CMOs Across 35 Industries Share Customer Retention Strategies
Even before COVID-19 hit in the beginning of 2020, the way consumers interacted with businesses was changing. The pandemic accelerated the pace of these changes and gave rise to new customer behavior. But these changes in consumer behavior were not uniform, varying on the basis of markets.
For example, in India, around 94% of consumers moved to different brands and tried new shopping behavior during the COVID-19 lockdowns. In Europe, more than 60% of consumers changed their shopping behavior to prioritize convenience and value since the pandemic started, with around 70% to 80% of them expected to continue the behavior in the future. In Southeast Asia, 60% of consumers planned on saving more money in the future.
Despite COVID-19 proving to be a boon for the e-commerce, online entertainment & pharmaceutical industries and a bane for the aviation, hospitality, and retail industry, brands across the spectrum were forced to adapt to the new reality.
To help marketers navigate the new post-pandemic terrain, we surveyed CMOs from across top mobile marketing organizations, distilling the changes in their strategies and approaches into a single resource, the CMO Playbook.
Here are the top four insights we uncovered:
- Among CMOs, 60% spend 10–25% of their marketing budget on ensuring customer retention and maintaining brand loyalty.
In the past, marketers would spend only 10% of their marketing budgets on customer retention, with the rest of it allocated to customer acquisition. However, since the pandemic, most industries have begun prioritizing customer retention, and many consider it one of their key growth strategies.
2. About 44% of CMOs claim to have an advanced level of customer experience management in their organizations; 38% have made some progress.
Marketers are leveraging customer personalization based on AI & machine learning to grasp critical moments in the buyer’s journey. To create a cohesive experience across marketing channels and deliver a superior customer experience, brands have begun to rely on omnichannel campaigns. And those who use omnichannel campaigns achieved 90% higher user retention than those using single channels.
3. 65% of marketers spend more than 5% of their budget on mobile marketing.
Users moving from offline to online work during the pandemic have resulted in increased mobile usage. In response, marketers have explored and are adopting mobile strategies even further. Mobile marketing has become extremely important both from the retention and acquisition viewpoint.
4. Media spend on mobile apps rose by 5–10% after the lockdown for 42% of CMOs.
With mobile app usage seeing a surge during lockdown and apps witnessing accelerated adoption due to the pandemic, the media spending on mobile apps saw an increase, with the media budget shifted to mobile apps being retained even in the post-lockdown period.
There’s More in the Playbook
There’s much more information on marketing strategies and successful approaches in the playbook. Here’s a brief overview of what you’ll get when you download the CMO Playbook:
- Detailed Customer Behavior Trends in India, ME, Europe, and SEA
- Strategies CMOs are using to increase Customer Lifetime Value
- Challenges CMOs face when maximizing Customer Retention
- Create a roadmap to success by improving customer retention
