Client winback – no pipe dream

In today’s highly competitive mobile age, customer churn is a reality for all companies. Client Winback is a cornerstone strategy for client retention and this quantified sales.

Statistics indicate that 45% of people who use a service will not give the same business a second chance. They will not be retained. But the stakes for businesses to engage in a client winback strategy is high and its also proven that it tends to assist in retaining customers : It’s 50% easier to sell to existing customers than to new ones.

Some statistics which would be driving churn are

1. 73% of Americans use the Internet daily. Most are looking for new things.

1. 21% of people in the US are online “almost constantly.”

1. How long is an average pageview? 55% of people spend less than 15 seconds on a single web page. Refer back to bullet 1 for the churn again.

1. Nearly 66% of time spent on a web page is below the fold.

1. 61% of smartphone owners use mobile web browsers at least once daily, spending more than a half hour per day total.

1. People spend 17% more time on mobile than they do on desktop.

Client Winback Campaigns 

Fortunately, today’s marketers are empowered to win over or learn from lapsing customers with “win-back” campaigns sent via push notifications and email marketing. It is not easy – but entirely doable.

The first step is to pinpoint the precise moment—before a customer unsubscribes — that the user is becoming inactive. Give these statistics a deep look :

1. In the US, the average email open rate is 20.7%.
2. Transactional emails have twice the open rate (44.9%) of non-transactional emails (20.8%).
3. Most emails are opened between 1 and 2 times per person.
4. The average click-through rate on emails is 3% in the US.
5. The average click-to-open rate in the US is nearly 12%.
6. Companies that implement email marketing templates with responsive design across the board have a 55% higher mobile click-to-open (CTO) rate than companies who do not adopt responsive design.

If you know when your custom is likely to drop off – you are better prepared to give them the “better” offer. Sometimes a simple call helps.

However, despite knowing the facts mentioned above, only 17% of companies are using responsive design for all of their email sends as given by the data gathered by Data Axles. . And believe it or not, nearly 27% of companies aren’t using responsive design at all.

Using personalization is mandatory and you can make the case, at an individual level, for becoming active again or encourage them to share insights as to why they’re no longer interested in your products or services. Of course you might want the former more—you want to keep your customers—but even in the latter case, you’ll be able to use these learnings to improve your marketing strategy going forward.

The point is that you need to reduce the acquisition effort and focus on conversions. Client winback strategies are always winners there.

Ask what the problem is and offer to solve it

“Take the time to understand why a customer has lapsed and [consider] encouraging a customer to fill in a questionnaire,” recommends Cohen in his famous blogs.

Basecamp (my favorite) PM system achieves three things with its final send: (1) uses the email as an opportunity for customer research to learn what they could be doing better; (2) reminds the customer of their value proposition; and (3) offers one simple call to click to get the user to visit their account one more time.

Remind the client winback customer what benefits they’ve received

Show “the value you’ve delivered to them over the lifetime of your relationship,” advises Gadek, adding that the example below from Unbounce, which reminded him how long he was a customer and how he benefited from their services, is the most memorable win-back campaign he’s personally received.

“If it’s a long term customer, quantify the duration of your relationship too. This is incredibly important; this strategy is exactly how I get 35-40% CTR on my emails when they matter most.” (Keep reading to see his email, too.)

Show clients what they’re missing by not engaging in the winback campaign

You’ve probably seen a lot of “we’ve missed you” messaging from other marketers. Skip that, and do even better: Focus on what’s in it for the customer.

“Put yourself in their shoes with THEIR motives,”

“Don’t just say what YOU would want. You may not be your own target market. Dive into the mindset of your customer and start to understand why they’ve lapsed, what they need, and what would win them back over. A much bigger discussion: know your customer’s journey and points of truth where they make decisions like whether or not to buy from you again.” Client winback works efficiently if you have a cohesive customer journey planned.

At Unokha we help you get your customers back – in your Kitty and paying again.

If you need assistance there, reach out and we can have a chat.