Attracting Customers To Your Small Business | Part 2: Returning Customers | Marketing for S.O.B's (Small Owned Businesses)

Welcome to Part 2 of our two part series - attracting customers.

This week on the Small Owned Business (S.O.B.) Marketing podcast we are focusing on returning customers. We discuss strategies small businesses can use for retaining repeat customers and building brand loyalty.

Join us as we discuss the importance of personalization, relationship nurturing, and building community for your repeat customers.

If you haven’t watched Part 1, we suggest you watch that first: https://youtu.be/cEEP2yGseXM

PLEASE REMEMBER TO FOLLOW AND LEAVE A 5 STAR REVIEW!

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Chapters:

00:00 Thank You For Listening & Please Leave us a 5 Star Review

04:40 Attracting Repeat Customers to Your Small Business

06:47 Goals for Retaining Customers

12:27 Personalization in Customer Experience

21:22 Ongoing Support and Customer Feedback

29:28 Marketing Strategies for Retaining Customers

44:28 Nurturing Community for Customer Retention

48:53 TLDL: Summary of Attracting Repeat Customers to Your Small Business

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𝐑𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓:

Attracting Customers To Your Small Business | Part 1: New Customers: https://youtu.be/cEEP2yGseXM

𝐒.𝐎.𝐁 (𝐒𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐎𝐰𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐁𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬) 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲: https://www.skool.com/sob

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This podcast is brought to you by THE SEASONED MARKETER. For more free marketing resources, follow us here:

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*Pre-Episode Clip*
Vivian: I almost would argue that the reoccurring customer is, I don't want to say more important because new customers are the lifeline of your business. I understand that, especially if you're growing. But those reoccurring customers are going to be the people that over time are going to spend a lot of money with you.
*Intro* Chelsea: Hey everyone and welcome to the S.O.B. Marketing podcast. Where we celebrate to S.O.B. you are, and if you haven't figured it out yet - we mean Small Owned Business, we don't mean S.O.B...

Vivian: Listen, we know that as a small business owner you are working hard on the daily to keep your business fully operational while trying to promote it. And while some days it may feel like the business is owning you, if we're being honest with each other I bet you would admit that you wouldn't give up the insanity for anything.

Chelsea: Our commitment here at the S.O.B. Marketing podcast is to give you the real talk, what works when it comes to advertising, marketing, and promoting your business. And then what doesn't really work.

Vivian: And Chelsea and I promise to always keep the conversation real.

*Beginning of Episode*

Vivian: Welcome back to another episode of the SOB, Small Owned Business Marketing Podcast. I know you guys were waiting for me to say something else, right? SOB. I am here with my beautiful baby sister, Chelsea. If you guys are new around here, yeah, Chelsea and I are big sister, little sister, and we are marketing professionals. We talk about all things small business marketing related. So thanks for joining us.
Let me ask you guys, how many episodes have you listened to of this podcast? If it's more than one, if it's more than two, you need to go ahead and leave us a review. Go ahead and subscribe and also leave us a review. Tell us what you like about the podcast, what you don't like about the podcast, all of that good stuff. It helps to get this podcast in front of other small business owners and you guys know we're here to build a community. We want to prepare and build your confidence in being able to manage your marketing in-house. That's what we're all about.
So Chelsea, what...oh. Before we get started, let me remind you guys, there is a TLDL section. Too long, didn't listen. If you are on the run because you're a small business owner and you are so, so busy, go ahead and skip to that TLDL section.
Chelsea will give you a synopsis of the conversation we have today. Then when you have time, we want you to come back and listen to the full length episode because you need to get all of that context and all of the conversation.
So Chelsea, tell us what is the topic for today?

Chelsea: Well, Vivian, before we get started, I told Vivian I was going to call her out on here. So I'm going to keep my word. Move your arm a little bit. Do you see the color of our chairs? Then do you see Vivian's shirt? It's like the same yellow. She's blending in.

Vivian: Yeah, I have to tell you something funny since you brought it up. We were traveling back from Alabama recently and there was a billboard on the side of the road coming out of Atlanta.
It was a State Farm, shocking insurance, I'm talking about insurance again. It was a State Farm insurance billboard and the lady actually was wearing, so their colors are red, she was wearing a red dress. So from afar, as we approached the billboard, it looked like it was just a floating head. I was kind of concerned, and then when we got closer, I was like, no, she wore a red dress and they put her against a red background. I don't know why. State Farm, if you're listening to this, you might want to tell your agents for picture day don't wear anything related to red because you know, otherwise they're going to look like floating heads on billboards, on the side of the interstate.

