The feudal economics of letting Zuckerberg handle your customer retention…

If you don’t build your own customer retention system, you’ll be forced to use one that someone else built for you.

The only problem?

You’ll have to play by their rules.

This is what social media is for most businesses – a gateway to their prospective buyers.

If you walk through that gate…

…you’ll walk into a world that was not designed to benefit YOU – it’s set up for you to lose.

Pay a little bit of attention and you’ll notice the same arc over and over.

(See Blind Spot #1 chapter in my book for examples.)

Use all of that if you want – it’s not immoral, unethical, and no one really cares anyway.

But never for a moment think that any of it was built for you.

Because it wasn’t.

So what other unused, overlooked, – perhaps even nearly forgotten – ways are there…

…to retain customers inside your world? 

There’s one that’s wholly – at best – overlooked – and – at worst – downright ignored by most brands in this space:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Electronic Mail.

The proverbial email – in my humble but accurate opinion – doesn’t get anywhere near enough respect from the supplement industry.

I’ve noticed, with my 9 years of experience, that it’s treated largely as an afterthought.

It’s something to just “get out there” because someone told us we should do email too. 

That leaves you with:

• 99% of supplement brands emailing infrequently.

(i.e. most appear in my inbox about 1-5x per month.)

• 99% of supplement brands sending out blatant sales pitches when they do send that rare email.

(Examples of a few inside my book – Blind Spot #5 chapter specifically.)

I think that’s downright depressing.

Granted:

I am an email supremacist through and through, so I do carry some bias in my assertions…

But the fact remains:

Email – unlike social media the demon platforms – is a platform where YOU control the environment, message, schedule, audience, rules, tone and style.

It is the Alpha & Omega retention channel.

(Online at least – Direct Mail still takes its younger brother to school when it comes to offline.)

I even saw a study noting that the average ROI for email is $36 for every $1 invested – no other online channel can compare.

Sometimes I feel as if I’m screaming into the void with this.

Whatever.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink it.