During 2020 the ecommerce market went into overdrive. US online shopping saw ten years’ worth of growth in the three months up to April 2020. And it was a similar story across global regions as lockdowns hit and consumer habits changed. For the first time, many customers turned to digital channels to track down products they had previously bought offline. With these changes in consumer habits in mind, it might look like getting new digital converts is the answer to scaling up a business today. Customer acquisition is certainly still a big priority for a lot of brands, but returning shoppers are now more valuable than they ever have been, and the benefits associated with these consumers should not be overlooked. Customer nurturing is a long-term strategy. It is about ensuring that your products, services and experiences are so good that those who have shopped with you before will return again and again in years to come. So why is customer nurturing important? Acquiring new customers is getting tougher and tougher. Research from Profitwell found that customer acquisition costs (CACs) grew by around 60% in the half-decade up to 2019. With advertisers vastly increasing the proportion of their marketing spend that goes online, there’s now much more competition for the available inventory. What’s more, Google and social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok are increasingly working to keep users on their channels and clicking on paid ads, rather than surfacing brand and retailer content in feeds organically. This means marketers have to spend more on ads and content to convert increasingly ad-weary consumers. And with CACs climbing ever higher, the biggest brands—with the biggest budgets—are the ones succeeding in capturing new customers. The pandemic has cast this into sharp relief Globally, we’ve seen online leaders like Amazon shift Philippines Photo Editor funds quickly to target in-demand products across paid search (not to mention that a staggering 74% of US consumers reportedly start their product searches on Amazon in the first place). Here in the UK, leading supermarkets were able to ramp up their delivery and collection services almost overnight when the first Covid-19 lockdown hit. But across some product lines, it is nearly impossible to compete with industry leaders when it comes to acquiring new customers at scale. With CAC costs and tough competition from market leaders—as well as the impending deprecation of the third-party cookie by Google—we can really begin to see why nurturing the customers you already have is so important.

What does loyalty really mean? Yes, consumers have some brands they feel a particular affinity for, but could it be said that they are truly loyal? And is driving an emotional response really what brands should be seeking? Or could there be a more mutually beneficial way of building relationships? Recent research conducted by Edit and Kin + Carta reveals that consumers are increasingly habitual, but not loyal. Overall, there are low levels of perceived loyalty towards brands and outlets, with close to one third of respondents stating they show no loyalty to any sector whatsoever, and at least 75% of those surveyed stating they do not have a ‘strong’ level of loyalty towards a brand in any sector. Download ‘The Loyalty Paradox: How to Create Connected Experiences That Keep Customers Returning’ Building personal relationships based on behaviour, even if that means driving habitual decision making rather than the more amorphous loyalty, is critical if brands are to retain customers. Across all ages groups and demographics surveyed, over 50% of respondents stated that companies which were not applying personalisation to their communications were unlikely to receive their repeat custom. Data, naturally, underpins the ability to deliver personalised journeys, but to acquire it from consumers requires providing a sufficient level of reward to purchasers, who are increasingly savvy as to the value of the information they share. Effectiveness of incentives shifting To kick-start that process, traditional reward schemes and offers still provide the strongest incentive, though the research suggests there is significant disparity between genders and ages as to the form and format these promotions should take, with younger consumers in particular favouring exclusivity over discounts. “Next-level personalisation is about landing the right thing with the right customer just at the right moment – and across touchpoints. Photo Editing Services Data is an essential foundation, and artificial intelligence, machine learning and clever decision engines help too,” suggests Currys’ brand and marketing director, Dan Rubel. Next-level personalisation is about landing the right thing with the right customer just at the right moment – and across touchpoints. Dan Rubel, Currys While developing personalised customer journeys requires supportive technology, what is critical is creating a sufficient level of usability so that marketers can unlock it to best effect, something Microsoft had firmly in mind when its introduced real-time customer journey orchestration to its Dynamics 365 Marketing platform. Its head of product management, Jim Nakashima, comments: “When we developed the customer journey orchestration features within Dynamics 365 Marketing, we prioritised ensuring the capabilities were customer-led, insights-driven and draw meaningful data from across an organisation, not merely the marketing department. Our AI then takes care of a lot of the heavy lifting, [allowing] users to create meaningful journeys without the need for specialist expertise or a reliance on developers or engineers.” “The most game-changing thing is identifying the key trigger moments that count and then designing an end-to-end, multi-touchpoint, personalised experience that dazzles,” Rubel insists. “For Currys, those are moments like moving house, or when the washing machine is on the blink, or – the moment we dislike the most – when a customer starts to engage with us a little less than normal. When a customer is in one of those moments, then we’re working to make sure our experience pivots to be more relevant – online, in store, in email, on the doorstep and more.”