How to Identify and Attract High‑Value Customers

What is a high-value customer?

A high-value customer is someone who heavily relies on your business. Your business values them because they help you generate more profits. These individuals are your most valuable customers, significantly impacting your profits and bringing you more business and sales than other customers.

They are also typically longtime customers with a high lifetime value (LTV). For some businesses, high-value customers are those that regularly make large purchases. For others, it's those that have spent more throughout their relationship with the company.

All high-value customers are loyal. They don't just purchase a few products and disappear. Instead, they keep coming back to purchase more, whether it's small or large purchases.

If you look at your customer retention rates, high-value customers are those that spend more time on your website, purchase more products, and ultimately rely on your products and services more than others.

However, high-value customers don't always spend the most on your business in one go. Instead, they're repeat customers that also help bring in more business; they act as brand advocates and refer their friends and family to your products and services.

Why it's important to identify high-value customers

Having high customer value is important, but it's crucial to identify them to keep them coming back for more. These customers generate more value for your company over time, so you need to have an idea of who they are so that you can target them with your marketing efforts.

Knowing who your high-value customers are can help you make better marketing campaigns created for them, allowing you to upsell your products and generate revenue from individuals who are already loyal to you.

High customer value means some customers are more beneficial for your company than others. Additionally, continuously appealing to your high-value customers can help them improve your company's profit simply by word of mouth.

These customers are already interested in your business, and if you continue to engage with them, they'll post about you on social media and spread positive word of mouth about your business to help you attract more customers.

How to identify high-value customers

What makes a customer a high-value customer?

Identifying highly valued customers is crucial so you can target them with your marketing campaigns. There are several ways to define high-value customers, and your method will largely depend on your business type and industry.

Here are a few ways to identify your most profitable customers:

Analyze customer data points

You have data about your customers that can tell you how much they've spent within a specific time period and over their entire relationship with your company. Additionally, you know what they've purchased and when.

Analyzing customer data can help you determine which customers spend more on your business than others. The easiest way to use this data is to calculate each customer's lifetime value.

Customer lifetime value tells you how much a customer has spent with your business over time, so you can see how valuable they are to your company.

Other key performance indicators (KPIs) you can use include average order size, average order value, and length of the customer relationship.

Conduct customer surveys

Customer data can't tell you everything about your customers, but customer surveys can fill in some gaps.

These surveys can help you learn more about what your customers want from your business to identify ways to provide more value to your customers and, ultimately, how they can become more valuable to your business. By learning more about your customers' needs, you can find ways to address them and offer a better customer experience.

Analyze market trends

Analyzing trends can help you define high-value customers. Some companies might place greater importance on the financial value of customers, while others consider other aspects, such as social influence.

How much a customer spends on your products may be less important than how many other customers they bring to your business.

For example, you can't expect many repeat customers if you sell mattresses. However, if customers love your mattresses, they'll recommend your business to help you attract other customers.

You can look at your social media and website metrics to help you determine which customers are becoming brand advocates and helping you attract customers. Even if these individuals only purchase your product once, they're still high-value customers because they help you generate more revenue.

How to attract high-value customers

Attracting high-value customers is challenging and largely depends on both your marketing strategy and product quality and performance.

Ultimately, no amount of marketing will keep customers returning if your product or service doesn't deliver on its promises. However, once you're confident in your product, there are several ways to attract high-value customers to your business to improve your high-value customer retention rate.

A high-value customer strategy should consist of the following tactics:

Create personalized experiences

Personalizing your marketing campaigns can improve customer retention. How you communicate with your customers matters.

For example, when customers reach your site for the first time, they might give you their email in exchange for a discount on their first purchase. After that, it's up to you to stay in contact with your customers to keep them coming back to your site.

Creating personalized marketing campaigns and customer experiences based on the data you've already collected can turn existing customers into loyal customers. You can look at data such as recent purchases to send personalized recommendations to customers and make them want to return.

For example, if you're an e-commerce brand, a customer might purchase a pair of pants. Your next email to them can include product recommendations that match those pants, such as tops, accessories, shoes, and more.

Provide excellent customer service

Customer service is crucial to customer success. If first-time customers encounter a problem, they want to know you can resolve it quickly and without issue.

Remember, the customer is the most important aspect of your business, and you need to provide them with excellent customer service throughout every interaction.

Customers who frequently have problems are less likely to become loyal to your brand, especially if you have poor customer service.

However, by giving your customers a good customer service experience, you can turn them from unhappy or displeased customers into happy, loyal customers and brand advocates.

Implement a customer loyalty program

Loyalty programs entice customers to keep spending money by offering them something in return. When customers sign up for loyalty programs, they've shown an interest in your brand and its products.

Additionally, these individuals expect to keep shopping with you, so they signed up for rewards. Customers in a loyalty program typically spend more than those that aren't, but you must offer them something as a reward.

Rewarding your customers for their loyalty is crucial; spending money by offering them something in return means making more money in the long run.

For example, a local coffee shop might have punch cards that offer a free drink for every ten drinks purchased. While the coffee shop is losing money by offering one free drink, customers with the punch card are more likely to spend more money just to make it to their 11th free drink.

Utilize marketing strategies

Before you can build customer loyalty, you must attract new customers through various marketing efforts. Once you've attracted these new customers, you can implement various strategies to retain them, ultimately attracting more high-value customers.

Several marketing strategies aim to boost high-value customer retention and loyalty, increase customer lifetime value, and help businesses thrive.

Investing in public relations and marketing to generate buzz about your business is one way to attract high-value customers. With marketing, you can become a thought leader in the industry to make customers trust you.

Additionally, you can use digital marketing tactics like email and social media marketing to boost your retention strategy and keep customers coming back for more.

Earlier, we discussed how product recommendations based on past purchases could keep customers returning. In addition, you can create more personalized marketing experiences based on customer data to help entice customers to take action.

Retain your high-value customers to ensure long-term success

Once you've identified and attracted a high-value customer, you must continue to retain them.

Attracting customers is easy, but how can you keep them returning for more?

You can maximize your customers' value and develop beneficial relationships with them that improve your bottom line with Mailchimp. Our CRM software can help you communicate with clients based on real data to deliver personalized experiences that enhance your customer retention strategy. Try Mailchimp today.