{"id":1257,"date":"2014-10-31T21:52:46","date_gmt":"2014-10-31T21:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iteratemarketing.com\/?p=1257"},"modified":"2021-06-10T10:14:29","modified_gmt":"2021-06-10T17:14:29","slug":"3-sem-campaigns-for-customer-retention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iteratemarketing.com\/blog\/3-sem-campaigns-for-customer-retention\/","title":{"rendered":"3 SEM Campaigns For Customer Retention"},"content":{"rendered":"
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“Sales of a given brand may be increased without converting to the brand any new customers, but merely by inducing its existing users, those who already use it at least occasionally, to use it more frequently.”<\/em><\/p>\n

– John Treasure<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In SEM we focus most of our resources on acquiring new customers and rarely focus on retaining existing customers. This chart from Marketing Charts<\/a> shows that retail executives\u2019 emphasis lies in retaining their customers, not acquiring new ones. With the power of word-of-mouth, the mythology of “it costs 10x more to acquire a new customer than retain an old one” and the increasing acknowledgement in the analytics community that a customer isn’t a “true customer\u201d until they’ve purchased twice, the data shouldn’t be all that surprising. It got me thinking about the ways in which we can use SEM, a tried-and-true acquisition channel, to increase our chances of retention.<\/p>\n

From a CMO lens, it’s important to remember that a customer retention strategy should not be channel-specific. Optimizing your product or service for maximum customer lifetime value (CLV) involves visualizing all of the brand impressions collected over time and all of the possible touch points of influence over a customer’s \u00a0“lifetime.” The place to start is during the sales\/conversion process before the prospect becomes a new customer. Beyond that, how can we use SEM tactics to support the conversion process? I propose three powerful campaign types for retaining customers.<\/p>\n

A Retention Search Campaign<\/h2>\n

What do your current customers search for after purchase? Do they have general or technical questions about your product or service? Are they thinking of switching? Can you influence their decision in your favor?<\/p>\n

If you’re selling software and your customer is looking for software support – run an ad that takes your customer exactly where they need to be on your website to have their problem fixed. The sooner you can address lingering problems or help existing customers troubleshoot their own problems, the better chance you’ll have at retaining, upselling or cross-selling them. Find your customers\u2019 common questions using these methods:<\/p>\n