8 eCommerce Customer Retention Strategy That Works

Customer retention strategy refers to an eCommerce's ability to maintain or persuade a customer to make a second purchase within a specified timeframe. Customer retention strategy used by eCommerce businesses to get clients to return to their site and make further purchases on a frequent basis. The higher the client retention rate of an eCommerce site, the better for the business. The cost of acquiring a customer decreases with time, while the average lifetime value of the customer increases exponentially.

Per order, repeat customers spend an average of 33% or more. Other benefits of having loyal brand supporters include greater brand recognition, increased customer acquisition rate, and positive PR.

Let's take a look at some of the most effective tactics for increasing client retention and increasing the profitability of your eCommerce business.

1. Invest a lot of money in email marketing.

Have you ever dealt with consumers that make a transaction and then vanish, never to be seen again? Email marketing may be a strong tool to keep your clients engaged and invested in your business in these situations.

After a consumer makes their first purchase, you may send them welcome emails with cross-sells and upsells. This can help you make more purchases in the future. To encourage customers to keep buying from your company, put up cart abandonment, win-back, or birthday emails.

Another excellent approach to make the most of email marketing is to deliver useful, relevant material to your subscribers. Instead of constantly being commercial, you may use your email to select links to stuff that would be of interest to your subscribers.

2. Use Social Media to Nurture Your Customers

Social networking is a great method to keep your consumers involved and encourage them to buy from you again.

You may encourage clients to follow you on major social media networks upon their first transaction or through email marketing. This phase will be aided by having an aesthetically beautiful, value-packed social media feed.

You may nurture your clients in a number of different ways once they've joined your social media platform:

• Share material that would be of interest to your customers.
• Share some of your most popular goods' URLs and photos.
• Share special deals and discounts with your social media followers.
• To keep your clients involved, hold contests on special occasions.
• Try one-on-one texting or chatting in the comments part of your postings to engage with your consumers.

These methods will assist you in establishing a connection with your consumers and gaining their loyalty.

3. Provide a Customized Customer Experience

Personalization might be the missing piece in your client retention puzzle. Consumers nowadays don't want a one-size-fits-all answer. Customers will most likely go on to your competition if you fail to customize their experiences.

• There are several methods to provide your clients with a tailored purchasing experience:
• When clients visit your website's homepage or other product pages, provide them customized recommendations.
• Segment your consumer base with a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform based on their interests, demographics, and pain areas. You may send customized messages and emails to each of these lists.
• Determine which clients have abandoned carts or have not purchased from you in a long time. Send tailored emails to encourage them to buy from your company again.

4. Have Standard Operating Procedures in Place to Improve Customer Satisfaction

The eCommerce order fulfillment process is intricate, including a number of critical parties. A single blunder in the process might result in a negative client experience, lowering your customer retention percentage.

The order fulfillment process can go wrong in a variety of ways:

• It's possible that buyers will receive incorrect merchandise.
• It's possible that the product's quality isn't up to par.
• It's possible that product delivery will be delayed.
• Return refunds may take an exceptionally long time to arrive.
• It's possible that the packaging is of poor quality, resulting in damaged items.

Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) can be established to address these potential issues in the order fulfilment process (SOPs.) SOPs will assist you in ensuring that items are subjected to severe quality inspections and that the correct products are supplied to clients.

You can also ensure that there are no delays in product delivery and that your customers receive their reimbursements on schedule by using SOPs. All of these processes will eliminate the possibility of client complaints, resulting in a greater customer retention rate.

5. Create useful content to keep customers interested.

Content can be a powerful tool for engaging clients and persuading them to choose your brand over the competition. Though promotional material might be valuable, in order to attract clients, there must always be a balance of promotional and informational content.

• Create a blog for your eCommerce website and write entries that are relevant to your business and stimulate your target audience's interest. Promote your blog entries across various platforms, including social media and email.
• Create useful material for your social media accounts that your clients will like. To make your material more exciting, use high-quality visuals such as photographs, GIFs, infographics, and videos.
• Curate useful information and deliver it to your consumers as part of your newsletter.
• Create premium material that is really useful and sell it as a lead magnet on your website. As a result, users will sign up for your email list in exchange for the material you provide.

6. Make a Customer Loyalty Program Available

Because of the sort of outcomes that a well-thought-out loyalty program can accomplish, top eCommerce firms swear by it. Whether it's special discounts, free delivery, subscription services, or free gifts, there's something for everyone. It's a lot easier to keep your consumers with a fun loyalty program.

You can have a purchase frequency-based loyalty program that encourages people to buy from our brand again and again. Make sure your incentives or awards are appealing enough for your consumers to participate.

Gamification may also be used to make your loyalty program more enjoyable. Use a points-based system or host a special contest to not only gain your customers' loyalty but also to attract a large number of new ones. That's why it is one of the most commonly used ecommerce customer retention strategy.

7. Make the most of user-generated content

User-generated content is a fantastic approach to increase client engagement and earn their long-term commitment.

Customers basically produce material for you in a user-generated content approach. So you receive high-quality material, and your consumers are rewarded for it — it's a win-win situation.

For the user-generated content campaign, you may start by developing a hashtag with your brand name or a term that connects with your business. You may then request that your social media followers and website visitors use this hashtag while posting material.

You may provide an incentive, such as showcasing the best photos on your social networking pages or the homepage of your website. Make the campaign as enjoyable and intriguing as possible.

8. Promote your brand values and stories.

Having an emotional connection with your consumers, in addition to all the other aspects, may go a long way. You may provide memorable experiences to your clients by making the buyer journey more emotionally oriented, which may encourage them to stay loyal to your business.

Talking about your brand's narrative might help you make this emotional connection. You may tell your brand's narrative on your website's homepage or about page. You can talk about how your eCommerce business got started, the challenges you faced, and the successes you've had.

You can also discuss your own values. If you care deeply about anything as a company, be sure to tell your consumers about it. If your values align with theirs, you will have a distinct advantage over your competition.

Conclusion

Customer retention is one of the most effective strategies to boost profits, raise brand recognition, and cultivate brand champions. By using the tactics outlined in this article, you will be able to significantly boost your client retention rate.

Remember that concentrating just on one of these tactics will not provide you with the greatest results. When you combine numerous strategies, you'll see a significant improvement in all of your KPIs.