Attracting customers is a vital part of any business, but attracting customers who are likely to stick around for the long term is even more important. After all, it’s easier to keep repeat customers than it is to acquire new customers. In the long run, your repeat, long term customers will help to give your company more stability.

Okay, but what can you actually do to attract and retain customers for the long haul?

How To Attract & Retain Long-Term Customers

 

Grow organic traffic.

When it comes to attracting customers to your website (or shop), you can focus on organic traffic, paid traffic, or a combination of both. Natural organic traffic is much more likely to lead to your business being found by costumers who will stick around than many other practices that gain you traffic in a more artificial way.

Why?

Because if people find you of their own accord based on their searches and the things they are interested in, they are much more likely to be within your ideal target audience. So, when it comes to growing traffic, your money is undoubtedly best to spend it on organic traffic growth methods.

Encourage word of mouth.

Word of mouth marketing is another great way to attract customers who are likely to be loyal. People are more likely to trust their friends, and family, as well as verified online reviews than they are to take your word for it. When they know that other people are having good experiences with your company, they are more likely to keep choosing you over the competition.

Do not be afraid to incentivize customers for sharing your business. You can create a formal referral program, whereas your business rewards people for telling others about their products or services, offering a gift or discount to say thanks. Rewards can include merch, discounts, or you can take it a step further and gamify the rewards with points based on activity.

Offer freebies.

Who doesn’t like a freebie? Very few people would not be happy to receive a free gift of some sort. So, if you want to attract long-term customers, start publicizing the fact that you give a free gift away with every purchase. Not only will this hook them in, but it will undoubtedly keep encouraging them to pick you over the competition too.

This might sound expensive. However, a free gift can be something simple and inexpensive. For example, offering a sample size product or even a few stickers will still have the desired effect.

Engage with your customers.

These days, customers want to buy their products and services from people they know. They do not want to engage with faceless corporations who may or may not have their best interests at heart. So, a really good way to attract new customers and keep them for the long haul is to engage them in conversation on social media.

Answer their questions, have a laugh and a joke with them. Be sure to deal with any concerns quickly, and they will come to think of you as more than just the place where they buy their clothes or get their weekly groceries.

Create engaging content.

You can’t just create one engaging infographic and expect that to see you through the growth of your customer base. If you want to attract and retain customers, you need to keep creating funny, informative, and interesting content on a regular basis. This  means creating multi-media content, from text and memes, to video shorts and live shopping experiences.

As you can see, the marketing strategies you can use to attract long-term customers are not all that different from the techniques you may already be familiar with, nor are they particularly difficult to implement. So, what are you waiting for?

Ciao,
Miss Kemya