It often costs B2B marketers more to acquire new customers than to retain existing ones. That’s why businesses must track and minimize B2B marketing churn.
This guide explains what marketing churn is and how to reduce the rate at which customers leave. We’ll also provide automated strategies to win churned buyers back.
What is marketing churn?
Why should businesses care about marketing churn?
Regularly churning customers results in companies losing monthly, quarterly, or annual recurring revenue. It's particularly troublesome when marketing teams cannot acquire new customers at a faster rate over the same period.
Churn can also have long-term adverse effects on a company’s stock price, as well as brand awareness and favorability. That’s why tracking and addressing a business’s marketing churn rate is essential.
What is a marketing churn rate?
Different types of marketing churn
Voluntary or active marketing churn
Customers actively discontinue product or service use for various reasons, including inadequate support, lack of upgrades, and pricing concerns. Unexpected cost increases for material expenses can also impact customers who cannot afford higher fees, leading to churn.
Involuntary or passive marketing churn
Involuntary churn refers to customers who stop using a product or service unintentionally. For instance, a customer may forget to update new credit card information for their software subscriptions, or software products may update beyond a customer’s phone model, browser version, or operating system, effectively locking the customer out.
Strategies to reduce customer churn and boost retention
Strategy 1: Analyze customer feedback, reviews, and social comments
To keep marketing churn rates low, track customer feedback through online customer surveys to learn what features are resonating and find areas for improvement.
B2B marketers can also launch net promoter score (NPS) surveys to gauge whether existing customers would be willing to recommend a product or service to their friends and family, on a scale of one to ten. A low NPS score indicates dissatisfied customers.
Also, be aware of the brand sentiment customers share on social media and through first and third-party product reviews. Use sentiment analysis tools to review text-based audience tone and intent regarding a product or service.
Strategy 2: Improve customer service and support
Work with customer success teams to improve the overall support strategy. Sitting in on or recording customer calls for quality assurance are ways to learn which product support tactics are working or not.
Also, conduct a strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis to compare what services competitors offer regarding support to reduce churn. For example, if a SaaS company loses clients because competitors provide 24/7 live customer support, then consider offering the same solution.
Many of the most successful sales organizations segment their most valuable customers from smaller revenue-generating buyers or clients. This marketing retention strategy is called the Pareto principle, or the 80/20 rule, which says that the top 20% of customers often bring in 80% of a business’s recurring revenue.
Over-servicing a business’s top 20% of customers allows marketers to boost their satisfaction rates and continue to grow their clients’ lifetime value (CLV) or recurring revenue.
Below are ways to provide premium services to top-tier clients.
Strategy 3: Use online marketing to win back customers
B2B marketers can use automated email and online advertising solutions to re-engage and win churned customers back. Some strategies include emailing customers who recently canceled or whose credit cards expired, and using account-based marketing (ABM) with retargeted ad campaigns to churned clients or companies that have recently discontinued using a product or service.
To develop an online win-back ad campaign for B2B buyers, follow the steps below.
Reduce B2B marketing churn with LinkedIn Ads
Regardless of why customers stop buying a product or service, a high rate of B2B marketing churn can significantly impact a sales organization's brand reputation, and recurring revenue. Knowing how to calculate churn rates is important to properly track and develop appropriate strategies.
B2B marketers can reduce and prevent churn by boosting their customer retention rates through improved customer support, and user experiences. They can also create loyalty and rewards programs to keep their valued customers happy and boost their lifetime value (CLV) with the company.
Additionally, businesses can launch online win-back campaigns using automated email, account-based marketing (ABM), and retargeting strategies to re-engage and convert recently churned customers.
Visit LinkedIn Marketing Solutions to discover online advertising strategies to attract and convert B2B target audiences.