Exploring Sally Helme’s ideas for how to build a customer retention game plan within the sailing industry.
Two unexpected but welcome slides popped up in Sail America’s 2021 State of the Sailing Industry presentation by Sally Helme, group publisher of Cruising World, Sailing World and the NOOD Regattas. Pointing out that the sailing industry has seen growth in nearly all segments, she brought up this key question: “What’s your customer retention strategy?” And here’s my follow-up question: “How are you using digital marketing in your customer retention efforts?”
Here are Sally’s recommendations for customer retention within the sailing industry.
Sally gave six suggestions for “building a customer retention game plan” for your sailing business:
(I believe #6 ends with “Make it easy for them to play.”)
The next logical question is: What would each of these suggestions look like, and how do we implement them?
How to use digital marketing to support your customer retention strategies
While there are plenty of opportunities to tackle Sally’s suggestions during in-person interactions, you also need to look at how your digital marketing strategy can support this effort. Here are a few thoughts on how you can use digital marketing to enhance three of these customer retention strategies.
“Prepare to respond quickly if there’s an issue.”
There are two key elements to this suggestion: 1) the preparation, and 2) the response. Here’s how you could build that process.
Write sample messages for your most common issues.
Let’s say you’re a sailboat builder. The two common issues that negatively affect your customer are not having their requested wood type and missing the promised delivery date. You’d write a sample email for each one with an apology and an explanation of how you’ll remedy the problem. Then when one of those issues pops up, you already have the message ready to send to the customer. You can customize it as necessary and hit the send button moments later.
Tip: If you use a marketing automation tool such as HubSpot, you can save these sample messages as templates for easy access.
Decide who will be the communicator when a problem arises.
No one wants to be the bearer of bad news. But if something goes wrong, the customer deserves to know ASAP. If you don’t already have a customer service team, determine who will be the communicator. That way, you know who’s responsible for delivering the message. There might be times when it makes good business sense to have someone on the leadership team send the email or call. The lead communicator should still track the exchange.
Tip: Consider using a customer relationship management tool that automatically tracks emails. Anyone on the team can view the customer’s record to see how and when the communication was handled.
“Make every customer feel like a VIP” and “Deliver a meaningful, personalized experience to your customers; build empathetic relationships.”
You can’t offer a bottle of Perrier to the customer or prospect who’s visiting your website. But you can take steps to make people feel welcome when they interact with you online. I’m combining these retention strategies because they go hand-in-hand in digital marketing.
Talk like a person, not like a business.
What’s the difference between a company and a person? A company can’t talk! Oftentimes when we’re writing something that will go on the company’s website, we make it sound stuffy, formal. That’s not what they’d get if they visited in person. So how do you write like a person?
First, use words and phrases that resonate with your customers. You need to speak their language rather than using internal jargon or terms they might not yet understand. Second, focus on writing conversationally. Think about a real person to represent the audience. Maybe it’s your favorite customer or the person in the striped shirt from the boat show. Then start the draft with “Dear [that person’s name].” Without thinking, you’ll write friendlier, more helpful content.
Tip: Use your word processor search tool to compare the number of “you/your/you’re” uses to “we/our/we’re.” Shoot for 80/20 you/we.
Offer personalized content.
The people interested in your offering want to feel like an individual, not like they’re lumped into a bucket of customers or prospects. One way to make people feel unique and understood is to use personalized content. This goes beyond starting an email with “Hi [first name].” Dynamic content – sometimes called smart content – is an element in your email (or webpage) that changes based on the viewer to align with their interests.
First, you have to lay the groundwork for dynamic content by gathering and tracking information about your subscribers (here’s a great article about progressive profiling – gathering info over time about a subscriber).
Once you have information about a subscriber’s interests, you can personalize emails with dynamic content. Think of a sailing school email about upcoming classes. You want to cover Sailing 101, Sailing 201 and Bareboat 101, so you include all three descriptions. Then your subscribers can click on whichever is most interesting. Or you could do this:
If your email program is smart enough, it will automatically make all the replacements and send the correct version to each subscriber. If not, that’s okay. You can create the first version for new subscribers and then clone it twice and insert the Sailing 201 and Bareboat 101 info. Make sure you’re sending the right email to the right list!
Tip: Search “dynamic content” and “smart content” in your email program to see what options are available to you.
Set a goal for including digital marketing in your customer retention strategy
Don’t limit your customer retention strategy to follow-up phone calls, loyalty programs, feedback surveys and the like. Part of overdelivering is exceeding expectations across all platforms and touchpoints. By leveraging digital marketing in your customer retention initiatives, your customers will be just as pleased to visit your website or open your email as talking to you face-to-face.
Even taking small steps toward adding digital marketing elements to your customer retention program will help in the long run. Here’s to thrilled repeat customers!
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Special thanks to Sail America for hosting Sally’s 2021 State of the Sailing Industry presentation and the American Sailing Association for sponsoring the event.
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Surprised to see a marketing article written specifically for sailing-related businesses?
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