As a business owner, there’s nothing quite as satisfying as repeat business from your customers Besides the sense of satisfaction, repeat customers are It’s also a good indication of company health. That’s why it’s so important to prevent customer turnover, or what’s often referred to as ‘customer churn.’
By tracking and leveraging specific key performance indicators (KPIs) you can implement iron-clad strategies to keep your customers purchasing. That’s why it’s vital to company success to understand what key performance indicators are, why they’re important, and which ones you can to keep an eye on to maintain customer engagement.
My metric for success can be summed up in one phrase: earn customers for life.
What are KPIs and Why are they important?
The abbreviation “KPI” is used to refer to your company’s key performance indicators. In other words, KPIs are concrete statistics and measurements that can help you track your progress toward a desired outcome. KPIs are commonly used to measure key result outcomes in the OKR framework.
These metrics help set a benchmark for you to understand how far you are from a business goal. They can help you focus on areas of the company strategy that need improvement to reach your intended result.
By tracking where your KPIs are currently, and targeting where you would like them to be, you can set clear targets for you and your team to help focus and reach your company goals together.
3 Marketing KPIs to Track to Prevent Customer Churn
KPIs can also give you insight into customer behavior — and whether they’ll stick around. Specific metrics can signal red flags for customer churn before it actually happens, which means if you’re paying attention, you may be able to prevent the turnover.
Here are four key performance indicators your team can track and leverage to help keep customers coming back to your business time and time again.
1. Customer Lifetime Value
The customer lifetime value refers to the amount of revenue a specific customer brings in throughout the duration of your relationship. When calculating this metric, be sure to subtract the customer acquisition cost for a clearer understanding of a customer’s value.
Looking into the analytics of your customers with the highest lifetime value may give you important first-hand data into what’s working well, and what you should be doing more of.
Pro tip: Knowing the customer’s lifetime value is beneficial for several aspects of your business, but identifying a customer’s journey with your business can be even more impactful.
Ask: a what points in their journey did this customer make purchases from you? Is it the Black Friday deal? Did you grab their attention with the BOGO sale? How many days after their first purchase did they make their second?
Some other areas of the customer journey you may want to deep dive into include:
- How often they purchase
- When they signed up for Subscribe & Save (if they have)
- How they found your company (social media, Google, etc.)
- How they engage with your company (email, social media, etc.)
So, don’t just stop at figuring out your average customer lifetime value. Dig deeper and uncover what your top-grossing customers have in common to help implement those tactics on a broader level.
2. Email Unsubscribe Rate
80% of email marketing professionals say email drives customer acquisition and retention. Email marketing is also significantly more likely to create sales than social media.
That’s why when a customer leaves your email list, it can have a big impact on business. When someone unsubscribes from your emails, they’re often subliminally saying that they no longer have an interest in staying up-to-date with your business or buying from you.
The lack of interest can correlate with churn. That’s why it’s important to monitor email unsubscribe rates.
To better understand your customer base, evaluate at what point subscribers are hitting that unsubscribe button. What email had they just opened?
Pro tip: To help minimize loss of your email list, lead subscribers to a preferences page instead of a simple unsubscribe button.
There, give them the option to receive emails less frequently, and allow them to opt into certain topics. For example, if you’re a wellness company selling supplements, provide categories like: boost energy, lose weight, improve skin + hair, build muscle, etc. that may align with your customers’ fitness goals. Then, only send relevant and helpful information to them!
Email is one of the quickest and most effective ways to get in touch with customers. Keeping your email unsubscribe rate low is a powerful way to reduce customer churn.
3. Abandoned Cart Rate
Imagine this: a one-time purchaser returns to your website to place their second order. Maybe because of distraction or indecision, they leave the page before ever completing their purchase. Later, their social media and Google pages are filled with competitor ads… In the end, they choose to go with a different company to fill their needs.
You’ve effectively lost this customer.
That’s why taking care of your abandoned cart rate can help you keep customers and reduce churn. Now, the good news is this customer enjoyed your product well enough the first time that they thought to come back for more.
The bad news is they never actually purchased a second time!
Almost 70% of online carts get abandoned, and if the user is on mobile, make that almost 86%. So, you’re not alone in dealing with this all-too-common dilemma. The question is… What are you going to do about it?
Pro tip: Sending an abandoned cart email can be one of the most effective ways to guide customers back to checkout to finish placing an order. According to Klaviyo, companies sending abandoned cart emails recovered 3–14% of lost sales.
For best results, send your abandoned cart email ASAP- ideally before the customer has walked away from the computer. Inside the email, offer an enticing discount to encourage them to finish purchasing.
They’re already so close to closing the sale. The discount will be worth it!
Conclusion
The average value of a lost customer is $243. That means keeping your customers is a lot more profitable than trying to only rely on the new ones.
Luckily, customer churn isn’t an instant decision. Customers leave little signs here and there that you can be on the lookout for — including lower engagement, unsubscribing, abandoning webpages, and more.
Be proactive. You can detect these signals before your customers leave for good. In the end, keeping your customers will improve your business’ health and keep morale high!