Chelsea: Oh gosh, that's funny. You know, I'm surprised they put that billboard up.

Vivian: Well, I was too, to be honest. I was kind of surprised that somebody in their marketing or advertising department didn't reach out to the agent and say like, hey, can you provide us a different headshot?
The only thing I could think is they do these big national buys and this is a part of a, it's an advantage when you join their teams that they put these ads out there for you so that you don't have to handle it. So I think someone was just like, Hey, let me mark it off my to do list and move on.

Chelsea: Yeah. That's probably what happened. Okay. Moving on. Let's start the episode. Vivian, today we are talking about, we're doing part two.
Part two of our series about attracting customers. Today we are focusing on reoccurring or repeat customers. Last week we focused on new customers, how to attract them, what the goals, messaging, content, channels, all that stuff is for new customers. Now we're going to do that for returning customers because y'all it's different.
If you haven't listened to last week's episode, part one, you could listen to them out of order, but I suggest listening to both of them.

Vivian: Yeah, do it chronologically you guys. Think of it this way. Well, because listen, in order to even get someone to be a reoccurring customer or a repeat customer, you need them to first be a customer, a new customer, right?

Chelsea: She proved me wrong. Okay.

Vivian: Go listen to the new customer one because the strategies are going to be a tad different. New customers, we're talking about how to get people through that door, how to get people to actually take out their wallet and give you their hard earned money. All right. This conversation, it's a little different because at this point they've already given you their hard earned money once. Once. Okay.
The goal now is, hey, give me more of it, okay? Several times, not just a second time, but we want you to come back for a third, a fourth, a fifth purchase. That's where the conversations could be a little different. So I do think it's helpful to know how to get them through the door, and then you can focus on how to get them to come back like 20 gajillion times.

Chelsea: That's fair, that's fair. Okay, so I was wrong. Listen to last week's first and then come listen to this.

Vivian: Listen to your big sister, Vivian.

Chelsea: Oh my God.

Vivian: That's why I'm the big sister.

Chelsea: You're the big sister because you were born first. That's how that works. Let's move on. Vivian, where do you want to start? Do you want to start with goals?

Vivian: Yeah, let's go ahead and start with goals because I do think that when you approach your marketing, understanding your goal is going to be extremely helpful in allowing you to gain perspective on how much time you give the marketing initiative and also the strategies you employ.

Chelsea: Absolutely. So your goals, of course, when it comes to returning customers is going to be a little bit different. You're going to focus on building and nurturing the relationship that you've started with the with the customer. You are going to focus on retention and loyalty. Brand loyalty is a big deal for businesses. It can sometimes be very difficult to get someone to be loyal to your brand. You know what's a great example of iffy brand loyalty? What industry Vivian? Toilet paper.
Because if you're like me, I'm buying whatever toilet paper is on sale. I don't care. As long as it's not the one ply. Right?

Vivian: Right. Not calling out Angel Soft or anything.

Chelsea: If it's the real thin, then I'm not getting that. But besides that, I'm not loyal to a specific brand. Now, there are people like Vivian who are very loyal to their brand because she wants the, what is it? All organic.

Vivian: Yeah, the stuff without chemicals. Yes.

Chelsea: Yeah. Which, good for you.

Vivian: Only the best for my booty.

Chelsea: But that's a great example of that specific toilet paper company found a way to get brand loyalty in an industry that doesn't really have that.

Vivian: Yeah, I will say for most people...

Chelsea: Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe people are very loyal to their toilet papers and I'm just, I don't know what I'm talking about.

Vivian: Yeah. So you guys prove Chelsea wrong. Write in the comments below that you're loyal to your toilet paper. Tell us which kind you use. So we all know how you're treating your booties. No, but okay, to your point, there are some industries that are like that. We could say the same thing for toothpaste. All right, so toothpaste and now if you guys have taken a trip to your local Walmart and walked down the toothpaste aisle, more power to you because there are 20 gajillion different brands of toothpaste. Now similarly for someone like me, I'm looking for stuff that doesn't have, I think, flouride and all that stuff in it. So I do look for a very specific brand.

Chelsea: Y'all, I actually do have brand loyalty when it comes to toothpaste, but that's because I have sensitive teeth. So I use Sensodyne.

