New Customers Vs Returning Customers: Which are More Important?

Customers, new or old, are crucial for running a successful business. However, while all types of customers are equally important, new and old customers require different marketing strategies. What is even more daunting is the fact that they both react differently to certain marketing strategies, and thus need to be approached differently as well.

Not sure how to allocate your marketing budget or how to divide your eggs? Learn more below!

New Customers: Why focus on customer acquisition?

If you are a new business, certainly you would be looking for a customer acquisition strategy that attracts customers who are likely to become loyal. Building a solid customer base will create a strong business foundation. However, getting new customers is a challenging process and may involve hefty costs. You may have different methods and marketing strategies in place.

Before you start drafting a strategy, you need to zero in on a few basic questions:

• Who are your ideal customers?
• Where are they?
• What are their needs or problems?
• What benefits does the product/service offer that resolves their problems?
• How can you reach them?

While answering these questions help formulate an adequate customer acquisition strategy, you can also try and collaborate or partner with someone from a business in an industry that complements yours. At Bartercard Australia, for example, we help you build business relations with other companies, wherein you can trade your product/service and benefit from business networking. This way, you can also help build a customer base for your business.

Returning Customers: Why improve customer retention? 

Before you continue, here are some startling facts explaining why customer retention is important for a business:

• Acquiring new customers cost five times more than retaining old ones.
• By increasing customer retention by 5%, the profits can be increased by 25%.
• The success rate of selling to an existing customer is 70% higher than selling to a new customer, which is merely about 5%.
• Even with such promising results, did you know that 44% of companies focus more on customer acquisition rather than customer retention?

(Source: Huify.com)

A customer retention strategy is important to achieve long-terms goals of the business and build profitable relationships in the process. Businesses built on customer retention strategies tend to spend less and earn more, as loyal customers are easier to convince and convert than new customers.

If you are looking to retain customers by offering them more, or expand your existing customer base for your business or even build a new one without following the drill of a customer acquisition process, Bartercard Australia can help you resolve this. We offer you an opportunity to expand your business and profits and market to potential customers by trading your product/service with other companies and thus bank upon their loyal customer base for your offering.

Choose a strategy based on your business goals

Customer acquisition and customer retention strategies are both equally important. Whichever strategy that you want to prioritise, Bartercard Australia can come in handy. We help you attract new customers while retaining old ones. What’s more, you can also expand your business and manage it more efficiently. Contact Bartercard today to learn more!