How to Transform One Time Buyers into Your Most Loyal Buyers

When engaging in social media marketing, most small businesses typically focus on attracting new leads and utilizing soft content to convert one-time buyers into customers. After all, the only reason why your brand is doing marketing is to get new customers. However, if you are not nurturing those customers to become loyal buyers, you may be missing out on a lot.

On the other hand, if you nurture your buyers to become return buyers, they will buy more, leave reviews, and share their experiences with other social media users, which can lead to exponential business growth. To achieve this, you need to focus on building customer loyalty. In this article, we will look at how you can turn the one-time buyers or even visitors to your page into your most loyal brand advocates. 

What is Brand Loyalty?

Brand loyalty occurs when a customer consistently purchases from the same brand, typically due to a strong emotional connection with the brand. This relationship commonly develops as a result of the trust established between the customer and the brand, along with the customer's confidence in the brand's value. 

It's worth noting that it will cost you less to encourage customers to buy from you again than to convince them to buy for the first time. That means there are numerous monetary benefits associated with brand loyalty. 

According to one report, by boosting their customer retention by 5%, businesses can enjoy a 25% increase in profit. According to other studies, repeat and loyal customers tend to spend more on each purchase than first-time customers. With a better relationship with a brand, they may even pay 67% more. However, brand loyalty doesn't happen by chance. Brands have to cultivate it with their customers.

How to Convert First-Time Visitors Into Buyers

Before we discuss how to market to lurkers and turn them into loyal buyers, we also need to work on turning first-time visitors into buyers. Here are tips on doing that:

Start a Conversation

Reports indicate that e-commerce shoppers are now very reluctant to share their information due to privacy concerns. To overcome this challenge, you can offer them something in return for this information. If you are dealing with first-time visitors, they are also comparing the price in different stores. Engage first-time customers in a conversation to understand how you can make their conversations better.

Have a Simple Navigation

One of the top reasons for cart abandonment is that users can't find what they are looking for, or the whole process is cumbersome. Therefore, to turn your first-time buyers into repeat buyers, you need to make it easy for them to find what they are searching for and make the entire navigation intuitive.

Remember that your website is your brand's billboard, which should provide the necessary information about your business, answer visitors' questions, enable easy navigation between different product categories, and even facilitate product purchases. Therefore, ensure you have a clear taxonomy for ease of website navigation. 

Taxonomy refers to how you group and classify items on your site. When creating one, include the necessary search terms and the right keywords. Other tips you can use to improve taxonomy are:

• Check competitor websites. Explore websites in your industry to see the kinds of words and phrases they use.
• Consider Google ranking. Check Google Trends to see the words and phrases that businesses in your industry are ranking for.
• Consider your traffic sources. Look at your traffic to see where most of your traffic is coming from.

Have a Great Landing Page

When visitors land on your website or page, what is the first impression they get? It's essential to have a well-streamlined, easy-to-use, and appealing website that meets the user's interests and needs. To increase your conversion, use the following tips:

• Have vivid visuals. Ensure that you have images that show the product from different angles. Users should be able to click and magnify the products to see the greater details. Add short videos that show how to use the product. 
• User-friendly website. Your site should have submenus leading users to different areas of your website. If there are links, they should load quickly, and any internal search button should be easily accessible.
• A strong CTA. Add a CTA to encourage visitors who are ready to convert to take action. These should include words such as "Buy Now" or "Add to Cart."

Building Relationships with Your Visitors

When new customers feel your brand affinity, they are more likely to become loyal customers. Before they even make their first visit to your website, make sure you have a good relationship with customers. At times, you can have a robust group of followers, but these aren't necessarily customers. Therefore, start the conversation by asking them to share their contact information.

• Gather contact information. Use forms to gather information on the visitors to your site. Encourage the visitors to opt in to get emails, as well as other communications. Ultimately, you create a list of people who are interested in your brand.
• Welcome message. Welcome messages can help introduce your brand to customers. You can use email marketing to provide them with the key points of the customer's buying journey.
• Consider customer behaviors. You can use email lists in response to the customer’s action, providing them with the relevant messaging and creating time for you to do other things. 

Leverage All Opportunities

At times, your customers may not make a purchase, but that doesn't mean you should give up. Instead, you should encourage them to buy in the future. Consider how to engage with customers in real-time so that you can respond to them in an authentic and relevant manner. You can analyze your data in a CRM to see customers’ patterns. You can then use the tool to maximize your sales through:

• Automation of cart abandonment. Cart abandonment is a significant challenge, as studies indicate that 70% of e-commerce shoppers tend to abandon their carts before completing the checkout process. Therefore, when someone visits your site and abandons the cart without any follow-up, an abandoned cart email can be automatically generated to follow up with them.
• Ad retargeting. Even after people have left your site, you can continue serving their interests using retargeted ads on social media platforms such as Facebook, Google, and Instagram. By doing so, you will remind your visitors to return to your site and make a purchase.
• Paid search. You can use paid searches to bring traffic to your site. It can help you engage your previous and current customers.
• Reviews and recommendations. You can use follow-up automations to ask customers to share their thoughts on their purchase and create valuable website content.