Vivian: That is the thing. There can be, you can carve yourself a way to bring people back through brand loyalty. I think the biggest part, this all kind of goes hand in hand, right? So Chelsea just said as a wrap up, your goals are going to be different than when you're attracting a new customer because once they have come through the door, once they've experienced your small business, your product, your service, now you shift your focus to nurturing.
Now you're like, what can I do to be able to build that relationship? Okay. Just because they bought from you one time does not mean you have a relationship with them. Okay. They've gone on one date with you. Y'all, you gotta, you gotta do a little more. You gotta work a little bit to be sure that they come back for a second date and a third date. Really that's going to be the loyalty part of it. What experiences with your business can you create to have them think, wow, I really want to do business with them moving forward. Even better, if you could get them to shun other businesses in your industry to say, no, I will only purchase from this person because I've had such a great experience with them.

Chelsea: Yeah, a great example of a way to figure out what it is you need to do to build that brand loyalty, Vivian, is just to ask for feedback. After that first initial interaction, that first purchase, ask for feedback. Because not only will that help you find any of the kinks in your process, but it'll also help you better understand what your customers are focusing on when they're going through all of your channels, when they're going through their purchasing journey.

Vivian: You're going to be doing several different things at once too when you do that. For one, you're able to get the feedback and utilize it to your advantage, like Chelsea said. The other thing is this is a great opportunity for them to be able to start leaving you reviews, whether that be on Google or whether that be on Amazon if you're selling a product on Amazon, whatever platform you're using. So it is very imperative and it's a good idea to include this in your process and to automate it so that way you're not having to think about this at all. It's just something that automatically happens when somebody purchases your product.

Chelsea: This all ties into messaging as well. The thing that I love the most about messaging when it comes to returning customers, see I'm a big nerd and I like when we can get into the nitty gritty stuff, focusing on personalization and using all of the tools you have to give returning customers a very personalized experience. That's going to make the difference. That's going to make them stick with you.

Vivian: Yeah, if you've been here long enough, if you've heard a few of our other episodes before, you have probably heard me say a time or two that personalization in 2025 is not the same personalization that we've been talking about in like 2014, okay? It's not "hi [insert name], comma".

Chelsea: That's happened to me twice now in my life.

Vivian: Oh, yes. Well, when they forgot to insert name. I'm talking about if they actually put the name.

Chelsea: I just wanted to let everyone know. Don't do that because I very distinctly remember both of these people. Well, both of these companies, businesses. I remember you so specifically because you didn't bother to put my name.

Vivian: I thought you were going to be talking to Bob on the other end. She's like, I remember your name, Bob. You didn't actually fill the field in with my name.

Chelsea: You couldn't bother to put my name? What are you doing? Okay, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Vivian: My point being, whereas we used to think personalization meant customizing an email or customizing a text to include someone's name. So like, "hi, Vivian, you're receiving this email because X, Y, and Z". That's not it nowadays. Personalization is basically taking the information and data that you have on people's past purchases or experiences with your business and leveraging it moving forward. To create the experience they will have with you.
So a perfect example of this is, let's say that I am going to a spa because Lord knows I need one. I need to go, I'm past due. I go to a spa and I sign up for their Swedish massage. They now have that information on me. They now have the time length of the massage that I booked, the type of massage that I had, and also maybe the time of the week that I'm coming in. They can utilize that data in however they feel is necessary to try to nudge me in the future into making a future purchase. That could look like, let's say I booked it on a Tuesday, right? My appointment was on a Tuesday.
That could look like them running a special promotion to send out to people that book Monday through Wednesday, because they know maybe they can take time off or maybe they're just avoiding the weekend rush. So they could send messaging to me that says, "avoid the weekend rush, book your next appointment on a Monday and get this" because they already know I'm prone to doing this because I've already done it once before.

Chelsea: Vivian, they could go even deeper. Now y'all be a little careful with this. Don't be creepy, okay? But specifically for your example, it could be that you're a massage therapist. You and them are talking and you're like, you know what? My shoulders are the big problem. If they have any products that are specifically for your shoulders, for dealing with pain there. If they have any specials that's like book an hour massage and get an extra 20 minutes on your back, on your shoulders specifically. They could go even deeper and focus on those products and services that focus on your shoulders because you told your massage therapist.

Vivian: Yeah, and let me, for one, let me tell you something funny. I don't know about you guys. You guys tell me which person you are, okay. Every year we do a girls weekend at a spa, Chateau Elan in Georgia.

Chelsea: Vivian does, she doesn't include me.

