How to Re-Engage Inactive Customers
Keeping customers engaged and driving repeat sales is a key priority for any successful business. Generating repeat business means you can better predict your revenue. This allows you to run your business more effectively and efficiently.
But, what if your customers are disengaged? How do you re-engage inactive customers?
Well, you need to have a re-engagement strategy. Let’s look at how you can re-engage inactive customers, reduce churn, and improve overall business outcomes.
Why is customer engagement important?
Since 2013, the cost of acquiring new customers has risen 222%. This number is unlikely to reduce soon. Chasing new leads can soon burn a hole in your budget.
Customer retention rate is directly influenced by customer service and customer engagement levels. And don’t forget—a higher customer retention rate generally means higher revenue for your business too.
Therefore, engaging your customers is key to your success. And, of course, this includes re-engaging inactive customers too.
How to implement a re-engagement strategy
Before we delve further into the details of how to re-engage inactive customers, it’s important to briefly outline how to successfully implement a re-engagement strategy.
For your re-engagement strategy to be successful, you should:
- Identify which customers or clients you want to re-engage.
- Find out what is likely to attract or engage them (identify customer/client goals).
- Plan which re-engagement strategies you will use and identify a timeline.
- Maintain consistency with your re-engagement strategy.
- Monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of your re-engagement strategy and make any necessary adjustments.
How to re-engage inactive customers
Let’s look in more detail at some of the strategies you might use when re-engaging inactive customers.
- Personalize your customer interactions
Your customers want to feel important and valued. One of the best ways any business can do this is to personalize their business-to-customer interactions. Make every interaction as personal as possible, and show your inactive users that they are important to you. Whether you use your contact center as a service, email, or a chatbot, your customers should come away from every interaction feeling valued.
Use the information you have about your customers to give them a personalized experience. This can look different from business to business, but to personalize customer interactions, you could:
- Reach out on their birthday.
- Send freebies that you know they will appreciate.
- Personalize email interactions based on their previous shopping habits.
According to Acquia, 76% of American consumers say they are more loyal to brands that understand them on a personal level, so this is well worth exploring as part of your re-engagement strategy.
- Create a customer community
Your customers all have at least one thing in common – they are (or have been) one of your customers! One way to build trust and re-engage inactive customers is to create a community and bring like-minded shoppers together.
You can offer community-exclusive events, discounts, or educational content and make customers feel like a VIP. It can also be a space for customers to provide support to each other. Bringing shoppers together in this way helps to build a stronger connection to your brand and is an effective way to re-engage inactive customers.
- Host customer events
To make existing customers feel even more special, why not invite them to an exclusive event? Remind them why they bought from you in the first place and engage with customers face-to-face.
Wondering how to re-engage inactive customers with an event? Here are some ideas:
- A masterclass or Q&A session.
- Exclusive shopping hours with a discount.
- Exclusive access to new product launches or limited edition products.
For example, RealVNC might invite select customers to test the RealVNC remote desktop for Android, before launching it to the wider public. Don’t underestimate the power of exclusivity in marketing and particularly in customer engagement. Inactive customers will be delighted to be invited to exclusive events and will instantly feel more connected to your brand.
- Leverage user-generated content
User-generated content is trusted by customers. When it comes to customer re-engagement, you can leverage user-generated content as part of your re-engagement strategy in various ways, such as:
- Invite customers to test products and post about it.
- Offer rewards for posting content e.g., a discount or a chance of winning a freebie.
- Create a unique hashtag and invite customers to be part of the trend.
- Share reviews and testimonials to show how much you value your customers’ opinion.
- Use technology effectively
Advances in digital technology are arguably making customer engagement easier. However, this is only the case for businesses that use technology effectively. For example, analytics software can analyze your data, providing actionable insights. These help ensure your re-engagement strategy is well thought out and backed by facts.
Further to this, many businesses may wish to utilize AI tools to engage and re-engage customers. For example, consider adding an AI chatbot to your website which is programmed to interact with customers on a personal level. Or use tools such as 8×8 inbound call center to provide excellent customer service and elevate your customer experience.
- Remind customers what they’re missing
When you are considering how to re-engage inactive customers, you might need to reach out directly and remind them what they are missing! Appealing to your customer’s FOMO with a re-engagement email is a great way to bring back inactive users.
You could send a win-back email to a customer’s email address. Remind them of what you offer or highlight your new and exciting products or services. You could even include customer reviews (remember the impact of user-generated content).
Reach out to your customers on their birthday and offer them a birthday treat such as a freebie (with a minimum spend) or a birthday discount. This can be an effective way of re-engaging inactive customers as you not only make them feel special but offer them an incentive to make a purchase.
You could even use an effective email autoresponder to send customers marketing messages triggered by a certain action. These can be sent after a customer abandons a cart or browses but doesn’t make a purchase. Give your customers a gentle nudge to take the next step and finish the purchase.
Final thoughts
Hopefully this article will have given you plenty of food for thought about re-engaging inactive customers. Ensure your re-engagement strategy is well thought out and meets the needs of your business and your customers. Use some of the re-engagement strategies listed in this article and see how your inactive customers re-engage with your brand.
