Understanding Customer Retention Vs Customer Acquisition In Shopify
Understanding Customer Retention Vs Customer Acquisition In Shopify
For a lot of business owners building their own Shopify stores, the most important thing to prioritize will often be ‘customer acquisition’. You need to attract customers to your store consistently to increase your profits and keep your company running smoothly. However, look at the cost of customer retention versus customer acquisition, and you’ll quickly discover that acquiring clients shouldn’t be the only focus of your online brand.
The reality is that while all customers should have a strategy for finding new customers as often as possible, true success lies within a more comprehensive strategy of customer acquisition, retention and expansion. Once you discover and attract new clients, you need to convert them into regular, repeat clients, and brand advocates.
After all, retaining customers can be up to 25 times cheaper than finding new clients, and loyal customers are also 7 times more likely to try your new products and services.
So, how do you manage customers the right way?
What is eCommerce Customer Acquisition?
Customer acquisition is the process of tracking down your ideal customer (defined by a user persona) and persuading them to purchase from your ecommerce store. Shopify store owners have a variety of ways to acquire potential ecommerce customers, including:
- Paid advertising: With the ability to link Google analytics and Facebook Ads to your Shopify business, it’s much easier to track things like paid advertising campaigns (PPC) and align them with your marketing strategy. You can run all kinds of ads specifically focused on attracting your target audience. The platforms that work with Shopify offer a range of high-performing targeting tools to help you home in on the right people.,
- Referral programs: Referral programs which reward people for sending new customers to your company can be an excellent way to improve your customer acquisition and retention strategies. You can use your loyalty and referral programs to find new customers, then convince those new customers to joint he same programs and contribute to your campaigns going forward. It’s a great way to build your business with word-of-mouth.
- Content marketing: Content marketing across a host of channels like social media, and your own website, can improve your chances of finding customers. Content marketing is also ideal for a new customer acquisition and retention strategy. You can use SEO to capture the attention of your audience in the search engines, or influencer marketing to attract customers on social media. Once your customers know they can expect great content from you, they’re more likely to stick with your brand.
Customer Retention After Acquisition: What’s Next?
Where customer acquisition focuses on capturing the attention of your target audience and convincing them to make an initial purchase, customer retention involves using various activities to increase your number of repeat customers, and their lifetime value.
The importance of customer acquisition and retention can’t be underestimated for Shopify business owners. The more new customers you acquire and turn into repeat buyers, the more you can maintain a consistent source of income for your company.
Customer retention is the second step in a customer acquisition, retention and expansion strategy which sets your business apart from your competition. Once you’ve attracted your audience to your business, you can boost retention with:
- Customer accounts: Giving your customers their own accounts on your Shopify store could make it a little more complicated to run. However, if you want to boost customer retention, Shopify does make it easier to create simple accounts where you can collect information about your customers and make it easier for them to complete future purchases. An account could make it more likely your customers will want to come back and continue buying.
- Excellent customer support: Fantastic customer support systems can integrate with your Shopify store to ensure you can answer customer questions quickly and overcome common problems. Giving your customers a more convenient service experience, with quick delivery and rapid answers to their queries will improve your chances of repeat purchases.
- Loyalty programs: Loyalty programs increase your chances of repeat purchases by rewarding customers every time they buy something with you. A loyalty program can get customers excited about buying with you in the future and improve their lifetime value.
Personalization in Customer Acquisition, Retention and Expansion
While there are a number of strategies involved in acquiring, and retaining customers, the best way to ensure you can attract, convert, and expand your customer base, is with personalization. Personalized shopping experiences improve your chances of converting customers, by helping them to find the kinds of products they’re most likely to want from your store from day one.
As you develop your relationship with your target audience, personal product suggestions and “add-to-cart” options will simplify the shopping process for your existing customers and improve their chances of adding more products to their basket.
Finally, personalization improves your chances of expanding your audience base, by providing a more meaningful experience to your target audience. The personalized experience your customers get will make it more likely they’ll want to share their experiences with your company with the world.
Earn More Valuable Customers
Customer acquisition will always be an important part of running a successful Shopify company. However, it’s important not to focus on acquisition alone. A comprehensive strategy for customer acquisition, retention and expansion will ensure you can get the most value out of your customers over time.
Learn more about how you can use personalization to boost your customer retention and expansion strategy with Dialogue today!
Sign up for our Newsletter
Recent Posts