Vivian: No, this is me and my girlfriends. It's very nice, and we always get a massage or, you know, some of them, they'll get pedicures or whatever. I'm a massage girl, so I always want people rubbing my shoulders. All right, so I do that. After every appointment they will ask, the masseuse will then ask...or no maybe this time I did a facial. That's what it was. I did the facial and afterwards they're trying to pitch you the products. Okay my other girlfriend also got a facial they pitched her the products. Only one of us walked out with product that day and it was not me, because I am pretty strong when it comes to telling someone no. I can easily, it doesn't, for me it doesn't make me embarrassed to tell people no.
She's trying to sell me this $40 product and I'm just like, no, I'll pass. She'll ask me again and she's like, well, what do you use now? I'm like, well, I really don't use anything, but that's okay. I'll pass, I'm fine. Okay, my girlfriend came out with it though. I think it's always interesting because it's either that thing where you're like, I just feel bad telling someone like, I'm going to pass on this. But you guys tell me, which one are you?
Let's use that example though. You have a client that's come in and gotten a facial. Let's say it is the person that purchased the product. The key here is always going to be what systems are you using to be able to gather this information? How are you, you know, how are you collecting the information because that's the only way you're going to be able to leverage it and use it later, right? So obviously they have a point of sale system where they go in there, type in what product the person bought. Now it would be a good idea that, if let's say they buy a two ounce bottle of a product, they know that typically a person will run out within 30 days. Then at day 30, they can send a postcard that says, hey, have you run out? Do you need to reorder? Here's a QR code. Go ahead and scan it and you can make the purchase online. Whatever it is, leveraging that data is going to be super important just because that is then what is creating the personalization. Okay. So it's no longer the email that's like, "hi Vivian, thanks for your purchase".
It is now the, "hi Vivian, by the way, since you bought that two ounce bottle of that facial serum, are you out? Because now you're on day 30. If so, we've made it super convenient for you to reorder.

Chelsea: Yeah, absolutely. It doesn't even have to be that niche.

Vivian: Intense.

Chelsea: Intense. Thank you. That's a good word for it. It doesn't have to be that intense. A simpler example is if you're a boutique, someone comes in and buys jewelry, they sign up for your email list.
If you have 50 % off your, I don't know, dishware, don't send them that email. But if you have 50 % off your jewelry, send them that email.

Vivian: Yeah, the idea being, and I think the point you were trying to drive home, there is the customized...

Chelsea: You explained this wrong. Let me explain it better. Okay, go ahead.

Vivian: No. You didn't explain it wrong. What I'm saying though is the...in order to drive this home though, the idea behind customizing stuff is that the person feels like they feel seen.
Hey, you noticed what I bought, you now know my interest. It'd be very similar to if someone is buying baseball cards, you wouldn't send them a postcard to buy basketball cards. Right? Because they haven't shown any interest in basketball cards. Now, if that's your way as a small business owner to see if there's interest there or what population of the people that buy your baseball cards are interested in your basketball cards, I mean, that's up to you. You can decide if you want to spend your money there, but the personalization part of it is using the information you have on someone to tailor an experience where they feel like, they know because I bought that ring there, they know now I might be interested in necklaces and not dishes.
Because Chelsea does not cook.

Chelsea: Do they even sell dishes at boutiques? I don't know.

Vivian: They do. Some of them have jewelry and dishes and pillows, and all the things, candles, everything.

Chelsea: Well, let's move on to messaging. We've already kind of talked about messaging at this point, too. It's going to be personalized. Ongoing support is important and this is going to come back to your, you know, you're asking for feedback. You want to make sure that your customers are having a good experience with you because if they're not, then guess what? They're not going to come back. So just making sure, one, you're asking them, how's your experience? But two, if someone is having a bad experience, you need to rectify that. A great example of this will be Meta.

Vivian: Uh yeah, those little swindlers.

Chelsea: If you guys haven't listened to that episode, we did an episode on Meta Verified. We had it for a month just to see what it would be like so we could tell you guys if it's worth the money or not. Ultimately, not worth the money. We didn't even get some of the features we were promised and I went back and forth with their support team basically for the entire month and never got it rectified. So that's a great example of really bad support.

Vivian: I do want to put an asterisk there. We did not expect, the trial of the Meta Verified was not only for one month. It was not like, hey, we're only going to try it one month, and if we don't see movement, that's it. The reason we quit after one month is because they at bare minimum did not even give us the features that quote unquote we paid for.
I wanted to make that distinction because if you guys don't know, we have two YouTube channels. We have the SOB Marketing Podcast YouTube channel where if you guys are listening to this on audio only, you could go see our pretty ugly faces on the YouTube channel. But we also have The Seasoned Marketer YouTube channel. When I had posted that video about our experience with Meta Verified, there was a gentleman that said, hey, you know, maybe giving it more time. I replied back to him and I said, no, absolutely. We went in with the intention of giving it time to work, but we quit because we're not going to pay $80 a month for something if at bare minimum, they're not even giving us the thing they're telling us they're going to give us, the feature. Okay. That was the whole thing.
And the experience that Chelsea had with their support actually made us quit and cancel our subscription, because of the lack of support she got.

