Customers and the Web: Web-Based Solutions That Improve Customer Acquisition, Loyalty, and Retention

In a recent Signal49 Research survey, roughly three-quarters of Canadian chief marketing executives identified customer acquisition and retention as a significant challenge. Customers are becoming more demanding, and they are quick to find fault with products and services. However, their heightened expectations present organizations with new opportunities to achieve a competitive edge by using web-based strategies to address these expectations. The results can be spectacular: increased customer connection and loyalty, and, ultimately, heightened profit levels.

Web-based marketing techniques enable organizations to reach current and prospective customers inexpensively using targeted messages. This approach increases the probability that the message will influence a sale. This report highlights five web-based strategies that improve customer acquisition, loyalty, and retention: blogging, direct-to-purchaser news releases, mobile marketing, podcast and webcast marketing, and social networking sites. For each strategy, the authors present two best practice profiles of successful companies.