Let’s say your construction business is acquiring fewer new clients than you expected. And you want that to change. Believe it or not, one of the most effective ways to boost your repeat purchases is through customer retention. The customers you already have are profiting from your construction business, so it is worth your effort and time to keep them around.
But how do you increase your repeat purchases? In this blog, we will give you tips on how to get started and how to build loyalty with your customers simultaneously.
But What is a Repeat Purchase?
To put it simply, repeat purchases are purchases being made by an existing client. These construction clients have had at least one previous purchase transaction with your brand and have decided to make another purchase with you due to their great customer experience with your business.
Repeat customers have a completely different purchase journey compared to first-time customers. So, in the case of your business, repeat customers already know what you offer, and they immediately go straight to the service offerings they want to avail of and purchase.
Eight Things You Can Do to Boost Repeat Purchases
These are the eight strategies you can implement to make your target customers purchase from you repeatedly.
1. Take a customer-centric approach
The customer-centric approach has long proven effective when it comes to retaining customers, especially in this digital era, where services/products in the market are quite similar and less cutting-edge.
Take advantage of chatbots to improve customer service. Using this tool can ensure that your target customers can get a quick response anytime, any day, despite their time zone. Moreover, using chatbots to answer questions from people can also reduce workload. In many cases, it helps your team focus more on answering complicated questions and giving detailed answers.
To have higher customer retention, you can also offer live discussions and webinars to make potential customers more familiar and comfortable with your services. As a result, they feel more satisfied safer, and trust your brand more–resulting in a higher rate of repeat customers and purchases.
2. Segment your audience
When marketing your service or products, a surefire way of increasing your sales is by delivering targeted content relevant to your customer’s interests. But how can you exactly do that when every customer you have is unique? The solution is customer segmentation.
In simple words, customer segmentation means dividing your main audience into multiple groups. Every segment will be based on different criteria like age, gender, title, location, purchase history, interests, and more. You can target different segments with personalized messaging that speaks directly to them and address their unique wants and needs.
Segmentation allows you to make your marketing campaigns more effective and drive sales by showing your customers what they want to see.
3. Send re-engagement emails
An email you will send to customers who last purchased from you a long time ago is a re-engagement email. The goal of this type of email is to win the clients back. When you do this, remind them of why they purchased from you first and show them what they need to include.
These emails usually have the best results when you personalize the messages based on your customers’ previous purchases. You can show them some suggested services or products based on their needs and preferences.
4. Send personalized service/product recommendations
Putting the right product and services in front of the right customers at the right time is one great way to boost your sales, build loyalty, and improve your lead acquisition rate. Product or service recommendations work best when they are based on some previous sales data. You may include them in your emails or product/service pages.
Know that the more personalized your recommendations are, the better. So, by knowing what services or products the clients are more likely to purchase from you, you can make repeat purchases easier for them, helping them fill their cart more quickly without spending too much time browsing your construction website.
The smoother your customers experience, the more they will likely purchase from you again.
5. Build your brand with social media
As of April 2023, 60% of the world’s population uses social media. The average daily usage is 2 hours and 24 mins, which makes platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter great places to connect and interact with repeat customers, stay relevant with your target audience, and build brand loyalty at the same time.
Social media is becoming an extension of your construction brand and your website. It significantly helps build authentic relationships between your customers and business. Apparently, there are many ways you can leverage social media to establish a deeper connection with your customers and target audience:
- Share news: Keep your current followers updated about new services, products, and special promotions on your construction website.
- Showcase your people: You can use social media to introduce the people in your company to your customers and followers. Putting a human aspect on your brand helps build an emotional connection, creating loyalty and a sense of advocacy.
- Engage your audience: Start having conversations with your followers through polls. You can tie them to special and significant dates your followers and audience care so much about.
- Encourage user-generated content: Resharing your videos, photos, and other content is a great way to widen your reach and increase brand awareness. Encourage your current followers to use and follow a certain hashtag to keep posts easy to find and organized.
6. Create a loyalty program to motivate your repeat customers
Loyalty programs can help drive more repeat customers to your construction business and build brand loyalty. Offering gifts, discounts, and exclusive access to new services/products will make your customers feel valued and connected to your construction brand. You can also create membership ranks, offering higher-level perks to your top repeat customers based on either spending levels or duration of time in the program.
The type of loyalty program you create usually depends on your business model and niche. As a construction business, tailor it to your customers and ensure the incentives benefit them the most.
7. Ask for customer feedback from your loyal customers
Your clients are more inclined to purchase from you again and remain loyal for the longest time if they feel you clearly understand their needs. While you can always utilize your internal client data from your repeating customers, another great way is to ask for their feedback or personal opinions.
Online surveys can engage your customers with your construction brand and help you discover what they like about your services, what they think about your current competition, and where they think you can do much better.
8. Offer customer support to improve customer retention
We will leverage social media again this time around. No matter the industry or business, you can use social media platforms to improve customer retention and drive more repeat customers. Below are some tips on using social media platforms to increase repeat purchasing rates.
- Monitor your social media channels for feedback, inquiries, and complaints. You can even leverage social media listening tools to track relevant keywords and brand mentions.
- Respond quickly to requests or inquiries because social media platforms are real-time communications. Ensure you always respond to inquiries and complaints as quickly as possible to prevent arguments. Doing so can help boost customer retention and transform any upset customer into a repeat customer.
- Use an amiable and friendly tone to help make your customers’ overall experience pleasurable.
- Resolve issues publicly as much as possible to show your commitment to your followers and customers and demonstrate how to solve issues and resolve complaints.
- Always be ready to take conversations offline, especially if it is a sensitive or complex issue.
Partner with ConstructionMarketing.io
Repeat purchases and customer retention are, undeniably two of the most critical aspects of any brand. There can be many marketing efforts you can do to acquire new customers and encourage repeat purchases. You can start investing in digital marketing and partner with the best agency to help you achieve your goals!
ConstructionMarketing.io is a well-trusted and leading construction marketing company with expertise in creating strategic marketing campaigns for construction businesses. Our agency’s expertise lies in unlocking the greater potential of your construction business, focusing on your brand and online reputation, or, in this case, your customer retention.
We are a full-service digital marketing agency offering a handful of marketing solutions tailored to your business needs – from website design and development, local SEO, email marketing, content creation, social media, PPC, and more. We offer customized packages that fit your needs.
Moreover, successful customer retention is a mix of vision and strategic processes. And as your partner agency, we are responsible for laying the groundwork for your business.
Contact us today and learn how we can do things on your behalf. Here’s to more repeat purchases, new customers, and growth for your construction business.