Chelsea: They lost a returning customer.

Vivian: Yes. That plays into what you just brought up, which is ongoing support is extremely important for the reason that for one, you do want to be the first to be notified if there's a problem with a transaction, with an experience. You want to be given the opportunity to be able to fix it for them because otherwise you guys know these people are going to be going on these Facebook groups talking about your business. Okay. You're going to have no clue unless you randomly get on there one day and put your business name in the search field.

Chelsea: Which I mean, you should also try to do.

Vivian: Yeah, we do recommend you do that every once in a while. But the point being you don't, you'd rather have them come complain to you, then go complain to the public.

Chelsea: Another form of messaging, because you are trying to build a relationship with your recurring customers, this is also when you can have a little bit of fun with it. VIP, behind the scenes, get a little more personal, and as small businesses, please do this, because you're you. You're the one person behind your small business. It's easy for you to get personal with your returning customers.

Vivian: Yeah I'm trying to think of, let's say you're not somebody that has a personal brand. So let's say you don't want to be the face of your business, you just want to sell the product or the service.
Think of it, and we've talked about how unhinged this is, but Duolingo. Wendy's has done the same thing on X, right? They're the funny, like we're going to kind of dog you, but you know, everyone likes it and they think it's hilarious. You have the capability to be able to interject a little bit of brand personality in the communication.
That is the fun part, especially when you start talking about the behind the scenes or the VIP stuff, because people do start to have a buy in, right? That's where the brand loyalty will kick in where they're like, hey, I love this brand for various reasons. That's why I'm going to continue to buy.

Chelsea: Vivian, another form of messaging, I think really important for retaining customers is sharing appreciation. Y'all. Why do you think so many businesses send you a birthday email, like a happy birthday email?

Vivian: It works.

Chelsea: It's because this is what they, well, yeah, it works. That's what they're trying to do. It helps your business, your brand stay top of mind while also continuing to nurture that relationship. "Oh they remembered my birthday." Vivian, great example of this. Our vet that we take our cats to, every year send us a postcard for our cat's birthdays.

Vivian: Do you guys, how do you guys know your cat's birthday?

Chelsea: I don't. Tim will come home and be like, you know, today's Pup's birthday. And I'll be like, my God, I need to buy him something. I don't know.

Vivian: Well, how does Tim know when his birthday is? He just made a date?

Chelsea: I guess, well, no, I think either the shelter told him or they gave like a guesstimate.

Vivian: I just think if you haven't seen the cat being birthed, how do you know when the cat's actual birthday is?

Chelsea: I feel like a vet would be able to tell.

Vivian: The vet can't tell to the date. They can give you like, oh, I think this cat is like, you know, six months old, three months old, but like they can't tell you to the date.

Chelsea: Twice a year, I get a postcard that says either "happy birthday Pup" or "happy birthday Smokey". Okay? And I love it too. I'm like, aww for my cats.

Vivian: I don't get it.

Chelsea: Okay, whatever.

Vivian: I mean, kudos to that vet who, Chelsea really does feel a sense of pride when she gets those birthday cards for the cats.

Chelsea: We don't take them to the vet, but...

*S.O.B. Community Ad*
Chelsea: I once worked with an ad agency where I had to go through and revise all their work because it would be laden with misspellings and wrong information. We were spending thousands of dollars for me to do double the work.

Vivian: Sometimes, you don’t need an ad agency - you just need resources to figure it out on your own.

Chelsea: That’s why we created the S.O.B. Community - for the small business owners who want to keep their marketing in house but still need some support.

Vivian: Get templates, courses, downloads, expert advice, weekly live calls, and a supportive group of small business owners - for just $50/month!
So head over the skool.com/sob. That's s-k-o-o-l.com/sob, all lowercase. Join today and feel confident in your marketing.
*End of S.O.B. Community Ad*

Vivian: All right, so I guess can we go ahead and move into strategy? What are some strategies that would work really well for boosting reoccurring customers?