Make it Easy to Communicate

You cannot have a good relationship with customers without good communication. When customers are aware of who to contact, they are more likely to communicate with your website. Thus, ensure that all your contact information, such as phone number, email address, and links to social media, is prominently shown. You can also have a live chat feature to answer questions fast and efficiently. 

How to Turn First-Time Customers into Brand Advocates

After you have marketed to your first-time buyer, the next step should be to turn them into brand advocates. To do that, you will need consistent brand efforts. Here are several ways of doing that:

Share Your Brand Story

To build trust with your audience, focus on connecting with them on an emotional level. This should capture the origins of your brand and its why. You should use it to explain the motivation behind your product offerings, the gaps they are filling in the market, and the vision that led to the launch of the brand.

Consistently Provide High-Quality Products and Services

If you consistently create subpar products, it can be challenging to offer high-quality ones. If customers are assured that they will consistently receive high-quality products or services from your business, they will easily turn into brand advocates. According to a PWC study, 80% of customers are ready to pay more for products that are sustainably made or sourced.

Focus on Offering an Experience, Not Just a Transaction

One of the key factors that affects customer loyalty is the quality of customer service. If you want to turn that one-time buyer into a repeat customer who will leave an exemplary review, you should focus on providing them with an unmatched experience. An example of a brand that does this is Chewy, as it sends a condolence message to customers after their pets pass away. 

If the customer had unused food, they also offer reimbursement. That means they offer their customers a worry-free experience on automated orders. This action also demonstrates to customers that the brand genuinely cares about their feelings. It is, therefore, effective in providing an emotional connection that results in higher customer loyalty.

Follow Up with Customers

Sometimes, your branding may be flashy, and you may even offer a smooth customer experience, but people will still forget that they made a purchase from you. To overcome this challenge, you can make a conscious decision to collect the customer's information to follow up with them later. It's not compulsory that they read all the follow-ups, but some of those follow-up emails can lead to repeat sales. 

Create a Top-Notch After-Purchase Experience 

In addition to the follow-up we mentioned, you also need to focus on providing an exceptional after-purchase experience. Remember that when customers are buying the product for the first time, they may be anxious about the purchase they are making. You can reassure them by offering good after-sales service, such as after-care tips or building brand loyalty.

Have a Loyalty Program

Loyalty programs such as Frequent Flyer programs are a good example of how loyalty programs work. The goal is typically to reward customers with perks and discounts in recognition of their continued patronage of the business. Just like it works with large companies such as American and Delta airlines, you can also do the same with your small business.

Have a Flexible Return Policy

When customers purchase products for the first time, they are often anxious about what will happen if the product fails to meet their needs or arrives damaged. Therefore, you need to reassure your customers that they will have their money back. According to one study, 81% of customers report being loyal to brands with a generous return policy. On the other hand, a restrictive return policy can impact customer retention.

A Referral Program

Referral marketing is an effective way to acquire and retain customers. This is because statistics indicate that 84% of customers trust recommendations from friends and family. Therefore, if you are developing your first-time customers through a referral program, they can easily become loyal customers in the long run.

Leverage Content Marketing

Content marketing is a popular method for customer acquisition. It involves creating various types of content, including videos, podcasts, blog posts, and social media posts. This is effective because it enables you to have a good brand image, which can help in customer retention. It also shows your current customers that you are providing value to them, especially when they are already familiar with your brand. 

Request Product Reviews

There are two ways in which product reviews contribute to customer retention. One is that it shows you what they don't like about your brand, so you can correct it. Secondly, if they have something positive to say about your brand, it will remind them of the need to engage with the brand in future.

Customer Questions and Surveys

If you want to learn what customers like or dislike about your brand, you can do that using customer surveys and questions. Similarly, product reviews can provide valuable insights into areas that need improvement. When you ask your customers to answer questions, you remind them of your brand’s existence and show them that you care about the product, thereby positively impacting customer retention.

Final Thoughts

Converting one-time buyers into loyal customers can yield numerous benefits. These customers are more likely to spend more on your brand than first-time buyers. You will have higher revenues at a lower customer acquisition cost. If you are wondering how to do that, our guide will help you.