“Repeat business or behavior can be bribed. Loyalty has to be earned.” It is a famous saying by – Janet Robinson. 

The statement says a lot per se that if you want to earn customer’s loyalty, give them substantially valuable reasons to stay. They will undoubtedly carry on the business with you on a repetitive basis.     

Every organization wants to grow and align their business goals by focusing on customer acquisition techniques. It is an obvious nature of every company because everyone wants to expand its reach among the people. 

On the contrary, if the efforts to ensure customer retention methods with the help of data science are smartly taken care of, it increases the sales growth of the company. Not only does it make expansion in the customer base, but an overall improvement in the revenue also enhances the company to achieve better ROI. 

Isn’t it sound powerful enough to implement such a kind of program to retain existing customers in the first place? 

One such robust program that is helpful to enhance repeated business is the repeat purchase program. Acquiring a new customer requires a lot of things such as teamwork, effort, dedication to allure the customer, et cetera. 

However, encouraging a shopper to make repeat purchases from the same brand initially seems complicated and requires a lot of effort to get them in. That is why several programs take place to find new people because it is significant for growing the business.  

Out of many questions, marketers keep focused continuously on building programs through which they can attract new customers. However, in reality, repeat business program is one such program that is grossing the market and trending audaciously.  

Customer loyalty needs to be earned and then earned again, and again, and again.  Your competition is always one-click away.    

What is the Repeat Purchase Program?

The program refers to the situation where the customer usually visits frequently and does the shopping repetitively with the same brand over and again. It depicts a customer’s repeat purchasing behavior with a particular brand. 

In an extremely competitive world, companies look for ways to attract loyal customers who come to purchase from time and time. That’s the exact procedure that lies in renovating the process of the repeat purchase.  

Fetching customer interest is somehow the hardest thing to achieve in today’s time because of the high competition revolving around. Everybody is selling almost similar products or offering related services to people. Hence, the brand must introduce something extraordinary to distinguish its product/ services from others. 

By implementing a repeat purchase program, organizations could maximize the benefits with the key attributes of high-performing customer loyalty. 

Let’s dive in to look into the benefits of this program in detail.

Benefits of implementing a repeat purchase program

Many benefits illustrate why one should implement some sort of repeat purchase program for its loyal customers. As businesses cannot mark off without investing some amount, similarly, loyalty also cannot be earned without giving your customers a reason to shop over and again. 

In terms of why repetitive business is essential to the companies, some of the reasons are as follows: 

• Customer retention grows the business: One of the critical reasons repeat business growth is imperative because most organizations build the rapport with the help of that army of loyal customers who shop with the brand regularly. Such faithful buyers contribute silently in the company’s overall sales revenue. 
• Advertising and Word-of-mouth promotion: Loyal customers who are happy with the brand often help the brand by promoting them through word of mouth advertising. Once a customer likes the company’s products and services, they likely to become frequent and support the brand for free to their families, friends, and in their social media circle.   
• Sales growth: When a company introduces such high-quality engrossed items, it generally attracts a buyer’s attention. The repeat business-oriented program allows companies to witness immense growth financially. Of course, customers are more likely to spend with businesses they feel reliable, trustworthy, and worth the spend.              
• Easy selling to eternal customers: Customers who are visiting the brand for a long time are often easy targets. Trading becomes simpler for those customers with the fact that they are frequent visitors. Indeed, they will shop for each new item arrived at the store.   

How can you strategize your business goals with a repeat purchase program?

Today’s business world is perpetually changing towards making a better growing consumer market. As technological advancements in recent years have changed drastically in the industries of all sizes, marketers’ primary goal is to ensure innovation in an ever-changing marketplace. 

When an organization thinks about increasing company revenue by introducing several products or by starting exclusive services, what could be the second thought that would strike the mind? Indeed, how to make the buyer do repeat business month on month and gain their loyalty, right.

Let us figure out the strategies to align business goals with that of customer loyalty with a repeat purchase program.

• Target loyal buyers

A study shows that loyal customers pay 3% – 5% higher prices.

Those who are the company’s loyal customers won’t go away so quickly. But that doesn’t mean that can never be!

Once the brand would stop paying attention to the loyal buyers, then your competition would start taking care of them. That’s how the businesses run, and of course, a purchaser is a king, he can decide where to go if his preferences do not meet. 

So, before thinking about targeting new customers, focusing on the existing ones is MUST. So that brands do not get into trouble of losing their faithful shoppers. 

For example, one study shows that it takes 6-7 times higher cost to attract a new buyer than to retain an existing shopper.

• Send personalized emails

Personalization is extremely significant at every point of business, especially when the aim is to attract customers to enable them to buy frequently. Personalized emails play an imperative part in a repeat purchase program.   

How would you keep sending information to your loyal shoppers? Indeed, by updating social media business accounts or sending them emails periodically. Informative emails to patrons of your brand is a time-proven method to drive a chain of repeat purchases. 

Emails are a great way to engage customers in irrespective of any costing involved. However, brands must include engaging and latest attention-grabbing content so that buyers like it to read and subscribe for offers. Else, it could also prove out to be another flopper if not marketed right. 

