Retention Is The New Acquisition
March 11, 2010 – 12:36 am | by Daryl TayTwo nights ago, a friend brought a couple of us to this little coffeeshop that sold seafood in Serangoon. The food was pretty good and to our surprise, the owner gave us a free dish (fish head curry, to be precise) for us to try. The owner made an intentional effort to come out twice during the night (although he also cooks the food) to make sure everything was fine.
Over dinner, I made the point to my friends (both business graduates) that this really is the way businesses should market themselves.
Why spend all that money on the bus ad or print ad that people see and forget in an instant, with the hope that it will serve as an acquisition strategy and bring in new customers? Instead why not delight your customers who have already voted with their wallets to buy from you and encourage to come back time and time again?
Needless to say, in the two days since then I’ve told four other people about it and will soon be bringing my family to check it out.
So what are you doing to get your customers to come back? Or are you letting your competition put in that little bit of extra effort to enhance the customer experience and win them over?
Ps: The idea of using retention isn’t new (nor mine) and you can read Joseph Jaffe’s new book Flip The Funnel to find out more, but I thought this was a great case study to practically illustrate how it can be done.
Pps: The address of said coffeeshop is Blk 153 Serangoon North Ave 1 #01-512 (and no, I was absolutely not incentivised by the store to share this with you.)
[image credit: jensen_chua on Flickr]
Tags: acquisition strategy, bus ad, business graduates, coffeeshop, fish head curry, flip the funnel, joseph jaffe, print ad, serangoon

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