If your company only has the budget to launch a marketing campaign once this season, which department do you think will have a more lasting impact on your customers?
The one that gives them a great first impression, or the one that makes them cringe?
While it’s easy to assume that redoubling efforts on your advertising and PR will result in more new customers, it’s also important to understand how content affects customer retention.
Content is not just a way of keeping up appearances; it is an effective strategy for retaining customers in the long term.
Read on to discover seven proven ways to retain your customers through a content strategy.
Why is content marketing so important?
If you’re a marketer, you’ve no doubt heard that content marketing is key to growing your business.
But why is it so important? The numbers don’t lie: compared to outbound tactics like advertising, inbound marketing has a higher return on investment by three times. And this is just the beginning.
With content marketing, you can forge an ongoing relationship with your customers, allowing you to guide them to their desired outcomes.
This is why brands like Amazon and Hubspot have become so successful: they’ve harnessed the power of content marketing to create lasting relationships with their customers.
Existing customers tend to buy more often than new customers. They loyally advocate your brand to their friends and family and are even more economical for your brand. Did you know acquiring a new customer is 6 to 7 times more than retaining an existing customer?
Now the question remains: How do you use content to create better relationships with your customers and retain them?
How can you leverage content marketing to boost customer retention?
Content marketing allows you to build relationships with your customers. This means that you’re creating content that your customers want to consume. You’re tapping into their pain points and desires and creating value-added resources that they can’t live without.
This is how you boost retention: by creating highly-engaging content that solves your customers’ problems.
Take inspiration from Coinbase, the online cryptocurrency platform that consistently posts high-quality, informative content across its channels to create long-term value for prospects and loyal customers.
From guides, how-tos, ebooks to latest Crypto news and even simple FAQs, Coinbase’s content marketing strategy covers it all!
To boost retention, you must create content that meets your customers’ ongoing needs. This will give you an edge over competitors who are only offering solutions for one-time problems.
Why? Because you’re not just solving one-off problems around the core product or service, you offer. You’re providing solutions to the root causes that drive these problems. This is why retention marketing is more effective in the long term than one-time campaigns.
Need a content engine that drives growth and retention? Let’s build one together!
How to build a content strategy that retains customers
Ready to create a content marketing strategy that boosts customer retention? We’ve got you covered. Follow these 7 foolproof tactics, and you’ll be well on your way to creating a content strategy that retains customers like never before. Let’s dive in –
1. Publish high-quality, high-value content
The first step towards creating a content strategy is creating high-quality, high-value content. This is the foundation on which your entire strategy rests.
If you publish content that is low quality, low value, and low relevance, you run the risk of turning away your customers. They’ll think less of your company, and they’ll be less likely to purchase your products.
If you publish high-quality, high-value content, on the other hand, you’ll not only attract more customers but also retain the ones you have.
Why does this work? Well, humans have an inherent need to be satisfied.
When we consume a product or service, we want to feel satisfied. If we don’t feel satisfied, we don’t feel fulfilled. And when we don’t feel fulfilled, we look for other options.
An excellent example here is the FMCG brand The Whole Truth Foods, which recently rehashed its entire content marketing strategy in an attempt to fix food journalism.
In less than a month, the brand went from answering top-of-funnel industry questions and posting formulaic, product-driven content to producing deeply-researched, authority-dripping health and wellness pieces that truly educate readers.
2. Implement a customer feedback loop
When you implement a customer feedback loop, you’re tapping into your customer insights to create content that resonates. The key is to let your customers know that you want their feedback.
You can do this by publishing a form on your website. You can also create a customer feedback loop within your content strategy by inviting your customers to leave comments on articles and blog posts.
You might even send them personalized emails asking them to share their experiences or grievances if any.
When you do this, your customers will have a platform on which to share their thoughts and opinions. They may identify with your content, and they may even have a solution to the problems you’re looking to solve.
While you may be tempted to tuck away as many negative comments as possible, it’s important to publish them. Publishing negative comments on your website shows your customers that you’re open to constructive criticism. It also shows them that you want to create the best product possible.
