The Tough Times Are Your Chance: How to Use Private Domain Operations to Retain Old Customers and Build a Sustainable Business

The Tough Times Are Your Chance: How to Use Private Domain Operations to Retain Old Customers and Build a Sustainable BusinessEveryone is talking about the tough economic climate, decreased consumer spending, and the difficulty of doing business. But is that really the case? In fact, when overall market growth is sluggish, it means that those who are adept at seizing opportunities will have more room to maneuver

The Tough Times Are Your Chance: How to Use Private Domain Operations to Retain Old Customers and Build a Sustainable Business

Everyone is talking about the tough economic climate, decreased consumer spending, and the difficulty of doing business. But is that really the case? In fact, when overall market growth is sluggish, it means that those who are adept at seizing opportunities will have more room to maneuver. It can even be said that the best opportunity to turn your business around is right now, during these seemingly "difficult times." Once the overall environment improves, market competition will intensify, and opportunities will become scarce, as every window of opportunity is fleeting.

The businesses we are discussing are not limited to any specific type, but include, but are not limited to, physical stores opened in shopping malls, streets, or communities, such as catering, cake baking, coffee shops, clothing stores, and other retail formats, as well as online stores on platforms like Taobao and JD.com. Business conditions vary greatly, with some merchants struggling to make ends meet while others are actively exploring breakthroughs but failing to achieve significant profit growth. However, seizing opportunities is not easy. Even shop owners who are waiting for customer traffic are in a precarious position and are on the verge of closure.

The purpose of this article is to help you clarify the current business environment and see the wealth opportunities unique to this seemingly "difficult time." The content is short but packed with practical information, especially the last point, which will greatly enhance your understanding.

A Tough Environment Doesn't Mean Customers Are Gone

Let's talk about the environment. How is the current environment? Its tough.

What impact does a tough environment have? Every store is struggling to survive, worrying about "how the business is doing this month," and cutting operating costs wherever possible. We even see many small supermarket owners who are reluctant to turn on their air conditioners to save electricity, sweating it out in the middle of summer to keep their stores running. Every owner is meticulously calculating whether they can save on advertising fees on platforms like Dianping and Meituan, or whether they can add a few more group coupon deals on Douyin to attract new customers.

This is an unavoidable reality, and the most authentic business environment.

But its also true that in this situation, when you are still using low prices to attract customers, your profits will continue to dwindle. As we discussed before, no matter how many regular customers a store has, they will inevitably lose customers at a certain rate over time. Therefore, it is necessary to continuously attract new customers while maximizing customer retention to achieve higher sales.

However, customers who primarily use group purchase coupons are focused on finding deals specifically on Douyin and Meituan. If you dont offer coupons on these platforms, your store will naturally not be chosen by them.

So the opportunity is clear: "maximize customer retention." When the overall market size does not grow, nurturing your existing customers is your chance to succeed.

Nurturing Old Customers is Your Opportunity

We conducted a survey of merchants we serve, and found that nurturing 20% of existing customers can increase GMV by more than 50%. When customer retention rates increase by 5%, a brands profits can increase by 20% to 95%.

Whats the foundation of nurturing old customers? Baxter, author of "Membership Economy," believes that it is important to create value around existing customers, rather than aiming to sell products. In this model, the relationship between existing customers and the company is enduring and formal, and this relationship changes everything the company does.

This creates an opportunity unique to these "difficult times": since customer acquisition costs are rising, it makes sense to keep customers. Use your private domain to consolidate existing customers from all channels, use more accurate product-customer matching to improve customer retention, and conduct refined operations targeting existing customers to increase their repeat purchases.

As a group that has a cognitive understanding and trust relationship with the brand, existing customers tend to bring more certain business to the brand. They are not only the main consumer force, but also the cornerstone for the brand's long-term strategy.