Chelsea: A great one Vivian, loyalty programs. So last episode we talked about referrals. This is kind of the same thing. We're putting the onus on the consumer, except for with loyalty programs, it's more of you're encouraging and rewarding them for sticking with you. A lot of food industries will do this. Buy 9, your 10th is free, stuff like that. The Eclectic Chef in downtown Summerville, they do punch cards and when you've gotten to the end of your punch card you get a free entree. They already know Tim. He walks in, they already start making his food because he gets the same thing every single time and he loves his loyal, his little punch card. He gets so excited when he gets a free meal. That's a great example of one, customer experience because they know Tim, they know what he's going to get, they already start making it before he's even ordered so that they can get them in and out real quick. Tim loves that sh**.
Two, the loyalty program helps Tim be more willing to be like, oh, you know what? Well, if I spend money on this, at least it'll get me closer to a free meal.

Vivian: It's funny how marketing math works, right? We talk about girl math, it's marketing math, y'all. You're like, yeah, let me spend an extra 20 bucks to get $5 off.
Two things I want to mention. For one, if you guys have been listening to this episode and you think you hear a rooster in the background, this is not your imagination. Just know my rooster is being really loud for whatever reason. Yes, you are hearing a rooster very faintly in the background. You're not going bananas. You don't need to call your psychiatrist.
Number two, I do think loyalty programs, we actually talked about this in one of our recent SOB community calls. If you guys don't know, Chelsea and I, you can join for $50 a month, which is very reasonable, and join our community. Every week we actually hop on an hour long zoom call with other small businesses and we talk shop. We talk marketing. So they get to ask questions. We bring some maybe updates news on Instagram's latest updates, stuff like that.
Someone in our community had brought up ideas for reoccurring customers, bringing them back in and also the loyalty program very particularly because they are an apparel company. That's what they were talking about. Hey, we, sell online. What is the best mechanism or is there an app that I can use to attach on the backend of Shopify to be able to log and track how much somebody is spending and then to be able to send them some type of promotion of like, Hey, because you spent over $100, $200, enjoy $5, $10 off.
If those types of conversations are of interest to you, I highly recommend that you join our group because that's the kind of stuff we talk about. It was nice because we have another community member that has a record store and he was able to share his experience. So they were able to kind of bounce ideas off of each other and connect in that way.
Loyalty programs are great. You guys can get very creative with this stuff, and let me tell you something. If you use a POS system, a point of sale system already, most of them have this integrated. Okay. So you can very easily turn it on, you know, and call them perks. Definitely something we recommend that everybody at least consider.

Chelsea: Another marketing strategy, Vivian. Branding, staying on brand. What do I mean by this?

Vivian: Yeah, what do you mean by this? Tell me more.

Chelsea: If your consumer, if your customer has a specific experience that they enjoy the first time that they shop with you and then they come back and they have a completely different experience, you're not on brand.
You're not giving them the same experience. You're not staying within the type of branding that you tried to create. Because they came back expecting a specific type of experience and got something else instead, they're probably not going to come back.

Vivian: People love predictability. Don't underestimate that. What you're doing is you're trying to manage expectations. So if you can get to a point where you're like, when people come in, we want them to expect this level of service, or we want them to expect this experience from us. It's our role and responsibility to be able to create that and recreate that every single time.
Agree with you, I do think that plays a big part because what you're doing is you're throwing somebody off. They go in and they have a great experience with you. They purchase.
We were just talking about earlier before we hit record we were talking about flower companies. Okay great, I order, we recently unfortunately one of my best friends her mother-in-law passed and so we sent her flowers. If we were to need it on a specific date and we placed the order and they were not delivered on that specific date we would never be ordering from them again right?
That's the type of stuff, if you guys are saying, hey, we'll get your delivery there by this day and then you miss the mark. Or maybe you hit the mark the first time and then every time after that, you miss the mark. You're sending them mixed signals. They're like, am I willing to take the chance that maybe I'm not going to get the delivery I need by the expected day?

Chelsea: I just, I want to reiterate for you guys that you can't just focus on giving good service to new customers. You have to stay consistent and treat all of your customers with the same level of service, with the same level of respect and stuff like that. Like you can't dip. You can't fall off because then you're not going to get repeat customers.

Vivian: Well, and I would almost, I don't know how you feel about this Chelsea. All right.
Working, we said this in the last, in part one of this episode. A new customer cost five times more to get them in through the door. So you are working really hard. You are having to cut through clutter. A lot of clutter, right? Especially online these days. You're having to cut through clutter. You're having to spend money potentially on ads. You're paying more for all of that.
That's a lot of effort to get someone through the door. I almost would argue that the reoccurring customer is, I'm going say more important because new customers are the lifeline of your business. I understand that, especially if you're growing. But those reoccurring customers are going to be the people that over time are going to spend a lot of money with you.
So if you're deciding who to give the better service for. You're like, know, Chelsea, I can't be consistent. I gotta pick one. Either I'm going to give good service to new customers or to existing customers. I don't know, give it to the existing ones. I don't know. I do think, and obviously you guys, it's important to be consistent. Consistent across the board. But I do think that if you are not paying attention to reoccurring customers right now, you're doing a big disservice to your business because you're leaving a lot of money on the table.

