Winning a customer is a complex and expensive process. Therefore, your business should be able to retain your customers’ loyalty for as long as possible – at least until you have recovered all the costs for bringing them to your store and you have started making a profit off the respective customers.
However, customer loyalty is something very frail and fraught with the dangers of desertion. There are lots and lots of businesses selling similar products and services, and they all make enticing promises to prospects. It does not take much for a customer’s eyes to wander and be followed subsequently by their wallet.
Yet there are ways to keep your customers loyal – they are called customer retention strategies. Today we will share with you some of the most effective Facebook™ ads tactics which will help you retain your customers.
- Use Dynamic Ads
Dynamic ads are Facebook™ ads served to people who show an interest in your business, your website, or your business app. Many of these people are your customers – some of them inactive for a while and coming back to your website to look for special offers or discounts.
There are many specific advantages to this type of ad:
- They are highly relevant because they are served to people who have recently interacted with your business;
- They follow your prospects from device to device: they may have browsed your app on their mobile and then they see the Facebook™ ad on their PC or laptop;
- No need to lose time rescheduling your campaigns: you set them up and they continue running and serving ads at the right moment and to the right prospects.
- Cross-Sell and Up-Sell Products to Recent Buyers
Most of the time, people will make a purchase and then forget about your business for a while. And sometimes they never come back, or come back just sporadically – not enough to achieve a satisfactory customer lifetime value.
This is where cross-selling and up-selling ads come in handy, especially on Facebook™. Let us consider a customer who just purchased a smartphone for you. Unless they are dedicated fans of a specific brand, they will not need a new phone for a few years. But you can target them with offers for complementary products and services such as an extended warranty, wireless charging pad, extended battery, protective case, etc.
- Reactivate Inactive Customers
Collecting and monitoring customer data is essential for your customer retention strategy. It is the only way in which you can identify inactive customers before they have completely moved on to a competitor’s products. Creating a Facebook™ ad campaign for a Custom Audience consisting of inactive customers is one of the best ways to bring them back to your online or brick-and-mortar store and retain their loyalty.
- Be Ready with Seasonal Offers
The holidays may be over, but there is a whole new year ahead of us – and you should take advantage of any holiday and celebration to engage your customers with seasonal offers. Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, for instance, and Easter will be here in a few months.
These are occasions when people are looking for gifts, so help them out and offer them great ideas and special offers to choose from.
- Experiment with Various Ad Placements
Using the same ad placement all the time on the principle of “if it’s not broken, why fix it?” does not work well in the long term. People develop a sort of blindness to repetitive items, especially when their interest is focused elsewhere – on their Facebook™ newsfeed.
Here are some creative ways of building and placing Facebook™ ads to attract your customers’ attention and interest:
- Instant Articles
- In-stream videos
- Suggested videos
- Instagram Stories
With respect to the last item above, remember that Instagram is owned by Facebook™, so you can use the power and influence of both of them to retain your customers through cross-platform ads and promotions.