The most popular use cases for content marketing tend to sit in two distinct areas: customer acquisition and sales enablement. Very rarely do marketers ever discuss the merits of using content for what is arguably the most important business activity of them all - customer retention.
According to Flowtown‘s research, acquiring new customers costs six to seven times more than maintaining existing customers. This figure is supported by Market Metrics, who also identified that it is 60-70% easier to convert an existing customer than it is to convert a prospect. Unsurprisingly, people are more likely to buy from a company or individual they have used in the past.
Examples of content for customer retention
The key to customer retention is to provide value to customers that goes beyond merely the product that has been purchased. Increasingly, brands are realising that content is a fantastic conduit with which to enable and improve the lives of their customers.
Examples of brands which are excelling at using content for customer retention include L'Oreal which has Makeup.com – a site that talks about style and beauty issues without overtly pushing L'Oreal's own product line; General Mills offers dieting advice and tips at Tablespoon.com; Red Bull has created Red Bulletin – a high-octane magazine for thrill-seekers and sports fanatics; American Express have created Open Forum – a portal of helpful articles which cover issues faced by small business owners.
In all cases, these brands are delivering useful and entertaining content that meets a consumer need or lifestyle interest (rather than pushing a particular product or sales message, as an advertisement might). This content not only builds a relationship with consumers - thus keeping the brand front-of-mind - but also encourages them to keep returning to brand digital channels for more useful content.
Using Content Intelligence for customer retention
Apart from creating superior customer-facing content propositions, brands that are more data-driven are in a hugely advantageous position to retain customers by learning what their interests are from the content they consume.
Content Intelligence is able to extract the topics contained within content (for example – people, places, activities, brands etc) and creates interest profiles for individual customers in CRM systems to be used by customer service agents in contact centres. How would customer service change in a retail bank if the reps knew that the caller had just become a first-time parent? Or, what if the agent was able to mollify an irate customer who had a product issue with tickets to see particular sports game because they knew the customer was an avid Manchester United FC fan?
None of these could be revealed by looking at purchase history logs or knowing the caller’s date of birth, but all of these would be revealed if brands were to understand the topics that each customer had been reading about recently.
In one study, 92% of consumers surveyed in a Customer Driven Quality Survey by Purdue University said that they form their decision to repurchase services from a company based on their call centre experience. As such, interest data from content is integral for communicating with callers in a relevant way and delivering a more meaningful dialogue that (hopefully!) culminates with a satisfactory conclusion.
Content is versatile
Without a doubt, content marketing is an excellent method to attract, engage and convert new customers. However, it would be remiss to not recognise the important part content plays in building long-term customer relationships, engendering brand loyalty and empowering customers lives by adding utility.
For brands that are prepared to start doing content marketing – there is no better way to reduce churn and improve customer retention.
By Andrew Davies, co-founder and CMO of idio.
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