Loyal Consumers Management VS New Customers Acquisiton?

Where is the marketing Graal? Should your company be focusing on Consumer’s retention or acquisition? This is a difficult question to answer and the solution will different from one business to the other.
Anyhow, should ask himself the question of advantages and weaknesses of both target group in order to chose the appropriate strategy to target them.

Loyal consumers are interesting in many ways:


1) If you have create a consumer’s database, you already know them.
2) They pay far more attention to your product when buying it
3) They make the difference between the brands and believe in the quality of your particular product
4) They look for advertising, special promos and information on the web
5) As satisfied consumers they will be less receptive to critics and bad buzz
6) They like to share their point of view and recommend the product / brand


At the opposite, weaknesses are that core heavy consumers are a limited number of individuals (from few hundreds to few tens of thousands) respect to the millions of potential customers.


In the United States in 2006, car manufacturer BMW took the decision to drive its marketing strategy for Mini brand mainly to existing consumers. The project was ambitious as car owners change car every 2,5 years in average. The obvious question is: Why to market people that are already happy consumers, as they won’t buy again before long time? The strategy was actually orientated on generating positive recommendation from Mini users in order to influence and push to action their social networks. The campaign included direct marketing, dedicated incentive and billboard with codes that only Mini users could understands. The results were highly satisfying: a trendy brand’s image and an increase of +15% car sales in 2006 for a car that haven’t been modified since its release in 2001.


Consumers’ involvement will depends from the necessity of the product and its social value. For example, brand name and buying process are more important to buy a car or a bottle of expensive Champagne than for buying napkins. However it is almost impossible to set up a clear limit where to start your loyal consumer’s program or concentrate on new customers’ acquisition. The truth is that a loyal consumer program is a long term engagement from your brand with your target group in order to be able to listen to your consumers and gather them around your brand. Its includes to create a dedicated community offline / online, activate and monitor this community, create a data base of consumers, send them information through newsletters or direct mailing, invite them to special events, provide them with special offers, follow up through a CRM program and push them to recommend your brand / product. Loyal consumer’s management is much cheaper than mass communication because highly targeted. It allows by the end of the day to activate advertising message amoung your database of loyal consumers almost for free.


In a world where un-effective advertising will cost to any company more than ever before, the right balance between consumer’s acquisition and loyal consumers engagement is the safest path to your company’s organic growth.


By Thierry Cellerin, specialist in buzz marketing