What is Remarketing? The role of Remarketing in maintaining relationships with existing customers

Let's explore what Remarketing is and its role in maintaining relationships with existing customers.

Bùi Phương Thảo

29.3.2024

In today's competitive marketing world, retaining existing customers is sometimes as important as acquiring new ones. Remarketing, a strategy familiar to marketers, is the key to reconnecting and maintaining strong relationships with past customers. In this article, SO9 will shed light on the concept of Remarketing and provide an in-depth assessment of its role in developing long-term relationships with existing customers, thereby helping businesses enhance loyalty and drive sales effectively.

I. What is Remarketing?

Remarketing, also known as retargeting, is a marketing strategy that allows you to use various communication platforms such as websites, emails, social media pages, etc., to advertise to specific target customers who have previously used your products/services or interacted with your content on social media platforms.

For example, when a customer visits your website and adds products to their cart but doesn't make a purchase, you can use the email address provided by the customer in their account and remarket by sending reminder emails about those products.

What is Remarketing?

II. The Role of Remarketing in Maintaining Relationships with Existing Customers

Maintaining relationships with existing customers is considered a crucial strategy for businesses to create a loyal customer base and turn them into potential customers. Importantly, maintaining relationships with existing customers often costs less than attracting new customers, helping businesses minimize marketing and advertising costs.

Remarketing helps you reconnect with customers who have previously interacted with your business but haven't made a purchase or have been inactive for a while. When they see ads or content from your business, they may recall their previous experience, and in this case, Remarketing can be a useful method to encourage them to return.

Remarketing is also a strategy to provide offers, discounts, or information about new products to existing customers, thereby encouraging them to come back. Through Remarketing, you can also gather feedback from existing customers to better understand their experience and improve products or services for your business.

Remarketing helps bring customers back to your website.

III. How to Execute an Effective Remarketing Campaign with Past Customers

To execute an effective remarketing campaign with past customers, you can follow these steps:

1. Identify the Target Customers

The first step in implementing a remarketing campaign with past customers is to identify the target audience you want to reach. You can do this by determining which factors are important characteristics of your past customers.
For example: Your remarketing campaign may target customers who:

Have made a purchase within the last three months
Have used customer loyalty cards
Have signed up through their email
Have regular purchasing habits that can be predicted

By identifying the characteristics of the target audience, you will be better equipped to build a remarketing campaign and determine the success of your strategy.

2. Understand Why Past Customers Stopped Buying from You

Understanding the buying habits of customers can often be challenging, making it difficult for your business to determine why previous customers stopped supporting your business.

There are many reasons why consumer purchasing habits change, but some key reasons may include:

They found a superior alternative solution.
A competitor offered them a better price.
They no longer have a need for your product/service or sometimes they simply forget.

Consumer preferences can change overnight. The best way to address this challenge is to survey past customers, solicit feedback on your business's products, services, pricing, and the primary reasons for their changing purchasing behavior.

3. Define Appropriate Campaign Goals

Once you have a clear understanding of why previous customers changed their purchasing behavior, you can develop your remarketing campaign. When defining your goals, ask yourself why customers should repurchase your product/service. For example, if a customer subscribed to your business's advertising service for two months, there may be a chance they'll need to renew their subScription. This is where remarketing can be effective in encouraging them to continue using your service.

Furthermore, if during the survey process, customers provide negative feedback about your product or service, you can use that information to adjust the campaign goals accordingly to better suit their needs.

4. Choose the Right Remarketing Channels

There are several remarketing channels you can use, including traditional methods, website, social media platforms, email, or Zalo OA.

Traditional advertising methods: This includes traditional media such as flyers, posters, newspapers, and magazines. This channel allows for a strong local impression with consumers. For example, a retail store could send flyers with discount codes to customers who have previously made purchases to encourage them to return. This method is particularly useful for offline stores with high product usage frequency.
Website: With websites, you can use cookies and pixels to track user behavior and display ads to them as they browse the web. For example, a customer views a watch on your website but doesn't make a purchase. Later, they see ads displaying that watch with a discount code when they return to your website or on other ad networks. In Vietnam, publishers like Admicro, Google Ads, etc., can provide you with advertising tools to remarket your products or services on other websites within their network.
Social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn are powerful remarketing channels that allow you to effectively target previous customers. For example, if you're in the fashion brand business, you can use Facebook Ads to advertise new products to people who have visited your website, or you can advertise related products based on customer needs. (e.g., A mother & baby store can create a remarketing product ad file on Facebook when they know the age of the customer's child & their phone number).
Email: This is an effective channel with high personalization, allowing you to send messages directly to your previous customers. For example, a restaurant can send an email inviting them to a special event or introducing a new menu to customers who have previously made reservations but haven't returned for a while.
Zalo OA: Currently, Zalo is the most popular messaging tool in Vietnam. On this platform, you can create a Business Account (Zalo Official Account) & perform remarketing to customers through this care channel. However, Zalo's spam message protection policy is strict, so your content must be approved by Zalo before use.

Each channel has its own advantages and disadvantages, and you can consider them when planning your campaign. The success of your remarketing campaign depends on the channels you use. You should consider both the campaign content and your target audience before deciding on any channel.

5. Create Compelling Ad Content

In today's competitive environment, many businesses advertise and offer promotions to attract customers. Therefore, to stand out in such a competitive landscape, your marketing message content must pique the interest of the audience and grab their attention.

For example, for existing customers who have used your product/service, you can execute a remarketing campaign by advertising special promotions or offers. Or, for customers who have tried your product/service, to encourage them to make a purchase, you can conduct remarketing by sharing feedback from satisfied customers who have successfully used and benefited from it.

You can apply the following tips to make your content more appealing:

Get straight to the point: Consumers tend to scroll past content they find uninteresting in the first few seconds. Therefore, it's best to get straight to the point. This way, you can capture the audience's attention more effectively.
Create curiosity: Content that stimulates curiosity is a great way to attract customer interest without providing too much information, which often leads to higher viewer retention rates.
Offer a trial version: Everyone loves a free trial. Offering trial versions or free incentives is a great way to grab the audience's attention and attract your target audience back to your brand.
Create a sense of urgency: Urgency prompts action. You can create urgency by setting limits on the number or time of your offer, encouraging the audience to act quickly by using phrases like "right now," "before it's too late."

By implementing these strategies, you can create ad content that effectively captures the attention of your audience and drives them to take action.

*Example of Advertising Content on Kobe Media Channel*

6. Tracking and Analyzing Data

Regularly monitor the performance of your Remarketing campaigns, such as click-through rates (CTR), conversion rates (CR), and ROI, to see what is working effectively and what needs improvement.

Click-through rate (CTR) is the percentage of ad clicks compared to the number of ad impressions. This is an important metric to assess the attractiveness of your ads to viewers.
Conversion rate (CR) is the percentage of users who click on your ad and then perform a desired action (such as making a purchase, signing up, etc.).
Return on investment (ROI) measures the profit earned from a specific investment compared to the cost of that investment. For Remarketing campaigns, it's the ratio of the profit generated from customers attracted through the campaign compared to the campaign's cost.

Based on this data, adjust and optimize your campaigns to achieve the best results possible.

Summary

Targeting existing customers is much easier and simpler than finding and attracting new ones. Investing in Remarketing campaigns can help you maintain relationships with existing customers, providing effectiveness and cost savings. Hopefully, with the strategies shared in this article, you will successfully apply them to your marketing strategy. Don't forget to visit the SO9.VN website to learn more about the latest business operation knowledge!

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