A number of marketers have been focusing their efforts on the angle of grabbing up customers.  The benefit of that focus is measurability.  In a world of smaller budgets and a focus on ROI for every campaign this is a good idea but actually moving the customer from “Awareness” to “Contemplation” to actual “Conversion” is a small part of the deal as we step into the age of social media dominance.

The mass of the work actually comes after the purchase.  It has to do with the experience that the customer or client had with your company throughout the sales process, and the ongoing relationship that will be established and nurtured with your company over the long term.

It’s just far too easy to lock onto getting the customer and sinking a sale.  Marketers need to focus on another aspect however – customer retention.  While this is certainly true for B2C companies, it’s definitely true for B2B companies that sell proportionately less product than their counterparts and thus need to rely more on keeping those customers they do have.  Repeat business is much easier to acquire than new business.  If a client or customer commits to the tech, software, product, service etc then they will most like be with you for a long time

Unless you do something terribly wrong.

Think on it for a little while when you consider your marketing efforts, whether you’re marketing through social media or general content – even offline marketing.  Where are you putting all your weight, or even most of it?  Are you heavy on acquisition?

It’s not uncommon for businesses to fall heavy into that spectrum, after all we want to make sure that we have new business coming in regularly but if your marketing efforts aren’t doing enough to focus on retention then you’re more likely to lose those customers you do have.  So what do you do about it?

Think about your social media marketing.  Social media is a hot area and it will continue to be.  Consider the number of people within social media and you can guarantee that there is going to be someone discussing your products and services at some point – perhaps even right now.  If it’s an existing customer, find a way to engage them.  If it’s a new customer, find a way to engage them.  If it’s a disgruntled customer, find a way to engage them.  Through that engagement, you will discover better ways to help them and how you can improve your own service.

The role of marketers, both in B2B and B2C, has changed dramatically in the last 10 years but what hasn’t changed at all is the need for a focus on retaining customers.  You fought hard to get those customers in the first place, you certainly don’t want to lose them.