Something to Think About

The 7 Ps of Customer Retention Marketing by Karl Wirth 

When we think of marketing, we often think of Marketing's efforts to acquire customers. Customer retention is just as important as customer acquisition. So how do the 7 Ps of marketing apply to customer retention marketing?

1. People are the most important. Retaining customers is about building relationships, and relationships are about people. Treat your customer as a person, and not a customer; start by hiring people who show they care about others. 

2. Product is a very close second in importance to "People." When designing your product or service for maximum customer retention, provide quick time to value, continued value over time and high quality. 

3. Place obviously matters when you are figuring out where to put your physical store, but what about when you're online? “Place” is context, and context matters.  If I am looking to communicate with my customer and offer them an upsell, I could send them an email or message them right while they are shopping, browsing, or working on my site. 

4. Price. Our customers assume that we will look after them. That is what they pay us to do. In an e-commerce business, that sort of relationship means providing deals for our recurring customers. 

5. Promotion. Use information to message existing customers in a more targeted, appropriate, helpful, and effective way. Don't spam them with the same generic info you send to everyone else. Send them targeted emails and in-context messages.

6. Processes. To succeed in all of the previous Ps, you need good processes, such as monitoring social media and engaging customers there, surveying customers for satisfaction, and implementing marketing automation.    

        

7. Positioning. If you want to retain your customers, you have to know who you are and communicate that clearly and repeatedly to them so they know who you are as well.