As the world of all things digital is constantly changing, it’s important for us Dotters to keep in check with the latest developments. In order to do so, we left our trusted office in Antwerp and took a little day trip to Utrecht to visit the Webwinkel Vakdagen. 

For those who are not familiar with this trade fair; each year developers come together to discuss and promote their insights and ways of working. Think different distributors like PostNL and Bpost, or payment services as Klarna and marketing automatisation platforms such as Klaviyo. The opportunity to both engage with different developers, as to follow interesting lectures, was a great way to broaden our knowledge and skills. And since we just love to share at The Dot Society; here are some of our most interesting findings to definitely keep an eye on in the future. 

ChatGTP gets a little sister, focused on your customer experience

Let’s start with an AI Conversion Assistant. We hear you thinking; even more Artificial Intelligence? Oh yes! Imagine a ChatGTP service that can analyse and optimise your customers lifecycle strategy. Let’s introduce you to a technology that offers you different tools to optimise your content in no time, by providing a solution for all possible scenarios within your lifecycle strategy. This results in an increased productivity with creative, innovative solutions. By producing dynamic content that adapts to each target audience, both conversions and productivity increase

I’m convinced, but how does it work?

To make it a little easier to understand, we will explain the way of working with an example. Prospects that find themselves in the beginning stage of getting to know your brand find themselves in another phase than people that are already familiar with your brand. This is why we approach both audiences in a different way. The AI Conversion Assistant knows this and will implement different strategies to make sure your customer will receive the appropriate and dynamic content depending on their position in the funnel. This goes from the right copy, images, way of addressing, and much more. They figure out where the profit is and which audiences are most likely to make a conversion. 

Staying on that topic, it’s difficult to refute that ultimately we all desire our customers to take some form of action. Regardless of whether it’s clicking, engaging, sharing, or purchasing, we don’t dedicate all this effort and resources for no reason. Ideally, we aim to minimise expenses and maximise the benefits we receive. This leads us to the following question:

How do you maximise your ROI & ecommerce investments? 

Focus on these two key components and the rest will follow.

Make them stay – when a potential customer visits your website, the last thing you want is that they click off because your page is too slow, has too much irrelevant content and is not optimised to use on mobile devices. Although they may appear less significant for generating sales, they hold great importance in ensuring that your customers stay on your page and don’t quickly leave for another. It’s through these minor tweaks that your company can make a significant impact. Other optimisations for your website include using: 

✓ good keywords

✓ better backlinks

✓ useful images

✓ add videos

✓ up to date website

PS, you can download our toolkit to optimise your website right here

Make them come back one word: retention! Worldwide this is one of the biggest focus points for all companies. In uncertain times you have to be able to rely on your customers; so your company better invests in making sure those customers are and remain loyal. This can be done by offering them premium services or another kind of assistance that doesn’t come naturally. Think about early access, members only discount, free shipping, and many more. Usually they are sent with the use of an email platform. By retaining a customer’s interests and behaviour, you can save your business both time and money, while securing recurring profit. Let’s dive deeper into this strategy.

Implementation of retention strategy

Retention can be easily neglected, as it may not be as exciting as constantly getting new customers. However, this strategy is very valuable during uncertain economic times, where retention is the only way to recession-proof your business. To put it simply, retention focuses on ensuring that your customers continue purchasing or engaging with your business. The main focus is not acquiring customers, but building long-term loyal relationships. 

This is all easier said than done, as loyalty cannot be developed overnight. Achieving this requires considerable effort and a significant amount of time. Therefore, prioritise being a proactive business that prioritises customer satisfaction. However, this does not imply that you should disregard customer acquisition. 

But don’t get it twisted, you should still constantly search for new audiences too. The key is to balance it out and not forget about the ones you already have. So don’t overlook the power of customer loyalty. Sometimes, the best things are right under your nose.

How do I make this retention-thing work?

We hear you thinking: okay, fine, but how can we implement this marketing strategy? 

First of all, customer retention focuses on retaining customers by building strong relationships with them, offering personalised experiences and providing exceptional customer service. Note that a customer has to maintain a certain level of acquisitions, before they can be included in the circle of strong relations. To make this derivation, we rely on our data. This could involve tracking customer behaviour and purchase history to identify patterns and trends. The idea behind this policy is to reward loyal customers who are more likely to continue doing business with the company in the long term.

To put it very simply, let’s take a look at these two examples. 

Say you run a coffee shop and you notice a customer coming in every morning for their morning beverage. You could say that this person is a loyal customer. You can reward their loyalty by offering them a free drink every once in a while or even just remembering their name and asking how their day is going. Small gestures like these can go a long way in building a strong relationship.

Another example that is more in line with our own customers is the following: 

Say you own an online clothing store and a customer makes a purchase. Instead of just sending them a generic “thank you” email, you can personalise the message with their name and recommend some items that are similar to what they bought. You can also offer them a discount for their next purchase as another way to say ‘thank you’.

Basically, at the end of the day, it’s all about using your data the right and effective way. This provides you with the possibility of identifying your loyal customers and showing them that you are invested in your relationship with them as a brand.

To put it short: measuring and analysing your data is key!

What now?

In wrapping up this overview of compelling business integrations, we’d like to reiterate that the potential for the digital world is limitless and there are countless opportunities for future advancements. At the Dot Society, we’re thrilled to apply these lessons in the near future and share them with our clients, in accordance with their goals and objectives. That is to say we’re not holding back on the path to achieving successful advertising!

This post is also available in: Dutch