Loyal customers are the holy grail for your business. They buy more, they cost less to service and maintain, they tell their friends about you, and they are more likely to overlook a misstep here and there on those days when you’re not quite at your best.
Data shows it costs 5 times more to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one. And research also shows that just a 5% increase in customer retention can increase your profits anywhere between 25% and 100%.
It’s easy to see why smart companies invest boatloads of money into loyalty programs. Loyal customers are like the gift that keeps on giving.
But creating loyal customers doesn’t happen by chance.
You’ve got to create an environment within your company that fosters it. That means you’ve got to pay special attention to the way you operate your business, including the culture you cultivate and the people you bring on your team.
And you’ve also got to put intense focus on what you produce outside your business to woo your customers, such as your digital marketing efforts, and the customer experience you deliver at every touchpoint.
The culture and environment you create internally influences what you do externally.
Get these elements right, and you’ll enjoy the benefits that come along with building a fiercely loyal customer base.
Struggle with any of these essential ingredients, and you’re likely to find yourself with a leaky bucket, where you invest a ton of precious resources to get customers, but lose just as many (if not more) out the other end when they don’t come back. No bueno.
Your Catalyst for Consistently Earning Loyal Customers
I’m Sonia Thompson, founder of TRY Business School. After earning my MBA, I spent 9 years at Johnson & Johnson growing million and billion dollar healthcare brands around the world. And now as an entrepreneur I help businesses get the customers they want and keep them coming back for more.
I’m the author of Delight Inside and it’s companion workbook, host of a top-rated business podcast, and a columnist at Inc. I’ve conducted nearly 150 interviews with entrepreneurs and have dissected their best practices and keys to success. And I’ve published 100+ articles and videos on marketing and entrepreneurship around the web.
I combine all those experiences, from three different worlds, academic, corporate, and entrepreneurship, to bring a unique and dynamic perspective that will give your teams the information, training, and tools you need to transform your business into a customer magnet.
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What Others Have Said About
Working With Me
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We hired Sonia as a consultant to help us improve our customer loyalty program. She helped us see what we were offering was too cumbersome for our patients. In the end Sonia helped us create (and more importantly get approved) a plan that improved the experience for our customers and worked with our internal systems and budgets.
Angelica Corsi, Associate Product Director at Johnson & Johnson Diabetes Care
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Startup Buenos Aires hosted a talk with Sonia on ‘How to be a Customer Magnet’ with our entrepreneur community. She gave a fantastic presentation which broke down how to utilise marketing techniques within businesses and as an individual. The talk received a fantastic reaction and we look forward to working with Sonia in the future.
Will Hiscocks, Business Development Coordinator at StartUp Buenos Aires
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We hosted a roundtable for people who’d placed their entrepreneurial dreams on a shelf based on fears or lack of information on how and where to begin. Sonia Thompson informed and inspired our group with practical tips and innovative ideas on what to do to get beyond the barriers they felt prevented them from pursuing their dreams. All the women remarked how her engaging talk erased some of the question marks holding them back from getting started. Since then, three of the attendees have started their businesses!
Lisa Williams, Founder at Life With Lisa E
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Sonia is brilliant when it comes to online marketing strategy.
Jerod Morris, VP of Marketing at Rainmaker Digital
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Believe me – Sonia knows content. In fact, she’s one of the first people I think of whenever we need a post written for our blog about content strategy or a deep dive on the tactics for creating truly “epic” content. Her warm, approachable style – both in her writing and in person – makes potentially complex topics easy and enjoyable to learn.
Glen Long, Managing Editor at Smart Blogger
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Dear Sleep Suit: I Love You
How to create remarkable customer experiences that earn loyalty (and don’t leave you broke)
Creating a satisfied customer, and delivering quality customer service is a cost of doing business. It will not help you win the game, or prevent your customer from moving on to another business who offers a discount, or some shiny new product.
You’ve got to create an experience for your customer that is remarkable. One that moves beyond the transaction, and connects them to you at a deeper, more emotional level.
And to do that consistently, and in a manner that is still profitable for you, you’ve got to plan in advance what experience you want to deliver, and how you will do it over and over again.