Chelsea: Yeah, and you're spending a lot of money.

Vivian: Yeah. So you're spending a lot of money to get people there and then they're dipping out.

Chelsea: Email marketing.

Vivian: Okay. Perfect.

Chelsea: That's what I want to talk about next because like I mentioned a little earlier, personalization, picking and choosing the kind of messages you're sending people, email marketing and text marketing, those are going to be your, what's the word I'm looking for, your drivers, your catalyst for being able to do that.

Vivian: Yeah, because y'all know around here we love some email. We love it. Okay, because at the end of the day, and think of it this way: five times. You're spending five times more money to get that new customer in. If you're utilizing any type of like ads or anything like that for social media, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, whatever it is, if you are not getting them into your email list, what are you doing? You're basically dishing out all this money to have another platform dictate how you're communicating to them. You know, we're not Chicken Little. We don't like to tell you guys that...
Do you know who Chicken Little is?

Chelsea: No, I know who Chicken Little is. I just...

Vivian: Why'd you give me that look?

Chelsea: No, because I didn't know where you were going with that. Then I finally realized where you were going but like it took, it was taking too long. Go ahead and explain it. I'm sorry.

Vivian: If you guys ever wonder why Chelsea and I argue about these things. First of all, we have 15 years age difference between us and I did not know for one, I've taught her in the span of this podcast, not this episode, but you know, our entire podcast. I taught her what a brand evangelist was because she didn't know the word evangelist.

Chelsea: That's also a religion, right?

Vivian: No, it's a person. It's describing a person. Also she did not know, what? You made fun of me for using the word pocketbook the other day.

Chelsea: I stand by that.

Vivian: Okay, that's what's called a pocketbook, a handbag.
Also you didn't know what it meant "if I didn't know you from Adam".

Chelsea: Okay, well you don't... I taught you what a satyr is. You didn't know what a satyr was. I taught you what the food of the underworld is. It's a pomegranate.

Vivian: True. I did not know the food of the underworld.

Chelsea: Yeah, I taught you some Gen Z slang. I taught Dad that too, so sometimes now he'll text me a printer emoji. Facts no printer.

Vivian: Facts no printer. Yeah, I still don't know what that means.

Chelsea: Okay, don't worry about it. Finish your chicken little analogy.

Vivian: Yeah, going back to chicken little, what I'm saying is, we don't like to tell you guys the world is falling. All right. But we always want you to approach, the reason we tell you to get people. You're spending money on social media for people to follow you. Wonderful.
Get them into your ecosystem, i.e. an email list. Because if Chicken Little, what he says holds true and tomorrow Instagram goes away, TikTok is shut down.

Chelea: TikTok was shut down for a day, y'all. It can happen.

Vivian: Yes. We just don't want you to build your business on quicksand. The quicksand is relying on a platform that you do not own and you do not control.
That is at the end of the day, we don't want that for you. We don't want that for your customers. So you get a new customer in, figure out a way to get them onto your email list, like what Chelsea is saying, because then that email list becomes the vehicle for what she just told you. All of this stuff, the communication, the loyalty programs, all of that can be done through your email or your SMS, aka text marketing.
So as far as strategies go, those are two very solid, or channels, right? Those are solid things that you can do to get reoccurring customers back. They're super effective and you guys, most of the time they cost, they're very reasonably priced.
We definitely want to touch on the upselling and cross-selling part of it because that's really something that's unique to repeat customers.

Chelsea: Absolutely. So I'm sure all of you guys know what upselling and cross-selling is, but in case you don't, it's when someone is looking to purchase one product and you offer to them a product that's related to it or a product that's larger or more personalized, different in a way that costs more. So that's the upselling or the cross selling, which is a different product that relates back to the original product.
I'm glad we're bringing this up because that is so much easier to do with repeat customers. And going back to personalization, it's especially easier to do because you can personalize the options a little more. That way, one, you know the kind of products they're interested in, and because you know that, it's easier for you to keep recommending. You know what I mean?

Vivian: Yeah, well, and also probably because if you're using, let's say, if you're a Shopify store, you have a store on Shopify, I'm sure there's an app or something that you can use as a plugin to be able to track some of this stuff. So then when you have that customer information already in the database, then it's more likely to be able to pull it up and then match this cross-selling stuff a little easier or the upselling.

