Most sources say that the cost of acquiring a new customer compared to the cost of keeping an existing customer is between 4 to 10 times higher. Some sources say the cost of acquiring a new customer is over 30 times that of keeping an existing one.

A key element in the cost is probably the industry or market you are in and other factors like those pointed out in this Aria infographic from a post at Hubspot entitled A Visual Introduction to Customer Lifetime Value written by Emma Snider that points out that on average, 80% of a company’s future profits come from 20% of its existing customers and that totally satisfied customers contribute over twice as much revenue as a customer who is not making customer relationship management and the best ways to accomplish it a critical consideration for any company.

Cultivating customer satisfaction through community is a mutually beneficial way to foster communication and trust between you and your existing customers, potential customers and employees through a central hub, your website, which will emanate your customer centric culture across all your social channels and magnify your organic reach through SEO to increase your inbound lead generation.

Social CRM Communities act as a portal to gain valuable information through in-depth analytics to enhance and target your marketing initiatives more effectively by knowing your customers, discovering patterns through interaction to build buyer personas to personalize your marketing messages in the most effective way available today.


 

Businesses that integrate content marketing, social media and SEO strategy are seeing big results. Integrating these marketing channels can be a challenge and marketing from Ground Zero provides a very cost effective way of pulling all these channels together to provide impressive long term and sustainable results.

For any business looking for better ROI along with small and medium sized businesses with limited digital marketing resources it is important to cut through the noise and find ways to provide your business with the most economically viable and sustainable ways to build your brand, provide great customer service and drive new business.

Most businesses have an online presence with exposure to social media to some extent but in many cases do not feel they have the resources, to take their online marketing to the next level. If this describes your present situation read on because marketing from ground zero can be the answer.

Brands Building Community Should Promote Own Sites

Today, as reported by by Gavin O'Malley at Media Post “At least as community-building tools, marketers should forget about Facebook and Twitter. That’s the crux of a new report from Forrester Research, which suggests that the social giants are losing their grip on what has historically been known as “social” marketing.

“Top brands Facebook and Twitter posts reach only about 2% of their fans and followers, and less than 0.1% of fans and followers interact with each post,” Forrester analyst Nate Elliott explains in the new report. “Marketers need to rebuild their social relationship strategies around sites that work.”

In place of Facebook and Twitter, Elliott and his colleagues suggest that brands build out their own social-friendly properties. Indeed, U.S. online adults are nearly three times more likely to visit a brand’s Web site than to engage them on Facebook.”

More than 80% of small businesses cite that (Ground Zero) - their website is the number one way they engage with customers. This statistic alone shows that businesses should be looking for ways to more fully utilize this precious resource.

Great Customer Service Is Key to Free Publicity

There is no better way to provide excellent customer service than through an onsite community. More than two-thirds of American consumers said they're willing to spend 14 percent more on average with a company that delivers excellent service, according to new survey from American Express.

Providing great customer service can also get you free publicity through recommendations and referrals. Forty-six percent of respondents said they always tell others when they've had good service interactions, and 42 percent said that a recommendation from a friend or family member is more likely to get them to do business with a new company.

The Power of Customer Loyalty

New customers driven by existing customers’ recommendations are the second-biggest source of revenue—more than new customers who come to a business from other sources.

Repeat customers were by far the biggest source of revenue for more than 43 percent of entrepreneurs, while new customers accounted for about 19 percent of revenues.

Whatever the trending term these onsite customer care and benefit centers (communities) can benefit companies across the industry horizontal. There is no better way to create measure and maintain customer loyalty and drive referrals and recommendations than by having an onsite social community.

An onsite social community offers benefits that no other medium can match and is the most economical way to maintain and grow a loyal customer base. One Big Broadcast has been a leader in developing and customizing these types of platforms for years.

A Proven Platform

One Big Broadcast has been at the technological forefront of Onsite Social Communities for years and has been redefining the customer experience and how businesses and their employees interact with both their existing and potential customers by taking customer care, service and benefits to a whole new level. Onsite Social Communities shifts customer support and service to being part of the brand marketing mix.

One Big Broadcast’s SEO automation and CMS technology combined with our inclusive suite of marketing products and fully integrated mobile capability provides a low cost way to create an ecosystem within itself that can power your online and mobile marketing initiatives to cost effectively cut through the noise to market smarter.

It’s understandable for businesses to be excited by the prospect of new customers. Promotional emails, social media marketing and search are all effective ways to find new business and help a company grow. That being said, it always pays to make sure existing clients don’t feel unappreciated. Social platforms are a great way to do this, but many companies haven’t fully embraced the tactic.

Past business can fall by the waysideAccording to a recent survey by Socialbakers, 61.7 percent of businesses consider customer acquisition to be a very important goal for social media in 2014. However, only 28.9 percent feel the same way about customer care. Gaining some new prospects but losing dedicated clients is a lot like taking two steps forward and one step back, so companies may consider the trade-off a net positive. Unfortunately, not every business is able to weigh these costs effectively.

As part of a study of marketing styles, the authors of Marketing Metrics: The Definitive Guide to Measuring Marketing Performance discovered that the probability of making a sale to a new prospect is between 5 and 20 percent. Conversely, companies average 60 to 70 percent success rates when it comes to existing customer sales. The smaller a company is, the more tightly it needs to cling to existing clients, so this kind of retention is extremely important.

Keep your friends closeDon’t outflank yourself by building a marketing house on quicksand. Use every channel available, particularly social media, to both bring in new business, while maintaining close ties with existing partners. You can do so by:

• Offering rewards. To encourage social media follows and shares, let current fans and connections be the first to hear about discounts, promotions or contests.
   
• Sharing news. The people who have done business with you in the past are the most likely to want to know about the inner workings of your business – and their distribution of this news will provide invaluable coverage.
   
• Customer service. People increasingly turn to social media to lodge complaints or make inquiries because the audiences on these channels hold companies accountable. Encourage this kind of activity and respond promptly to make sure existing customers stay happy.