How Customer Marketing Boosts Your Bottom Line
As a cybersecurity vendor, your clients look to you to protect valuable personal identifiable information (PII) or keep them safe from hackers. Because they have already vetted you for your expertise, they view you as an expert in understanding changing cyber threats and how to deal with them. To maintain and enhance this vital relationship, cybersecurity companies must prioritize customer marketing.
But when planning your objectives for the upcoming quarter or year, have you implemented an effective customer marketing strategy to capitalize on your existing relationship?
Why You Need to Invest More in Customer Marketing
Data suggests that investing in customer marketing efforts aimed at retention can significantly impact profitability. According to independent survey results, over 39% of customers are willing to spend more with a brand they're loyal to, and Bain & Company cites that increasing customer retention rates by just 5% can increase profits by 25% to 95%. Yet, Forrester found that 43% of marketers prioritize customer acquisition, while only 16% prioritize customer retention, which means that a larger portion of marketing budgets is dedicated to external marketing efforts rather than retaining existing customers.
As the data suggests, customer marketing goes beyond traditional advertising or the occasional "How Are We Doing?" survey. It's about nurturing relationships, understanding needs, and providing value beyond the initial sale. To help reinforce this point, we’ve identified the following ways effective customer marketing can increase retention.
Forge Stronger Connections
Building strong relationships with customers is essential for driving adoption and reducing churn. When customers feel valued and understood, they are more likely to remain loyal and advocate for the brand. Ways to do this include creating an advisory board, hosting a customer summit, or hosting customer only training sessions, webinars, or workshops.
Identify Champions
Every organization has influential champions who can sway opinions and drive adoption within their network. A study by Harvard Business Review found that customers referred by advocates have a 37% higher retention rate. Empowering champions within customer networks can increase retention rates and brand loyalty. You can identify those champions by looking for users who actively engage with your product, offer to give testimonials, participate in training sessions, and attend webinars or events. You can also identify power users or super users who demonstrate a deep understanding of your product and leverage its features extensively as champions.
Community Building
Cybersecurity companies need to move beyond a reactive, fire-fighting approach to a proactive, fire-prevention mode. Instituting a user community is a great way to foster communication by encouraging users to share feedback, ideas, and success stories. It also helps you proactively reach out to key users to build relationships and understand their needs, challenges, and goals. By connecting with your customers on this level, they can become partners in safeguarding against threats before they occur.
Best Practices
Effective customer marketing strategies include community building, aligning with the post-sale journey, and incentivizing customers for advocacy. These practices foster engagement and loyalty, ultimately leading to long-term success.
Driving Success
Customer marketing should not be a supplementary activity for cybersecurity companies—it should be a fundamental aspect of building and maintaining successful relationships. By identifying and tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) that are tied to your company's overall goals, you can measure customer marketing success. Doing this ensures that customer marketing efforts are aligned with your business objectives. In addition, by investing in customer marketing strategies, you can solidify your position as a trusted advisor, drive product improvements, and ultimately enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Too busy focusing on external marketing to focus on customer marketing? Contact us to learn more about how we can drive your customer marketing initiatives toward greater retention and profitability.
