It takes a lot less effort to keep a customer than to attract a new one. That’s why it’s so critical that marketers focus on producing the type of content that will retain customers while appealing to new audiences.
The way you keep customers coming back is to create the most engaging content experience for them. I’m not just talking about making a good first impression on your customers, but an exceptional, lasting impression that informs while giving them the most value.
Below I’ll describe the type of content that is not only engaging, but also valuable to your customers. I’ll briefly touch on possible reasons why your own content isn’t retaining customers and how you can change your content marketing strategy to improve that.
Types of Content That Add Value
Probably the most common way that companies stay in touch with their customers is through email. Although social media networks like Facebook and Twitter have significantly changed this medium, email is still considered the top channel for customer retention. This is the best way to deliver your most important news, announcements, product launches, event scheduling, and other information to your customers quickly and personally.
In a way, your social media networks are a part of your email list, except that it’s a much more interactive experience. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google+ are used to provide customers with a place to share and discuss their own thoughts and views on both the company and its products. While email marketing is losing much of its steam with customers, social media is in fact continuing to grow and flourish. It’s very important that you explore and actively participate with social media to not only retain your customers, but gain new followers as well.
Blogging is another platform that gives you the freedom to communicate with your customers through engaging and valuable content. Although the blog content is usually distributed through email or social media, the blog itself provides a database of information where your customers can find additional resources to support their purchase of your products and services.
Tutorials, product guides, tips and tricks all provide a valuable source of information to your customers. Give them something that will keep them coming back for more. For example, if you were a company that specialized in web design, you could provide WordPress troubleshooting tips or tutorials on how to speed up a website. These topics provide additional value to your customers without directly interfering with your own products or services. Valuable content compliments your business instead of competing with it.
You can accompany your emails, social media posts, and blog articles with short videos that act out parts of your content for your customers to see as well as hear. This is also the perfect opportunity to begin a webinar tutorial series that will go into depth on a certain topic that will keep your customers engaged with your business.
Why your content strategy isn’t retaining customers
The most probable reasons are that either you’re either not producing enough content, or you’re releasing it so sporadically that customers eventually lose interest. People live by schedules. Once you start writing two blog posts a week, they’ll expect two blogs week until you say differently.
Set a realistic content schedule for yourself and then make sure you stick to that schedule religiously. Remember that you don’t want to overwhelm yourself, but you do want a steady amount of social media, email, and blog activity that your customers regularly see and hear from you without getting annoyed.
The final reason relies on what your content is trying to accomplish. It’s a sad, simple truth that the majority of your customers only care about themselves. That means that your content must address their needs, their wants, and their questions – not your own. They don’t want to hear about how cool your product is or how awesome your employees are. They want to know things that will ultimately benefit them.
So ask yourself why anyone should care about what you have to say. Think about what’s important to your customers. Find out what interests them and what they’ll respond to. Then make it compelling and unique. With that, you’ll always have your customers at the edge of their seats.
About the Author
Vincent H. Clarke is a Content Marketing Strategist at USB Memory Direct, a wholesaler of custom flash drives for business promotion. Besides overseeing his company’s content marketing channels, he also manages outreach and customer retention practices.