Improve Customer Retention

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

• Describe two nurturing campaigns that move prospects to close.
• Identify three campaigns that retain customers and grow revenue.

Lead Prospects to Close

In the previous unit, you learned about the kinds of lead nurturing campaigns that engage and educate prospects. These campaigns target the beginning and middle of the buyer’s journey. Now it’s time to discuss campaigns that can actually turn these prospects into paying customers. These campaigns are ideal for reaching potential customers in the middle or end of the buying process. 

There are two lead nurturing campaigns you can use to move prospects to close.

1. Industry expertise campaign
2. Promotional campaign

Industry Expertise Campaign

Let’s say that you’ve shown a potential customer how your product or service addresses their pain points. You’ve also demonstrated what sets your brand apart from competitors. What other convincing might your prospects need at this point to make a purchase decision?

Now is the time to launch an industry expertise campaign, which reinforces that your company is the right choice. These campaigns emphasize your authority as a brand by sharing helpful press releases, industry reports, and other high-traffic content. Be sure to put your own spin on any external content shared with potential customers so that it comes across in your unique brand voice.

Promotional Campaign

You can also urge your leads to close with a well-timed promotional campaign. This campaign is actually what it sounds like—it offers potential customers a special discount or product sale to catalyze a purchase.

With a promotional campaign, think about how you can individualize whatever it is you’re offering your leads. Can you give certain kinds of leads special pricing? What about offering additional features to some of your most promising prospects? Catering to individual needs through promotion can maximize this campaign’s impact. It can also pave the way for customer retention.

Build and Grow Customer Relationships

Closing a deal of any kind is an important milestone, but it is not the finish line. There’s still work to be done if you want to maintain a thriving customer base. The good news is that lead nurturing doesn’t only bring prospects to close—it also improves customer retention.

To turn first-time customers into repeats, you have three kinds of lead nurturing campaigns at your disposal.

1. Onboarding campaign
2. Upsell campaign
3. Renewal campaign

Onboarding Campaign

Once you’ve acquired a new customer, it’s time to onboard them. Even in the best scenarios, the customer onboarding process is high-touch and manual. It’s important to streamline the process as much as possible to keep the momentum going and your new customers happy.

Onboarding campaigns zero in on this process with a seamless customer experience in mind. They involve automating the more repetitive onboarding tasks, such as providing new customers with introductory training resources, a list of next steps, timelines for product kickoffs, and answers to frequently asked questions.

Such resources are not only helpful for your new customer—they also allow these customers to take many onboarding steps themselves, without having to wait around for a customer service representative to assist them.

Upsell Campaign

Your pool of existing customers is a rich resource. You can capitalize on this resource with an upsell lead nurturing campaign, which targets the customers you already have and encourages them to consider other products that might be a good fit for them or their business. If delivered correctly, an upsell or cross-sell campaign can drive additional revenue with little effort from your sales team. 

To implement an upsell campaign, give your existing customers information and incentives to expand what they’re currently buying from you, such as a product, service, or membership. What other products might they like? What additional services or membership add-ons might make their experience that much better? 

Whatever you offer to your customers through an upsell campaign, focus on the benefits of what you’re upselling. This ensures that your messaging doesn’t come across as just another sales pitch that ends up in an email trash can.

Renewal Campaign

If you offer a contract-based product or service to customers, such as a subscription, a solid renewal campaign can help you keep existing customers on board. Renewal campaigns remind customers about upcoming contract renewals, giving them plenty of time to sign up for another round of what you offer.

With renewal campaigns, automation is your best friend. Send a customized reminder a month or more before your customer’s renewal date, and follow it up with additional well-timed nudges until that date. If a customer doesn’t renew, don’t leave them out to dry—send an email notifying them about the disruption of their service. Remember: Every bit of communication throughout a customer’s journey is powerful.  

Lead nurturing campaigns can move prospects to close and ensure that your new customers stick around after they’ve made a first-time purchase. But that’s not all. As you learn in the next unit, you can also use lead nurturing in-house to keep your sales team happy.