The practical benefits of digital marketing have long surpassed traditional advertising. Digital marketing strategies are not only effective for the acquisition of new customers, but also for increasing and maintaining loyalty among the existing users. A properly implemented digital marketing strategy can help improve business by increasing customer retention rates and, in turn, increase profit margins and improve your bottom line. But what are the exact digital marketing methods you can use to increase retention and improve loyalty among your customers?
Content marketing
The entire philosophy behind content marketing can be boiled down to creating and delivering content that is original, useful and relevant to your target audience. This content includes articles and blog posts, infographics and pictures, videos, downloadable reports, you name it… A properly executed content marketing strategy can help businesses establish themselves as experts in their own field, develop brand identitybrand identity and maintain their authority, credibility, and trustworthiness.
The content itself is audience- and platform-specific, so avoid spamming your channels with the exact same content. Consider the type of content that will be ideal for your audience and test it out. If they like your content, provide it on a regular basis to keep your audience interested in what you have to offer and engaged with your brand before and in-between purchases.
E-mail marketing
E-mail marketing is the perfect strategy for staying in touch with customers and keeping them up-to-date with your business and its offering. It is used to build and maintain a relationship with customers in the long run and actually earn their loyalty. E-mails are obtained via profile registrations and newsletter subscriptions and you can use them to educate or entertain customers, let them know about discounts, special promotion or new products and services.
Social media marketing
Did you know that 30% of millennials engage with brands on social media at least once a month? This means that as a brand, you need to be fully invested in your social media marketing strategy and do more than simply existing on social platforms. A professional strategy involves setting up specific goals, such as increasing brand awareness, improving the quality of your sales, driving sales in-person, improving ROI and, of course, creating a loyal user base.
Research your audience in terms of demographics, interests, and intent. Instagram and Twitter are most popular with women and ages ranging from 18 to 29, while Facebook and LinkedIn are for older and more serious audiences. Establish your metrics, research your competitors and provide your audience with valuable and engaging content.
Search engine optimization
While not exactly a marketing technique, search engine optimization holds enormous relevance in regards to building and improving customer loyalty. There are two types of search engine optimization, on-page and off-page SEO. On-page SEO deals with optimizing specific elements on your website. These include titles, headings and subheadings, text, images, videos, alt and meta tags and lines of HTML and CSS code.
This is all done to improve page loading times and decrease the number of people bouncing back from your website. In fact, visitors will simply abandon a page if it takes more than a few seconds for it to load and keeping your website consistently optimized is the key to keep your audience coming back and maintain their loyalty.
Off-page SEO refers to creating and exchanging links with websites Google deems trustworthy and together with on-page SEO helps improve your website’s ranking position in the search engine results page. The higher your rank, the more authority, and relevance you hold in the eyes of your audience.
There are three main types of links: natural, manually-built and self-created. All three play a major role in your website’s ability to rank well, which is particularly important due to the ever-changing nature of Google’s algorithm. A poorly managed SEO strategy can do more harm than good, which is the main reason why most e-commerce owners rely on the services of top digital agencies to do all the heavy lifting.
Text message (SMS) marketing
Text messaging is something we use on a daily basis to talk to friends and family. This makes for a useful tool for getting more personal with your audience and maintaining a long-term connection. Not to mention its mobile-friendly! Similar to e-mail marketing, SMS marketing is quite useful for service announcements, customer surveys, event invitations, product promotions, discounts, promotions, special offerings, etc. But the thing with SMS marketing is that it needs to be used sparingly, or else you risk annoying your customers and alienating them from your brand.
Each digital marketing strategy involves a different approach, yet all work together to help you build authority and reliability and maintain loyalty with your customers. They expect the best possible shopping experience and it’s your number one priority to keep delivering it to them. Whether it’s content management, e-mail and SMS marketing or optimizing your pages to rank better, these steps are more than just some marketing techniques, but rather a practical necessity used to improve and preserve the relationship with your users.
About: Nina is a digital nomad and a content writer passionate about web design and marketing. She loves to share her experiences and meaningful content that educates and inspires people.
