Though the Pareto principle of marketing is well-known, it might not be top of mind for marketers during the acquisition stage. But given research by the Gartner Group that 80 percent of businesses’ future profits come from just 20 percent of their existing customers, it makes sense for marketing campaigns to focus on retaining customers long-term, even when they’re just prospects.
According to Ashley Chicola, a content manager at Fluent, customer relationship management is important for retention, but the relationship starts and continues with engaging, personalized marketing that adds value at every stage of the customer lifecycle.
Fluent, a New York City-based data and performance marketing company, specializes in such digital engagement for growing brands and their consumers. The company offers services ranging from data collection to programmatic targeting, aiming to drive growth and create meaningful connections.
Chicola told Built In that thoughtful engagement is the key throughout the company’s lifecycle marketing strategy. At the prospect stage, Fluent establishes thought leadership, whether in person at industry events or by participating in webinars. Once clients are converted, the marketing team collaborates with sales to add value with personalized monthly newsletters or authentic features on the company blog. And the company’s ability to regularly survey nearly 1 million Americans across its media properties has been crucial for re-engagement insights.
How do you involve marketing at all touchpoints of the customer journey?
From discovery to acquisition and retention, we strive to make meaningful connections with our clients at each stage of the customer journey. Pre-pandemic, this often looked like attending industry events and securing speaking engagements in order to spread thought leadership and educate the market on our solutions.
In our new reality, we’ve been participating in more webinars, hosting our own virtual events and investing in PR to amplify our voice across the various trade publications our prospective clients are already engaging with every day. Once the prospect reaches the consideration phase, we share relevant pieces of marketing collateral and send out branded Fluent gear to reinforce our value proposition and help keep our brand top of mind.
How do you adapt your marketing campaigns once a prospect becomes a customer?
Once a prospect becomes a client, the next step is working alongside the sales team to build a more strategic partnership. While paid LinkedIn campaigns make up a large piece of our demand generation efforts, we also leverage sponsored content to retarget website visitors and existing clients with relevant resources. We develop content specifically for this audience through a monthly newsletter with best practices guides and company news designed to help clients better understand who we are and what we stand for as a business. To provide added value and support, we also identify opportunities to highlight our clients’ initiatives and insights via our Client Spotlight blog series.
In our new reality, we’ve been participating in more webinars, hosting our own virtual events and investing in PR to amplify our voice.”
How do you leverage marketing campaigns to help win back previous clients?
Winning back previous clients is about reinforcing the value we can provide to their business. Because we interact daily with nearly 1 million Americans across our portfolio of owned and operated media properties, we have the unique ability to survey consumers and collect first-party insights at scale. We often leverage our survey capabilities to help both past and prospective clients gain a better understanding of their target customer, while also identifying additional opportunities for growth. This ability to capture real-time consumer insights has been instrumental in helping us re-engage a variety of insurance, financial services, and home services clients with seasonal business objectives.
