How many of your customers and clients that once bought from you aren’t buying from you anymore?
Do you know why they’re leaving?
Do you know your current attrition rate?
Surprisingly, most companies don’t have a clue. Most companies are looking to improve, but they aren’t exactly sure where they’re falling short. Often, they’re looking in the wrong places.
Naturally, we seek to add more new customers, instead of asking the question I’ve asked above.
When I’m helping a company solve why customers are leaving, or revenue is decreasing, we first need to figure out the current attrition rate and then figure out WHY it’s happening. We don’t know what we don’t know.
You wouldn’t believe the stories I could tell you, but we might find those same stories repeating themselves inside your company’s walls.
Once we know why we can attempt to fix it.
Naturally, the sales and marketing folks think it’s easier to solve the loss of existing customers by replacing them with new ones.
But it’s impossible to keep a leaky bucket full.
They don’t realize this is a sales and marketing function and is always far more effective than hunting for new business.
If you were to decrease your attrition rate by 30%, couldn’t we say you’ve increased your client base by that same percentage?
Of course, we could because they were leaving you regardless! And yet hardly anybody ever thinks this way, but if you’ve been reading my Tidbits long enough, I hope you are.
In my first book Evergreen, I wrote all about this in a chapter titled Bringing Back Lost Customers. I share exactly how to do it in Evergreen, but it’s relatively straightforward by putting together a simple reactivation campaign.
I also share the story of a tiny company I helped design a program to bring back lost customers. They spent $3000 to get back $50,000 in yearly revenue. That’s a 1566.67% ROI, and those are annualized returns! In addition, I helped another client generate $70,000 from a single mailing to a single client!
Sure, implementing a reactivation campaign is not as glamorous as implementing a new marketing campaign. It’s not as glitzy as creating a funny YouTube video with the hopes of it going viral, and it’s not as exciting as spending the marketing budget on a website revamp. But, what would you rather have? A few pats on the back, some social media likes, a couple of random social mentions or money in the bank?
Reactivating lost customers isn’t easy—because it takes time, energy, and resources away from the new customer acquisition addition. But it is simple—because with some focus on who left and why there’s an excellent opportunity, you can bring them back.
You don’t know what you don’t know. And if you don’t know, you should.
I’m here to help if you need it.
Best,
Noah