• Make shopping a seamless fun

Have you ever thought, why would any purchaser get addicted to your brand? Ample reasons could be a motivation for shoppers. 

For example, few customers only do shopping due to the offers the brand might be offering from time to time. So, there is a fair chance to optimize this situation and make the buyer’s journey more enjoyable, seamless, and filled with exciting offers.  

Brands can work to make their journey super exciting by including allowing them to avail discount on pre-booking of any new product, free shipping on initial orders for online shoppers, dispatching their orders the same day, et cetera. 

• Offer rewards to earn loyalty

“You don’t earn loyalty in a day. You earn loyalty day-by-day.” – Jeffrey Gitomer

Customer loyalty cannot be earned in a single day. It is a result of persistent efforts that brands put in to make the brand name familiar in the market. They will undoubtedly acknowledge the efforts to make customers stay for long. 

Since earning brand loyalty is a continuous process, so take the help of rewards to offer your buyers periodically. 

Small rewards even work as wonders when it comes to enticing your shoppers. Bonuses/ rewards are one of those most easily attention-grabbing marketing strategies that do not only fascinate the buyer but the customer as well. 

• Attract buyers through coupon schemes

Whenever any brand announces giveaways, the first preference remains to give the scheme offers to its loyal buyers. 

Offering coupons and putting products on discounts is a well-regarded and admired way of getting repeat business from loyal customers. For some brands, coupons might not be a viable option because once coupons are exhausted, customers would begin to wait for the discount period. 

But special schemes only for selective premium customers would encourage them to shop frequently. It is a great way to let down the churn rate and increase customer loyalty.

• Answer queries promptly

According to research by HubSpot, almost 82% of consumers await instant responses on their queries from brands.  

The statistics mentioned above show how eagerly a buyer expects a reply from a brand related to sales query or so. To keep the customer satisfied and by your side, they must be dealt with immediately. 

Always remember that long-term customers can spend more and stay unchanged throughout their buying journey. Hence, keep their trust at the top by responding to their queries instantly. 

• Remarketing Ads strategy

As the latest developments taking place in this decade, remarketing is another fruitful outcome that businesses are blessed to have.  

Remarketing is an effective way of increasing your average repeat purchase rate, but it does vary from brand to brand. It shows results when, as a brand, you are remarketing is based on your customer persona.  

By placing the retargeting ads strategy, companies can encourage repetitive business if marketed and backed with the right online ad blueprint. 

These ads will be only shown to the people whom you have targeted geographically, age-wise, and based on interests. Brands can grow their bottom line significantly without hefty advertising expenses. 

• Focus on repeat cycle instead of a funnel

Repeat sales mean more business and more profit. Every time your loyal purchaser returns, the chances to retain him/her also gets higher. 

Customers who are making repeat purchases are not only simpler to convert through rewarding schemes, but their purchasing order values remain higher than first-time buyers. Loyal repeat customers are less price susceptible. 

Hence, brands need to keep feeding their loyal customers so that they stay at the top of the sales funnel. Their first purchase with the brand is just the beginning. Make the customer lifetime buying cycle seamless and wonderful every time he/she comes to make a purchase.  

• Use point-system to entice buyers

As per an online survey carried out by Marketing Metrics, companies have a fair chance of 60- 70% for selling their products/ services to their existing customers as compared to new buyers. 

Brands can only expect repeat purchases from the existing consumers initially because new ones will come and leave with or without making a purchase. 

Since the bond is a bit stronger with your loyal purchasers, incentivize them with a point-based system to boost customer loyalty. Let them access this scheme whenever they shop either from your store or do online shopping.  

Offer them the choice to make these points redeemable anytime they want. You could make it a core part of your repeat purchase program.   

• Improve retention with exclusive passes

When the brand launches a new product or start a service, try to make your loyal customers a part of it. Indeed, it gives a sense of belongingness and a feel of sharing stronger bonds. 

 For example, to improve customer retention, grant unique membership program to existing loyal buyers and give them passes for various events that take place from time to time in the region. 

You can create levels of membership to enroll the customers such as premium for an elite group of shoppers and the executive level of membership for average buyers. 

Such membership programs create a highly motivational feeling that inspires the customer to remain stay connected with the same brand.  

Brands can also give them elite privileges, such as invitations to special music performance events, tickets to new movie releases, quick access to newly released products, et cetera.

Wrap Up

With the latest marketing methods, marketers too realize that more the customers will grow, it will make a good shape of the sales revenue. However, this is becoming a non-realistic fact with the most recent customer retention strategies prevailing nowadays, such as the highly admired repeat purchase program. 

After reading this post, you will be able to understand the importance of retaining existing buyers rather than to focus on acquiring new customers. And, for retention, repeat business-oriented programs play a vital role in transforming the business goals. 

There are many aspects related to the post-purchase customer experience that often get overlooked. But hopefully, after going through this blog, you will feel prepared to tackle the business-related queries easily. Most importantly, brands would be able to make an average repeat purchase rate higher than in earlier years. 

To know more about the repeat purchase program and how to implement it in real-time, get expert advice from our professional marketers. We would be glad to help you out!