Nurturing Old Customers is Like Making Friends

Now that weve discussed the concept, lets talk about how to nurture old customers. Heres a statistic: a fast fashion merchant called Xiyu in Guangzhou reduced the number of customer unsubscriptions by 90% and increased old customer sales by 46% in the past year, with sales increasing by 27% year-on-year. How did they achieve this?

Because when you think about nurturing old customers, you might imagine simply adding them to your WeChat, putting them in your contact list, or pulling them into a group and randomly sending coupons. Xiyu treated old customers as strangers becoming acquaintances, acquaintances becoming friends.

On a social platform like WeChat, customers choose to add you because they want to interact and communicate with you. To put it simply, they want to be friends with your brand. If your friends only do one thing every day - send you these promotional messages - while ignoring genuine communication and interaction, you will inevitably be annoyed and even choose to block or delete them.

So how did Xiyu become friends with its customers? Of course, by exchanging sincerity for sincerity. This sincerity means that in their physical store, when a customer is choosing clothes, the sales staff not only provide styling suggestions, but also actively provide their WeChat QR code when the customer expresses an intention to purchase. When customers scan the code, they not only receive exclusive coupons, but their information is also stored in the companys WeChat account.

For online customers, each package includes a "scan code to get cash rebates" and one-on-one after-sales service QR code. Customers simply need to scan it to enjoy real benefits and thoughtful after-sales experience.

Once customers add Xiyus company WeChat, Xiyu can see their purchase history and preferences in real time. For example, they browsed a certain item for XX seconds today, or put an item in their shopping cart but didnt place an order. With these behavior records, Xiyu employees can communicate and recommend products based on the customers preferences, just like understanding a friends hobbies, and provide exclusive coupons. This personalized experience that pays attention to detail makes customers feel valued and understood.

Furthermore, sending messages is not done blindly. Xiyu set a rule that the same customer would receive no more than four marketing messages in any 30-day period. This frequency ensures timely information while avoiding excessive disturbance to customers.

Moreover, feedback after sending messages is crucial. For example, by tracking customer response to messages (whether theyve read it, clicked on the link, etc.), they can assess the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. These data are used to continuously optimize the sending strategy, such as adjusting the message content, sending time, or target customer group.

These practices are like Xiyu building a deep friendship with customers, providing real value, making customers willing to stay in their private domain for a long time, and becoming loyal return customers.

Maximize Opportunities in the Customer's Purchase Lifecycle

Simply "being friends with customers" is the entry ticket to business opportunities. The next step is to learn how to leverage it.

Xiyu segmented each stage after adding customers to WeChat. Within the first 90 days, they used different methods to communicate with existing customers, providing the most appropriate information and the most attractive incentives at the time when customers are most likely to need them.

1. For customers who made their first purchase yesterday, send repeat purchase coupons and message notifications to encourage repeat purchases. Execute daily, covering all new first-time purchasers.

2. 30 days after adding friends is the golden time to encourage a first purchase. Xiyu will choose this time to remind those who haven't placed an order yet. After the first contact, theyll send another reminder seven days later to those who still havent made their first purchase.

3. For dormant old customers whose last purchase was 90 days ago, Xiyu would send timely reminders every day, and provide benefits similar to new customers, such as free gifts, raffles, or bargain opportunities, making dormant old customers feel that they haven't been forgotten.

4. On milestones like a customers birthday, Xiyu might send them a special birthday coupon as a warm reminder and thank you. This not only increases customers desire to purchase, but also enhances their goodwill towards the brand.

These templates are all available in the Youzan marketing canvas backend. You simply need to choose quick creation to automatically execute these tasks.

As a result, Xiyu has achieved a transformation from traffic to retention. Private domain sales have increased by 27% year-on-year, and private domain sales account for 10% of total sales.

Of course, you might ask, "How can I do what they did?" But its actually a lot easier than you think... Pay close attention to what I said above, and I'll help you go through it step by step:

• In a tough environment, many businesses are struggling, the cost of acquiring new customers is high, and when you use low prices to attract customers, your profits will continue to dwindle.

• Why is it decreasing? No matter how many regular customers a store has

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