It doesn’t matter what type of business you’re running or even what industry you’re operating in – customer loyalty is and will always be the cornerstone of what you’re doing every day whether you realize it or not. If any organization is going to grow and evolve in all the right ways necessary to stay successful and relevant over time, they need more than customers. They need a passionate army of advocates ready to amplify their message far and wide. This, of course, requires you to keep a few key things in mind.
The Art of Customer Loyalty
If you want a clear cut example of why customer loyalty is critical in highly competitive industries, look no farther than the fact that it costs significantly more to acquire a new customer than it does to simply retain one of your existing ones.
Likewise, it’s been proven that customer loyalty almost always leads to a direct increase in profits. In fact, one recent study showed that if you can increase customer loyalty (and thus retention) by just 5%, it can actually boost your overall profits between 25% and 95% over the short-term. Loyal customers don’t just spend more money – they also spend money more often than the people who fall into that helpful-but-less-important “one and done” category.
In the end, your marketing message will play a big role in your ability to accomplish all of this – especially if you’re in an already competitive industry like the restaurant industry. Whether you’re talking about fast casual restaurant marketing or fine dining restaurant marketing doesn’t actually matter – you need to practice the art of meaningful and thoughtful communication, which boils down to your ability to do what you say and say what you do.
It’s also why analytics driven direct mail marketing is about more than just reaching out to “the right people” and increasing your ROI, although that’s certainly helpful. This type of targeted mailing allows you to go after people with appealing offers in a way that won’t just bring them back into the fold – but that will build a valuable amount of loyalty along the way.
If you’d like to find out more information about why highly competitive industries need customer loyalty, or if you have any additional marketing questions about your specific industry that you’d like to see answered, please don’t delay – contact us today.
