In today’s Wall Street Journal there is an article about marketers going after loyal/repeat customers. What a cool coincidence that I wrote about newspaper reader loyalty yesterday and how they should work to keep their current loyal readers. This is all part of a continued theme that as marketers of brands we need to spend our time and efforts on keeping our customers. It takes more money, time, and effort to find new customers. If a company wants to look at cutting costs in marketing then this could be a place. I am not recommending slowing down on your marketing efforts; I am re-directing your efforts to keep the customers you have.
The article talks about using non-traditional marketing to reach your current customers. Companies have been collecting data on customers for years but they have not used this data properly. The technology just wasn’t there to merge all the data together. But we have it now. Companies are using this data with very targeted email blast campaigns. For example, if a customer buys a product on the company website, the company not only captured the email address but what product they purchased. Now instead of sending out an email blast that goes to everyone, they can send a very pin-pointed message to customers based on previous buying habits. This is hitting the “bulls-eye” that I am always writing about.
The article also mentions that eMarketer is predicting that consumers will spend $30.3 billion in November and December on ecommerce. This represents a growth rate of 4% over last year. This prediction is changed from the earlier number of a 10.1% increase. The good news is that with the economy in the toilet there will be growth in online spending. I bet and so should marketers that a big chunk of those customers will be repeat loyal customers.
I hope you all have a very Happy Thanksgiving!
