BABY COME BACK! Luring back the lapsed customer

I wrote about segmentation here, and now I want to expound a little more about a specific segment that I think it's important we address.

The lapsed customer.  Who are they?

• Perhaps they are one-time only purchasers (assuming they can purchase more than once).
• They could be customers who fall into groups that may be less-than-ideally served by your business - such as people who always choose the lowest price vs. a good value.
• It's conceivable that these customers had a bad customer service experience with you at some point.
• Maybe they are customers that never got assigned to follow-up with, and they fell through the cracks.
• It could be they've been "captured" by a competitor and have become loyal to them.
• Or maybe they've simply moved away or are no longer in need of your service for reasons completely out of your control.

Note that not all customers in this segment are completely gone.  Some just have one foot out the door and are still transacting, but just not as much as they used to.

Lapsed customers fall into two basic groups:  customers you have a chance to win back, and customers you don't.  Put the customers who have disappeared off the face of the earth and those who are less than ideal belong in the latter group, so don't bother to try.  The rest fall into the first group - those you have a chance to win back.

Next, set out to win them back and hopefully, keep them.  Here's a few top-line ideas for things to try:

• Contact them and ask them how you can serve them better.  This can draw out some of the reasons that they have dropped off that are within your control that you may be able to address.
• Offer a "come back" special that's really attractive
• Look for ways to connect with them on a more personal level - invite them to business mixer functions, leads groups, and community events.  This is especially cool if you can acquire "VIP" treatment for them at the event.

The mission is to find a way to reconnect, and reestablish these customers as established customers.  They liked you at one point - find ways for them to like you now. Their business will follow.

Got any great ideas or stories of how you brought 'em back? I'd love to hear them!

DOTC: Bouncing Back

In marketing, we tend to focus on leads acquisition - that is, bringing in new customers.

While that is absolutely a function of marketing, another major task of marketing that often goes neglected is growing revenue from our existing customer base (a third is activation of lasped customers, but we'll save that for another time).

And there, my friend, you can find a bunch of cheap marketing tactics that will work well to grow your business.

Let's take a classic loyalty program tactic - the bounceback program.

These can take a many forms -  I'll focus on a couple that don't require special technology or equipment and can be done for very little cost.

Jeremy is having a little difficulty
 with the punch card concept.

THE PUNCH CARD

This is old-school, and cheap.  Make up business-card sized punch cards - have your customer get a punch every purchase (or after spending (x) number of dollars).  After so many purchases, they get a reward.

Pros:  easy to execute and promote, inexpensive, low-technology

Cons:  people forget they have them, almost impossible to track results

Variant: What if you did this as a referral program?  Existing customer gets so many punches for referrals, getting a really good reward after the card is filled?

BOUNCEBACK COUPONS

These kinds of coupons are usually given after a purchase is concluded, in order to incite a return visit (a "bounceback").  Make sure your coupon has a relatively short redemption window - first, because you want them to return quickly, and second, because they will forget they have the coupon after too long a period.

Pros:  easy to execute, inexpensive, low-technology, easy to track results if coded properly
Cons: people forget they have them, doesn't work well for businesses that have a long repurchase window

Variant: If you have a long repurchase window, make this coupon a "refer a friend" coupon.  When the friend's coupon is redeemed, the person who gave out the coupon gets a reward

Do you have any favorite cheap ways to "bounceback" a customer?  Let me know in the comments!