5 reasons it’s never too early to start retention marketing

While it can be tempting to spend all your marketing budget on user acquisition, SeatGeek VP of Customer Retention Ben Clark says most brands start their retention marketing efforts too late.

At Postback 17, he presented a lightning keynote about the Art of Retention Marketing. Click to watch the 15-minute video, or keep reading for the five reasons he thinks you should give the unsexy retention email a second look.

1. Retention marketing is a whole lot cheaper than acquisition marketing.

Using email or push notifications for retention messaging costs SeatGeek less than $1. That’s 10 times cheaper than what they spend on Facebook Newsfeed ads, and 70 times cheaper than the billboard they’re running in Times Square.

2. The sky appears to be the limit when it comes to overdoing email.

Over the last year, SeatGeek increased the amount of emails they were sending by six times. Clark said they asked the question: “Can we afford to send 20% more email than we sent last month?” And to this day, they still haven’t found the ceiling. SeatGeek has increased their amount of revenue by three times.

3. Retention marketing increases your customer LTV while decreasing acquisition cost.

It’s no secret that the more customers purchase from you, the higher their lifetime value is. Clark thinks of retention marketing as a way to lower the cost you spent acquiring the user — if you can get more out of a user, you’ve just gotten more out of every dollar you spent acquiring them.

4. Email is easy way to reach ALL customers, across mobile and desktop.

Clark says to reconsider whether every retention message you send has to be a push notification. He says that seven out of 10 of their customers are answering their emails on mobile, meaning that email is not only reaching them as they go about their day the way a push notification would — but email is also covering the desktop users.

5. There’s more flexibility with email than push notifications.

Clark also recommends email for the sophistication it brings as compared to push notifications. Email allows images, video, copy — you name it. In his presentation, he showed an example of Nike email, noting that even if he didn’t need a new pair of shoes, he sure liked looking at the work-of-art email.

“I think email is regarded as a pretty unsexy channel. I think unfairly so,” Clark said.

Get more out of your retention marketing

Clark’s ultimate takeaway? It’s never too early to get started with retention marketing.

“It’s never really too early as long as you have any quantity of users. There’s value I think in working to retain them and maximize the value you have,” Clark said.

To see the full 15-minute lightning keynote, watch it on Youtube or click play below.

Author

Becky is the Senior Content Marketing Manager at TUNE. Before TUNE, she handled content strategy and marketing communications at several tech startups in the Bay Area. Becky received her bachelor's degree in English from Wake Forest University. After a decade in San Francisco and Seattle, she has returned home to Charleston, SC, where you can find her strolling through Hampton Park with her pup and enjoying the simple things between adventures with friends and family.