Customer Retention Using Print
I am a digital marketing nerd. I love it so much that I am currently studying a post graduate degree in the same field. After 20+ years in the field I am pretty familiar with digital customer retention techniques and am constantly researching new ones. Digital is great, but I also want to include some surprises for our customers, and I want to use direct mail to do it.
Ours is a printing company. Not only is it in our interests to be able to use the resources at our disposal, but it’s also in our interest to give our customers ideas about ways that they can promote their business through print. It’s the beginning of the calendar year and many of us are searching for new ideas to bring into our marketing plans or ways to innovate our current systems. Let me walk you through a particular part of the customer journey that I have been thinking about and one way to innovate the “thank you” part of the process through the use of print.
Why focus on Customer Retention?
Customer retention is definitely the focus for many businesses at the moment and heavily discussed in recent marketing publications, but why is that the case?
- A downturn in new business during Covid 19
- Enhanced ability through digital channels to track and communicate with past customers en masse.
- Realisation that it is more expensive to acquire new business than retain and stimulate sales from existing or past customers
- Focus on share of wallet
Aim to Surprise and Delight
You’ve probably read a lot about sending “thank you” emails post-purchase. This is not really news to the majority of business owners; in fact many many companies have automated email customer journeys in place right? The problem is that when a thank you arrives as an email it does not feel special, and that’s because it gets lost in the bunch of other emails you send; confirming the customer’s purchase, confirming their delivery date and tracking details etc. Your thank you email is not really going to break through that noise.
Why you should use a commercial printing company instead of Vistaprint
- Quality printing will reinforce the message to your customers that your products are quality.
- You will get to talk to a person.
- You will have the services of a designer and or print setter for the best print result.
- It’s probably way less expensive than you think, and it doesn’t hurt to ask.
- The final and most important point; we’ve seen a lot and we have ideas to share.
Thank-You Note Tips
If you wisely decide to embrace printed thank you notes, we’ve got a few tips to get you thinking and get your started!
- You can incorporate thank you notes into your customer journey process whether you are a massive online retailer or a small B2B.
- A card or note delivered to your customer’s address feels less automated than an email in a chain of emails and will always be perceived as more valuable.
- Include your customer’s name and consider handwriting the note to make it even more personal, this advice is not only or very small businesses.
- If you think it will be too much work, or the quantities will be too large, consider segmenting your client base into those that will receive thank you notes (such as new customers) or setting thank you notes for a set period in each customers lifecycle (e.g. 1st, 3rd, and 5th purchase).
- Start simple and then change the things you send throughout the journey, keeping the look on-brand of course. Ideas include notes, cards, gift cards, vouchers etc.
- Make sure your note or card is a quality design, printed with quality inks and processes on quality paper. You want customers to believe you have quality products and or services, so use quality stationery. Using a commercial printing company like ours instead of… ahem… Vistaprint… is probably actually less expensive than you think.