How To Attract New Clients And Keep Them For Life

If you have already read our blog, Mo’ Money: 6 Effective Rebooking Strategies That Work, then you know that when it comes to growing your business, focusing on client retention by utilising effective rebooking strategies, is far more profitable than trying to attract new clients through your door.

With the cost of ‘client acquisition’ an average of 5 times more expensive than keeping an existing client, it makes sense to focus on designing and implementing effective rebooking strategies. However, that doesn’t mean you should ditch trying to attract new clients to walk through your door. Client acquisition is still vital to any business’s success. The key is to get the balance right.

 

Client Acquisition Vs Client Retention: What does that mean?

First of all, let's give each term a definition:

 

• Client Acquisition refers to all the steps and initiatives you take to attract new clients. Like, putting an advert in your local paper, letterbox drops or promoting your services on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.

• Client Retention refers to all the steps and initiatives you take in order to ensure your clients keep coming back to you time and time again. Steps like providing excellent customer service, staying current with the services you offer and offering loyalty programs and incentives.

Client acquisition costs more money and effort on a per-customer basis. Running a $300.00 advert in the local paper may get you 10 new clients… or it may get you one. If you get 10 new clients, then each client has cost you $30.00 each to acquire. If you only get one, then that one client has just cost you $300.00 to acquire. 

In either case, once these new clients have walked through the door, your client retention strategy must be on-point - so that you can maximise the return on your client acquisition investment by increasing the lifetime value of your newly acquired client.

Life-Time Value refers to the total worth of a client to your business, over the whole period of their patronage. 

Example of Client Acquisition Vs Client Retention Strategies 

Example #1:

You run a $300.00 advert in the local paper. From that advert, you gain 10 new clients. Each client has cost you $30.00 to acquire. 

However, your advert was promoting your $25.00 brow wax service. Because you didn’t upsell, cross-sell or give the clients any reason to rebook, those clients ended up only spending $25.00 each and the business/client relationship ends. 

This client acquisition endeavour has lost you $50.00 (or $5.00 per client), with no prospect of recovering those costs in the future.

Example #2:

You run a $300.00 advert in the local paper. From that advert, you gain one new client. That client cost you $300.00 to acquire. 

However, when that client called to book in (mentioning that she had a special function to attend), you took the opportunity to suggest she compliment her brow wax service with a Brow Lamination and Brow Tint for a total, red carpet brow make-over look. The client agrees with your suggestion and books in. 

That client is now going to spend $150.00 instead of $25.00 and your client acquisition costs just dropped from $275.00 down to $150.00.

Now, in this last example - even though you are still down $150.00 on that client acquisition cost - that client loved her new brows (satisfaction) and happily took you up on the offer to rebook her in 4 weeks (trust). In fact, on her return to you, she tells you how many compliments she received about her new look and how glad she is that you suggested the tint and lamination (satisfaction + trust). 

What do you think the chances are that this client will book in for a skin treatment when you suggest it? Satisfaction + Trust = Loyalty. 

By following and continually implementing a good upselling, cross-selling and rebooking strategy, you’ve turned a $25.00 client into a client whose lifetime value is potentially hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Imagine if the same scenario was true for each of those 10 lost clients!

Learn effective upselling and cross-selling techniques in our blog: Upselling & Cross-Selling: Service or Disservice?

The Skin and Beauty Training Centre Is Here To Help Your Beauty Business Grow

The Skin and Beauty Training Centre was created with a mission to give everyone the opportunity and accessibility to professional, advanced industry training that's affordable and effective. 

The Skin and Beauty Training Centre is accredited by ASI - Australian Skin Institute and Brazilian Beauty; we train 100’s beauty therapists each year, who have performed professionally trained treatments on thousands of happy customers Australia-wide. 

 

At SBTC we believe in helping students become the best version of themselves by:

• Developing and educating our students to provide the best possible treatment experiences and results for their customers.

• Empowering students to feel confident in themselves and the treatments they are performing.

• Provide a clear focus on business growth and profitability to enable small businesses to thrive and grow. 

All our specialised training courses are readily available for any level of experience; from aspiring home salon owners, to beauty therapists who are new to the industry, through to experienced therapists or salon owners looking to expand their knowledge and up-skill in a new treatment. 

We invite you to take a look at our website, join our student community or take advantage of our downloadable business resources and informative blogs.

If you have any questions, give the friendly SBTC team a call on 07 3357 4081, email info@skinandbeautytrainingcentre.com.au or simply chat online at www.skinandbeautytrainingcentre.com.au