Relationships. If you build them with your customers—along with a portfolio of products that meet their needs—you will increase retention of current customers and attract new ones. This includes a comfort level that they are valued by you and an increase in the chances they will purchase additional products to build revenue and sustain their engagement with you for the long term.
It’s not a ‘one size fits all’ for customers. Imagine sending a college brochure to an 80-year-old retiree? It would be thrown right into the trash and you’d lose that customer forever. As a sector, we must pull customer demographics like age, income, education, and presence of children when dividing customers into segments so they can see we know who they are and what they may need.
Instead of creating a bunch of one-off programs to communicate with new and existing customers, build a communication matrix that runs on a consistent basis. Build it around tenure of customers (new or established), next most likely product needs, and appropriate communication channels like mail, email, and targeted digital display. This can decrease a cross-sell program’s overall costs and increase revenues.
It may take some extra time, but it’s so important to customize and tailor the customer’s needs and what they are likely to respond to. Know where they are in their life, what product may help them next, and their overall demographics. By doing this, we can then look at the rest of our customers and find those that meet the same standards.
The goal is to develop a communication “engine” that essentially runs on autopilot. Create personalized messages that speak to the individual customers’ needs based on their stage of life and financial needs—and then deliver those messages through the most relevant and cost-effective channels.
If you’d like to learn how our team can help you in this process, you can reach out to our team directly.