SHARE
As an eCommerce fashion store owner, you won’t need to be told that competition is fierce out there. Figures show that there are roughly 96,000 fashion retailers in the United States alone, meaning that being visible in this kind of congested marketplace takes work.
Of course, attracting customers is a need for any business, but so is retention. In fact, statistics show that it costs around 5X as much to attract a new customer when compared to keeping an existing one.
So, the pertinent question would seem to be, which marketing strategies can you use to enhance customer retention?
Influencer Marketing
Across all the major social media platforms, you’ll find influencers who are essentially individuals who’ve been able to build up a loyal following. By teaming up with an influencer, it’s possible to boost brand loyalty and retention.
An example of influencer marketing in practice would be a social media post in which they review your clothing and point out all of its benefits in an authentic way. The influencer gets to create content while getting paid in products and cash and you get your fashion brand publicized to the masses.
You will need to give it ample energy and time to see results, but when success arrives, your business benefits from more than just improved revenue and sales. This will also help to develop the relationships you have with your customers and lengthen their customer lifetime value (CLV).
Social Media
If you’re not already running your own fashion business profiles on social media, then it's time to get started. The benefits of doing so are many, with customer retention ranking highly amongst them.
Social media marketing is a unique form of advertising, not least because it allows you to interact with your public. You can create content that informs, educates and provides an element of exclusivity when it comes to upcoming product launches, industry news and more.
Other benefits of social media marketing include:
- More inbound traffic to your website
- Improved SERP rankings
- Increased conversion rates
- Enhanced brand authority
Being able to interact with your followers provides a platform on which to demonstrate your authority, industry knowledge and willingness to help people. All these things go a long way to bolstering your customer retention. Another way to utilize social media is using shoppable content features.
Shoppable content is an ad, video or image that can be clicked on for a customer to make a purchase. For instance, you might create an Instagram post that features product tags that directly link to your latest line in jeans on your eCommerce store. This allows for much easier purchasing, meaning the customer doesn’t need to leave the platform to buy.
This paradigm shift from shopping in physical stores to social shopping was already in progress before the pandemic, but it was accelerated by it. The value of social sales like these is expected to exceed $100m by 2023. When this type of shopping experience becomes the norm, being able to offer it for your fashion business can be a real game-changer.
To learn more about shoppable content, check out this resource on the benefits of social commerce to consumers.
Sponsored Posts
Another method that is often successfully employed to boost customer retention is the sponsored post. Published openly as a paid advertisement, sponsored posts are essentially a type of native ad in that they’re created to blend in with the environment they appear in.
It’s not uncommon for sponsored posts to be witty, educational, and entertaining. It’s not all about pushing a sale as it’s not likely to offer the kind of experience that’s going to engender customer loyalty you’re looking for if you do.
That’s not to say that your well-crafted sponsored posts won’t generate traffic, because they typically will provide this effect as a matter of course. Whether created as a video or blog post, this long-form medium gives you plenty of room to provide extensive, detailed descriptions of your products.
As a result, your customers come to you with an in-depth understanding of what you offer, as well as being nurtured and ready to buy. By focusing on the creation of high-quality content that provides value, you give your followers a reason to keep coming back to you.
Loyalty Programs
Loyalty programs are a type of marketing that aims to incentivize people to keep buying your fashion products. A nice side benefit of attracting customers to come back for more is that they tend to spend more on their 2nd and 3rd purchases.
Other advantages include:
- Customer Loyalty - Offer exclusive discounts to increase customer loyalty.
- Increase Customer Spending - Offer hierarchical tiers, you can encourage buyers to ‘upgrade’ their level by buying more.
- Gamification - Customers like playing games and by allowing customers to ‘win’ discounts, you generate a buzz around your products.
- Generate New Business - Referral rewards can persuade shoppers to refer friends and family which allows you to increase acquisition and retention rates.
Just be sure to make the rewards you offer attainable or you risk dampening the buzz that your loyalty program creates. You want your customers to be posting on their own socials about the great scheme you’re running at your fashion store.
Not sure where to get started with setting up a loyalty program? Check out this recourse on boosting retention and customer spending with loyalty programs.
Get Your eCommerce Sales Flying With the Right Marketing Approach
If you find that your retention rates aren’t where they need to be, we encourage you to implement the strategies mentioned above. Sure, they take time and effort, but good things come to those who wait. Get in touch, as our friendly experts are ready and waiting to help you achieve the success you deserve.
