eCommerce Analytics

Kevin Hillstrom has an excellent post today entitled Customer Retention: The Myth where he says improving customer retention might sound like a good idea but is actually quite difficult to do. I agree with his assertion that retention rate, average order value, and orders per buyer are difficult to improve in the short term, but I, perhaps unlike Kevin, I think that there can be real immediate gains to be had by trying.

Read Customer Retention: a Tough Needle to Move? »

As marketers, we only have a few levers to really impact the bottom line. We can acquire customers more cheaply, acquire more valuable customers, increase customer purchasing amount and frequency, and improve retention rate. We only have so many resources to devote to moving these levers.  Which one should get attention first?

Read Which Marketing Lever is Biggest? »

As the economy turns ever uglier, it might be a good time to take a long hard look at your business to accurately assess the health of your customer base. Businesses with strong healthy customers are in prime position to weather the economic storm and take market share from flailing compeititors. But if you work for a company with a growing share of weak, low value, high cost customers, it might be time to start getting that resume togther.

Here are the three signposts that indicate your customer base is weakening:

Read How Healthy is Your Customer Base? Here are 3 Metrics to Find Out »