention.
Spotify does this well by offering customized playlists to users based on their previous listening habits, making their introduction to the app feel unique and personal.
- Engaging Customers During the Consideration Stage
At this stage, customers are exploring their options. Nurturing their interest through value-driven content, product demonstrations, and customer reviews can help move them down the funnel. Tools like abandoned cart emails or retargeting ads can help keep your brand top-of-mind without being intrusive.
Amazon uses personalized recommendations and email reminders for abandoned carts, bringing customers back to finish their purchases with added incentives, such as discounts or offers.
- Creating Seamless Checkout & Purchase Experience
A smooth, frictionless checkout process ensures a higher conversion rate and a better customer experience. Retailers can focus on simplifying the purchase process by offering multiple payment options, easy navigation, and clear call-to-action buttons.
Zara offers a fast and easy checkout experience in both its online store and physical locations, allowing customers to quickly purchase items they’ve saved or tried on.
- Post-Purchase Engagement
The journey doesn’t end after a purchase. In fact, the post-purchase phase is where many brands fail to engage. Automated thank-you emails, order confirmations, and delivery notifications are important. But going a step further with personalized follow-ups, loyalty rewards, and special offers can deepen your customer’s emotional connection to your brand.
- Ongoing Customer Support
A timely response makes customers feel valued. This provides the retailer a chance to be always there for their customers. Providing fast customer support through live chat, social media, or customer service lines creates an opportunity to resolve issues and strengthen their loyalty.
Apple has set a standard in customer support with its Genius Bar, offering quick solutions to issues and personalized guidance on product use, which increases long-term brand loyalty.
- Use Loyalty Programs & Rewards to Bring Customers Back
Loyalty points, discounts, or exclusive access can incentivize repeat purchases and foster a sense of community. Thus, creating a loyalty program that offers real value can significantly improve re-engagement.
- Regular Customer Feedback to Fine-Tune Your Strategy
Gathering regular feedback through surveys or customer reviews gives you valuable insights into what’s working and what’s not. Customers appreciate brands that listen to their feedback and adapt their offerings accordingly.
Netflix frequently uses customer feedback to adjust its content recommendations, ensuring that users always feel the platform “knows” them, which increases their chances of re-engagement.
Measure, Optimize, and Iterate
Simply launching a re-engagement campaign will not be enough in the changing retail landscape. The real success lies in constantly measuring, optimizing, and iterating on your efforts to ensure they resonate with your audience and deliver the best results.
Let’s break down how retailers can effectively track their re-engagement campaigns using CRM analytics and how A/B testing can refine strategies to drive continuous improvement.
- Track Campaign Performance
When it comes to re-engagement campaigns, data is a key factor. Retailers can leverage CRM analytics to track key performance indicators (KPIs) like open rates, response rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and customer retention. These metrics provide deep insights into how well your campaigns are performing and where improvements are needed.
Why It Matters:
By analyzing performance data, retailers can pinpoint exactly what’s working and what’s falling short. This allows for smarter, data-driven decisions that improve customer engagement over time.
- A/B Testing: Testing, Learning, and Refining
A/B testing is an important tool for testing different re-engagement strategies. This process involves testing two variations of a campaign, like an email vs. an SMS campaign or a discount vs. a loyalty points offer, to see which performs better with your target audience.
Why It Matters:
A/B testing allows you to minimize guesswork and optimize campaigns for better results. It provides you with clear, actionable insights about what resonates with your customers, allowing you to refine your messaging and offers continuously.
- Iteration – Continuously Optimizing for Success
Once you’ve tracked performance and tested different approaches, the next step is iteration. Iterate on your campaigns to improve them over time. The more data-driven insights you gather, the more precisely you can target customers, adjust offers, and refine your messaging.
Why It Matters:
As consumer preferences evolve, your campaigns need to evolve with them. By iterating on your re-engagement strategies based on the data you collect, you can keep your brand relevant and continue to foster long-term customer relationships.
Conclusion
Re-engagement is a continuous journey. By leveraging CRM systems to personalize offers, automate key touchpoints, and create a more dynamic customer experience, retailers can reignite relationships with lost customers, increasing loyalty and driving long-term growth.
Let’s connect to explore how your retail brand can harness the power of CRM for smarter, more effective customer re-engagement.
