The COVID scenario revealed an ugly truth about the business world: it is impossible to sustain a business on the existing clients. Many businesses lost their traction and direction when they realised that their clients wouldn’t be able to pay them. What would you do in such a case?

In any such scenario, the first thought would be to develop an effective business growth strategy before things go too far south. There are a few such strategies that come to mind when the business requires a quick boost in revenue. Some of them include increasing advertising spend, optimising product pricing, and seasonal promotional campaigns. However, one highly implicit business strategy to improve revenue is former customer reactivation. The strategy is often overlooked and might be the simplest and most cost-effective strategy.

Definition

Customer reactivation can be an umbrella term and incorporate different meanings under different contexts. Hence, when referring to customer reactivation in this article, it will include any customer that was buying a product or service from your company. It will not refer to any lead, prospect, referral, or stakeholder. It strictly means an actual customer that has paid for your services.

The sort of customers that this strategy will target are those that have stopped using your products. The outreach process will help you reengage and resurrect these lost avenues.

Benefits

The most obvious benefits of this business strategy to improve revenue are listed below.

1. Increased long-term value: the other strategies mentioned above more often than not create short-term leads with a lack of loyal customers. Reactivating old clients would most likely ensure long-term association.
2. Decreased acquisition costs: reactivated customers are not new clients. Hence, the acquisition costs associated with getting new clients are greatly minimised. However, the greatest business maxim that acquiring a new customer is ten times costlier than retaining an old one still holds true.
3. Better feedback: once you reengage with your old clients, you will find why they left in the first place. Use that information to improve your current customer experience.
4. Increased loyalty: once clients realise that you care about them and deem them more important than new customers, their loyalty is sure to improve.

How to Launch a Reactivation Campaign?

1. Target Identification

The foremost step would be to identify which customers you wish to reactivate. The right customer reactivated at the right will severely affect the long-term loyalty of the client. Additionally, the wrong customer attempted to be reactivated will lead to loss of resources with no benefit.

2. Goal Identification

Establish certain factors which determine the scope of reactivation. For example, ask questions such as will you extend the campaign only till you secure better sales, or will you push new products and strategies as well?

3. Response Generation

The client must have left for a strong reason. Merely identifying and addressing the reason will not win the customer back. Instead, you will have to generate appropriate responses and make them believe that you will improve your customer service and experience. Along with that, intrigue them enough to generate curiosity for your new offerings and explain why the new business method is better than the prior one.

4. Do Not Rely on One Strategy

Use various methods, offerings, and discounts to earn back a customer. It is not sure that a single strategy will work for them all.

5. Follow-up

The best habit to gain a customer is to follow up after a pitch. Not only will you gain closure about a prospect but also recognise the effectiveness of your strategy.

6. Progress Tracking

After a follow-up, it is necessary for you to keep track of the strategies that worked—also, note which competitors are the easiest to take business from and repeat.

Most businesses will not face a sudden need to increase their revenue and gain new clients rapidly. However, situations such as the pandemic can really put businesses in a pickle. In such a scenario, conventional techniques such as increased marketing and promotional campaigns will be run by everyone. This will lead to a reduction in the efficacy of the strategy. Hence, use the power of reactivating customers when you can and reap tremendous benefits. The resultant sales cycle is also shorter and highly optimised. Customer reactivation is irrefutably the best business growth strategy for a good revenue boost.