The Missing Link:
Topic Authority:
- Author of a book and workbook on customer delight, Delight Inside: Build Your Dream Business That Keeps Customers Coming Back for More
- Author of eBook, 95 Ways to Get Your Customers to Love You
- 15+ years as a marketer and entrepreneur with a focus on how to get and keep customers
My Published Articles on the Topic:
- How to Build a Business that Creates Deep Customer Relationships
- Customer Intimacy: The Unfair Advantage of Smart Businesses
- 4 Ways to Use Customer Intimacy to Grow Your Business
The Art and Science of Wooing Customers Digitally
How to create an integrated content strategy that turns strangers into friends, friends into fans, and fans into loyal customers (without making you want to bang your head up against a wall)
Content marketing is a smart strategy to build your business. But even though the promise of content marketing is strong, many companies struggle to realize all the benefits that come with implementing it.
They publish, and publish, and publish, and don’t always get the results they are looking for.
It doesn’t have to be this way. You need an integrated content strategy that removes the randomness from your approach and gives you a clear roadmap for what content to produce, when, and where. As a result, you’ll be able to achieve your business goals as you attract, nurture, and convert your ideal customers into loyal ones.
The Missing Link:
Topic Authority:
- Copyblogger certified content marketer, Hubspot Inbound Marketing Certified, and Hubspot Content Marketing Certified
- Host of top rated business podcast, I Am the One: Entrepreneur Edition, virtual summit host, Inc. columnist, written for publications such as Huffington Post, Success, Smart Blogger, Addicted 2 Success, and published 100+ articles and videos around the web
- Creator of eCourse The Customer Magnet: How to Build a Content Strategy that Builds Your Business
My Published Articles on the Topic:
- How to Accelerate Your Blog’s Growth with a Simple Content Strategy
- Increase Sales Even with a Tiny Budget with This Winning Old School Strategy
- Demystifying Epic Content: How to Actually Create It, Not Just Jabber About How Important It Is
That Idea Sucks
How to create a unified, unbothered, and unmatched team diverse in thought, experiences, and backgrounds that is relentless about solving customer problems like none other
You are limited by your frame of reference. And if everyone on your team looks, thinks, and has had similar experiences as you, collectively you will struggle to stay on top of the evolving and nuanced needs of your customers.
You need a team that will challenge each other, bring new perspectives, and celebrate how their differences can make your company better at serving your customers.
To do that, you need to seek out diverse talent and create an environment where everyone feels like they belong. One where every voice is heard and valued. Even the voices of dissent.
The Missing Link:
Topic Authority:
- English-speaking African-American woman living in Spanish-speaking Argentina
- 5 years as a diversity & inclusion champion and affinity group leader at Johnson & Johnson
- Managed global launches spanning 13 markets across North America, Europe, and Australia
My Published Articles on the Topic:
- Pepsi Ad Debacle Is a Perfect Example of the 1 Thing Many Companies Get Wrong
- “Black Women at Work” Hashtag Proves Ever-Present Diversity Problem. Hiring Diversely Isn’t the Solution
- How to Make Everyone On Your Team Feel Like They Belong
Fearless, Fanatical, Failures
How smart companies build a culture that fearlessly innovates, is fanatical about customer servanthood, and is propelled to success through failure
Corporate culture is often thought of as a woo-woo thing that doesn’t have an impact. Thus, many companies put a mission and vision statement together, plaster it on their website, and get back to the business of growing their business.
But the culture you create within your company is inextricably linked to what you produce and how you show up to your customers. And if you don’t work to foster the culture you want, another one that you may not like so much will develop.
Make sure you actively build a culture that is designed to fuel the achievement of your goals, rather than one that hinders it.
The Missing Link:
Topic Authority:
- Survived 4 corporate restructurings and integrations, and have seen first hand what works in building a thriving culture and what doesn’t
- Organized and hosted Entrepreneur Survival Summit, a virtual conference where I interviewed 38 experts on the essential mindset companies need to build and grow a thriving business
- Deconstructed the success factors most conducive to building a thriving business through interviewing nearly 150 entrepreneurs
