Welcome to the second chapter of Using Content Marketing for Customer Retention and Loyalty. In this article, we’re tackling the importance of customer intelligence, social media, and customer feedback.

Utilize Customer Intelligence

In the previous article, we talked about the importance of the buyer’s journey. As a business owner, we want to understand how viewers become customers from first learning about our business to keeping them loyal with constant updates. Customer intelligence takes this a step further by analyzing customer behavior through quantitative and qualitative methods. You can then apply this data to your content marketing strategy.

For example, it’s pretty well-known in the business world that customers love to read reviews before making a purchase. There’s plenty of research that supports this claim. Reviews are perceived as more trustworthy because they’re coming from people who’ve actually used the product or service before. If you’re noticing the same pattern on your website, then you should take advantage of this behavior and start encouraging people to leave reviews.

You could also conduct research unique to your brand.

Say that you own a pizza business, and you want to develop a new menu option. You can ask your customers to fill out a survey with their favorite and least favorite pizza toppings and go from there. That’ll help you understand what your customers love the most from your brand and what they’d like to see next.

Doing a little bit of research definitely goes a long way!

Create a Community on Social Media Platforms

Social media is a fantastic way to engage your customers. Millions of users use social media every day, so posting updates on your various platforms keeps them up to speed with any updates your brand has.

It also helps you interact with them easily and quickly. As customer retention involves building a deeper relationship with your customers, you’ll want to listen and speak with your customers without all the business-like tones and strict professionalism. Social media is the perfect avenue for this as it provides a comfortable environment where you can all speak conversationally as like-minded people.

Great examples of social media posts include contests, giveaways, Q&As, and surveys.

Additionally, social media is great for community-building in general. Not only do relationships get built between you and your customers, but also between your customers. Here, they can talk about their hobbies, interests, and shared experiences. Consider using apps like Facebook groups, Reddit, and Discord that can provide this shared space.

Make Emotional Appeals

Asking for customer feedback is one way to emotionally appeal to your customers. It speaks volumes about how much you prioritize them. It shows that you’re always looking to improve and taking all your customers’ opinions and suggestions to heart. It also shows that you care more about their experience rather than how much you earn from them.

Make sure to get feedback from customers after every product or service has been delivered. The longer you wait, the less likely you’ll hear back from them. You can do this by sending a follow-up email.

Another way to make an emotional appeal is by empathizing with your customers by building a brand backstory. You can turn problems they experience every day or struggles you’ve had with running your business into something marketable.

At school, there was a girl a year ahead of me who always struggled to lose weight. High schoolers can be cruel, and it seemed as if her whole identity was associated with how heavy she was. Then, after she graduated, she turned her life around—she started eating clean, exercising daily, and generally just being accepting of her body. She then started her own business selling healthy foods and used her own experiences to market her brand. Naturally, people gravitated towards her because they could relate to her struggles and saw her as someone they could become too.

This is a great example of emotionally appealing to your customers. These types of stories tell them that hey, we know what it’s like to be in your shoes, and we can help you out too if you’d like! 

Other ways you can do this include testimonials from previous customers and case studies.

Conclusion

In this article, we see how important it is to treat our customers as individuals with their own rich backstories.

People often have reasons for their behavior, and there must be something about your brand that they like a lot if they’re repeat customers. You can find out more about what they like by utilizing customer intelligence.

People also love being a part of a community. Make them feel included by asking for their feedback and creating a space where they can talk freely with you and with other customers.

Lastly, people love to empathize. They feel validated when others share the same struggles they do. They love success stories that show that they too can overcome their problems. You can tap into this by sharing your own experiences or sharing experiences from previous customers.

The bottom line is this: don’t just jump into the hard sell. Understand what your audience is like and you’ll build a loyal customer base in no time.

If you’re still struggling to retain customers, we’re an SEO company in Orange County that knows what that’s like. (See what we did there?) Feel free to contact us at (310)341-3939 to help your business grow!