Content marketing is a long game. Sometimes, after your content efforts have succeeded in making prospective customers aware of your brand, attracting their interest and prompting them to act by purchasing your product or service, they leave to support another brand.
What went wrong? While it may or may not be an issue with your content itself that led customers away from your business, creating a content strategy for reengaging with past clients and customers can help turn things around. Here, 15 members of Forbes Agency Council offer their best advice for using content to help former customers remember why they once chose your offerings and show them why they should return.
Forbes Agency Council members discuss smart ways to use content to win back customers.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. Show Them Without Telling Them
If customers left, you have to understand why they left and, in this case, generate content that makes your best argument for their return. It’s the same concept behind the “show me without telling me” meme: Show me why I should return without telling me why I should return. Content is the best way to do that because people are already consuming it. – Craig Greiwe, Rogers & Cowan
2. Reward Loyalty And Leverage Data
Exploration and experimentation are alluring to consumers, but feeling appreciated—and compensated—for loyalty can go a long way. Brands can leverage the data they accumulated on their customers by offering customized, personalized rewards and offers. This will increase their connection and value for the consumer in a way that a new competitor cannot achieve. – Hamutal Schieber, Schieber Research
3. Address Objections With Retargeting Videos
First step is to find out why customers are leaving to support another brand. Dive deep to truly understand the reasons they left. This will tell you what you need to know about making improvements and adjustments. You can then advertise through a series of retargeting videos handling customer objections through informative content, customer reviews and user-generated content. – Alex Quin, UADV MARKETING
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4. Launch A Digital Win-Back Campaign
A well-thought-out digital win-back campaign with a compelling call to action can entice ex-clients to reengage with your brand. Brands can gradually reestablish relationships with former customers by strategically timing the delivery of tailored content. Leverage the art of anticipation, create a sense of urgency and include a clear, concise CTA as you choose your channels and content. – Lars Voedisch, PRecious Communications
5. Tell The Truth And Own Your Mistakes
Successful brand storytellers tell the truth to their audiences. If you think you’ve made brand decisions that alienated your customers, create content that acknowledges that in an upfront way. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is a great example of a leader who owned his mistakes (he even wrote a bestselling book about them!) and, as a result, won a lot of customers back from his competitors. – Samantha Reynolds, ECHO Storytelling Agency
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6. Gear Content Toward Specific Decision Makers
For B2B products with long lead times, the customer neighborhoods are typically smaller and the memories longer. Customers usually leave for significant reasons. Content is necessary, not sufficient. Take a gradual approach. Gear both content and its deployment toward specific people in the former customer’s decision-making chain. It’s a bit like vote counting in politics. – Mike Casey, Tigercomm, LLC
7. Give Advice That Helps Them Do Their Job Better
It’s simple. Provide content that actually helps the ex-client do their job better or hear another perspective. In my B2B world, I find giving away a nugget of advice is the quickest way to regain that “trusted advisor” mantle. If your content is only about your company, you aren’t really starting a new conversation. – Elonide Semmes, Right Hat, LLC
8. Target Lost Customers’ Desires With Incentives
Understand why a customer left in the first place and identify the benefits of the competing brand in order to create content targeting the lost customer’s desires. Create relevant incentive by offering premium access and upgrades exclusively to lost customers with prices that are difficult to refuse. A social media campaign can also address any concerns and help regain former customers’ trust. – Adrian Falk, Believe Advertising & PR
9. Leverage AI-Driven Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing driven by artificial intelligence is a proven way to win back consumers. Beyond increasing brand awareness, the right creators provide external validation because they are considered a trusted source for shoppers. Moreover, creators cultivate a specific audience based on their content and aesthetics, and with AI, brands can identify the best creators to translate brand value to these niche audiences. – Ricky Ray Butler, BEN
10. Send An Email To Say You Miss Them
An email to your former customer telling them that you miss them and want them back is the best way to show you care. It’s just like reaching out to a former boyfriend or girlfriend and telling them you want them back. Perhaps offer something special, such as a discount or a value-added gift, for returning to your brand. They might have gone to another brand and realized they liked yours better. – Nancy Marshall, Marshall Communications
11. Offer Key Data And Insights About Their Customers
Offer key data that will help your former clients gain insights about their customers, create a survey that provides answers to questions they have about their buyers or share case studies about how your clients solved problems using your product/solution. Gate all of this content, and when your former customer fills out the lead generation form, use that as an opportunity to reconnect. – Jodi Amendola, Amendola Communications
12. Produce Long-Form Or Episodic Brand Programming
Content should be an exchange of value between the brand and consumer. To win back customers, brands need to identify how they’ve become invaluable (or where competitors became more valuable) and use that insight. For example, long-form or episodic brand programming can offer audiences the “must-see TV” type of content they’re consuming more and more of, creating brand affinity and equity at the same time. – Melissa Bouma, Manifest
13. Create Lighthearted Content Without Calls To Action
Customer relationships can get stale for reasons unrelated to creativity or performance. Content that is all product/feature messages, all the time, can seem impersonal. Mix in content that’s lighthearted or inspirational, without calls to action. Generating smiles or providing interesting thoughts adds dimension. We all want to like the companies and people we work with. That’s what relationships are built on. – Peter Cannone, Demand Science
14. Consistently Create Consumer-Focused Content
Today’s consumers don’t simply buy products; they buy brands that they view as having the same values and attitudinal characteristics as they do. To build relationships that win customers back, create consistent, consumer-focused content that puts them at the center of the conversation and adds value to their lives. – Kim Lawton, Enthuse Marketing
15. Pick A Fight On Twitter
Twitter fights work like a charm! Nothing brings publicity better than calling out other brands in a fun, witty and playful way. We’ve seen accounts double if not triple their impressions by doing so. – Stefan Katanic, Veza Digital
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Author: Expert Panel®, Forbes Councils Member
