Small businesses have a pretty big advantage when it comes to fostering relationships with their customers. With a small team, the opportunities to connect with your customers and build personal relationships are plentiful. And it’s good for business too – returning customers often spend 67% more than new customers. So what can you do to build a community of loyal customers who always have you at the top of their mind?
How to Motivate Your Customers to Come Back Time After Time
1. Incentivize in-store shopping with a loyalty program.
One of the best ways is to create and utilize loyalty programs. We are all familiar with loyalty programs: punch cards, points, and free coffees are little ways that businesses show they care about their customers. Providing a loyalty program for your customers not only incentivizes people to buy more, but it also tells your customers you care – encouraging them to spread the good word about your business.
2. Incentivize sharing – 2-1 deals, refer-a-friend, digital offers on social media networks that make it easy for your customers to spread the word.
Another effective way to get customers to come back is to make it a social event. Provide them with the opportunity to get their friends and family involved with marketing campaigns like 2 for 1 deals and refer-a-friend specials. Not only have you encouraged a customer to come back, but you’ve also found a new customer who you can then funnel into your customer database.
You should also concentrate these efforts on platforms that make it as easy as possible for customers to share it with their friends – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram – places where people will tag or comment with their friends can make your job of reaching those new customers a lot easier.
3. Incentivize a memorable interaction.
The best way to get your customers to come back? Deliver an unforgettable experience. This moves beyond marketing and also is about how you encourage your team to communicate with your customers in a generous and helpful manner. Even the smallest of interactions – from checking an out of stock item in the back to helping your customers find what they’re looking for – can make a world of difference. And when your customers are deciding between you and your competitor, they are much more likely to remember the friendly welcome they got upon walking through your doors than anything else.
At the end of the day, what’s going to make your customers come back time after time depends on whether or not they enjoyed their time with you. We all have errands to run, places to be, more things we should be doing. Make their experience with you something to be remembered, not just checked off a list.