Chelsea: Last, last strategy I want to talk about, focusing and taking time to nurture a community.
What do I mean by this? I feel like I've said that a lot this episode.

Vivian: Yeah, what do you mean by this?

Chelsea: I'm pretty sure I've never said that before too. It's just this episode for some reason.

Vivian: It's the phrase of the day.

Chelsea: Apparently. Example, this is the SOB Marketing podcast. On social media, I call all of our followers SOBs. I'm like, hey, SOBs, how you doing? That is specific to our community.

Vivian: Yeah, so none of you better be out there trying to take it, okay?

Chelsea: Everyone who is a part of our community, who is engaged, they know what SOB means, they respond to it...
*uncontrollable laughter*
I don't know, maybe I should stop with this example.
Different example. Lady Gaga.

Vivian: Okay, Lady Gaga.

Chelsea: Her or even, no, let's stick with Lady Gaga because that's the one I know. Her fans are little monsters, right?

Vivian: *laughing* I don't know.

Chelsea: They are.

Vivian: I was about to say Gaga-mites.

Chelsea: Did you say Gaga-mites?

Vivian: They're Gaga-mites.

Chelsea: No, stop repeating it! They're little monsters.

Vivian: Okay, that's what she calls them, affectionately.

Chelsea: That's what they're called. That's what the fandom is called.

Vivian: Or like Taylor Swift fans are called Swifties.

Chelsea: I can't believe I didn't even think of that.

Vivian: Well, I know why you didn't think of it, because you're not a fan.

Chelsea: Yeah, that's true. That was the example. Creating community. You're all engaged in the same thing. Yeah.

Vivian: I know if you guys are listening to this podcast, you might be podcast listeners. You probably are, of other podcasts. So there are a lot of people that can do this in very different ways. So you can take the same idea and apply it to your small business. Right?
One of the ways that some people do this is, I think I forget which one, it's not Sephora, but one of them, they use their email list as like they've named it, right? So like insider's look or whatever it is.

Chelsea: I'm pretty sure that is Sephora.

Vivian: Is that Sephora?

Chelsea: I'm pretty sure.

Vivian: What that does though is it starts to create this community where you feel like, hey, by the way, I a part of this email list that sends us special offers or whatever. They don't offer this stuff to anybody else that's not on the list.
Those are small ways where you can start to kind of create that community. The other thing, for us, we made the decision that, if we're all about small businesses and we're all about marketing, then one of the ways we can create that community is by also creating a standalone community where people can pay that monthly fee, join, and we provide the support.
Many, many different ways to go about it. I'm sure that if you're listening, small business owner, you probably have something already that you're doing to this extent. If you're not, think on it. You guys can always send us an email, Help@TheSeasonedMarketer.com. We are more than happy to come up with ideas. Trust me.

Chelsea: We'll give your followers a name.

Vivian: Yeah, the Gaga Mites.

Chelsea: No, not that.

Vivian: You can always add I.T.E.S. the end of anything or...

Chelsea: Maybe don't ask us to name your followers. Well, you can ask me specifically. Yeah, I feel like I'd be good at this. Vivian, do you think we're ready for the TLDL?

Vivian: I think we definitely are before we go off the rails even more.

Chelsea: So this was part two of our series about attracting customers. We focused on reoccurring or returning customers this time around. So your goals are going to be nurturing relationships. It's going to be retention and loyalty. Your messaging is going to focus on personalization and why you should stick with us. The content is going to be personalized. It's going to focus on ongoing support and it's going to be a little more in depth in terms of your brand. So think VIP, think behind the scenes, that sort of thing. Your marketing strategies and channels are going to include upselling and cross selling. It's going to include sharing, appreciating. It's going to include a loyalty programs, email and text marketing and focusing on creating a community. Again, I want to remind y'all - If you skipped to this TLDL and didn't listen to the entire episode, go listen to the entire conversation because just hearing me list these things might not be as useful as, I don't know, hearing us go deep and explain each of these concepts. So go listen to the whole conversation.

Vivian: Yes, and let me remind you, if you have not already hit subscribe, do it. Do it. I'm encouraging you go ahead and hit that button right now so that you know in the future whenever we drop an episode.
Chelsea, I think that was it for our conversation today.

Chelsea: Okay. Well y'all go out there and attract reoccurring customers and go be the best SOB you can be.

Attracting Customers To Your Small Business | Part 2: Returning Customers

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