These two things are great for retaining customers. They’ll see that you’re open, honest, and willing to improve. This is good for building trust and setting customers at ease, which is important for retention.
3. Start a company newsletter
A company newsletter is a great way to scale up your content marketing strategy. It’s a highly-targeted way of delivering value-added content to your customers.
This is good for two reasons: one, it enables you to publish more content, and two, it enables you to reach more customers.
A newsletter is an old-school tactic that’s proven to work time and time again. It’s what turned old-school companies like the Wall Street Journal and Forbes into multimillion-dollar publishing companies. It’s what propelled the likes of the New York Times and The Guardian to the top of their field.
In 2019, newsletters are more relevant than ever.
They’re effective for a few reasons:
- They’re personalized: When you create a newsletter, you can tailor it to specific customer segments. You can also tailor it to an individual customer if they opt in via a sign-up form on your website.
- They’re relevant: A newsletter differs from your blog posts and social media content. It’s more personalized, and it’s more relevant to your customers. It helps you create a more personalized relationship with your customers.
- It’s delivered on a different platform: This is important. A newsletter is delivered on a platform that your customers visit on a regular basis. It’s delivered in a way that they can’t ignore.
4. Leverage personalization
Personalization is an effective tactic for boosting customer retention through your content strategy.
It’s not just a tactic but also a strategy that you can use across numerous channels to build relationships with customers. You can personalize your website, eCommerce store, content, and more to create a better experience for customers. This is key for retaining customers in the long term.
When you personalize your website, eCommerce store, and content for your customers, you create a more personalized relationship with them. You’re making them feel valued, appreciated, and understood.
If you’re struggling to create a personalized customer experience, start small. Try personalizing your website, eCommerce store, and content. Try to reach out to your customers in a personalized way.
Like Zomato and Swiggy do with their brilliant, witty push notifications at different times of the day:
Look at ways you can use artificial intelligence and machine learning to create a more personalized customer experience. If you can, integrate these technologies into your customer relationship management (CRM) platform. This will allow you to personalize your customer experience across all channels, including email and social media.
Must Read: Cracking the Personalization Code for Email Marketing
5. Implement a customer education program
A customer education program is a great way to boost customer retention through your content strategy. It’s a way of giving back to your customers. It’s a way of creating even more value for them.
A customer education program is a core component of your strategy if you have a complicated product and service offering. But even if you don’t, an education program is still a great way of building relationships with your customers.
A customer education program can take many forms. It could be a knowledge base that you publish on your website. It could be a forum where your customers can interact with each other. It could be an actual course that you create for your customers.
For instance, Hubspot has a dedicated YouTube playlist just for product tutorials.
Neil Patel offers all-around crash courses on a range of informative subjects like SEO, Instagram marketing, and so on.
6. Leverage social media to build community
Social media is a powerful channel that you can use to boost your customer retention through a content strategy. It’s a channel that your customers are already engaged with. This makes it easier for you to build relationships with them. When you use social media to create content, you have many options. Let’s look at a few. –
- Provide insight into your brand — share BTS content, personal experiences, and your brand story to connect with your followers on a deeper, “human” level.
- Reward your followers for their loyalty — shower them with exclusive discounts, exciting gifts, and educational tools from time to time. You can host contests and giveaways on special occasions to keep them engaged
- Share value-driven, informative content and ask your followers to share it with their circle
7. Use storytelling in your marketing
By engaging your audience through compelling stories, you can create a lasting connection with your audience. The best way to do this is by creating a unique narrative for your brand and products/services.
Start by identifying your target audience and creating a persona.
Once you have a persona in place, you can start using it to create a narrative that resonates with your target audience.
Here’s some inspiration to steer you in the right direction:
In addition to this, you can leverage case studies, success stories, customer testimonials, etc., to attract your audience’s attention, build deeper connections, and leave a lasting, memorable impact.
Conclusion
If you want to retain your customers, you need to be prepared to invest in them. You must be prepared to take the time and effort to truly understand their needs and deliver on them. All of your marketing activities need to be focused on providing value to your customers.
With the right content strategy in place, you can start to retain your customers right away.
Read Next: Writing To Influence – The Art of Persuasion in Content Marketing
