Customer Win-Back Strategies Represent Revenue Opportunity In Tight Markets

For consumer marketers, win-back offers can span a range of “we want you back” incentive offers. For BtoB marketers, win-back strategies can mean anything from trying to recover a once valuable customer to trying to restart a relationship with a once-promising prospect. But insiders agree win-backs are a big opportunity, as buying needs and priorities have changed in almost all industries.

“Don’t wait for a customer to get to ‘zero’ before they become a winback,” says Bill Franks Managing Partner for Advanced Business Analytics, for Teradata, a leading provider of data warehousing and business intelligence solutions. “Don’t wait for a client to get too far away before you decide that there’s a reason for you to reach out to them and a reason you think they can become a better prospect.”

There are some best practices for BtoB winbacks. We’ve identified five that in some ways are consistent with BtoC win-back strategies, but have their own BtoB elements. The list starts, as it always does, with definition.

     1.    Define “win-back:” The definition will change for every company, depending on the dynamics of its market and prospect database. But data on the customer or prospect is key. Just as it is critical to track an increase in interest, it is critical to track a decrease in interest or activity. “What does the data tell you,” says Franks. “Maybe there is a customer that hasn’t done any business with you over the past three months, but that’s within their normal purchase pattern. If you decide they’re a win-back candidate without knowing the complete data picture you may reach out to them at the wrong time with the wrong message and alienate them.” By the same token, Franks says a prospect that shows subtle changes, such as unopened emails or a drop in website visits, may be a win-back candidate.

     2.    Set thresholds: Email engagement may be a good harbinger of declining interactions. Not only should BtoB marketers set sales interest or meeting-based goals, they should also look at total interactions. “Some businesses have low purchase frequency cycles,” says Lori Connelly, Senior Analyst with Merkle, a leading database marketing agency. “If you see that 20% of your clients have stopped opening emails, you need to understand why this has happened and address them as a group.”

     3.    Set goals: Both Franks and Connelly advise realistic goal setting to guide the win-back campaign. As Connelly dsays there is actually a very small percentage of customers that will be re-engaged. BtoB marketers need to decide the kind of customers they want to win-back, and then identify the kind of business they want back. The nature of the win-back campaign (through meetings, emails, phone etc.) will stem from the goals.

     4.    Decide when to cut bait: “What customers are worth the effort?” asks Franks. “You cannot apply a generic rule here. Know what the potential value of your prospects are.” Most companies have adopted lead scoring techniques that will help answer these questions. But the patterns that to lead scores will also define the content of an email campaign and the frequency of the effort.

     5.    Test: “Everything should then be tested,” says Connelly. “Pick a minimum sample size so that if the test does not work it will affect a small number of clients. Mitigate the effects of mistakes, but understand why customers have fallen off the radar and test what it will take to win them back.”

Despite the continued uptick in emails and crowded inboxes, Connelly still believes email is the most effective winback strategy. Franks agrees, provided that the content of those emails correlates to the prospects value and needs.