Elevate a Brand’s Retention Marketing: Before You Buy It

What Is Retention Marketing?

Retention marketing is basically all the channels that we use to keep existing customers coming back and buying more. For me, the big three are always going to be email marketing, SMS via text messaging, and direct mail. Direct mail has been around for a hundred years or more, and it is still a thriving channel.

Along with those, you also have loyalty and subscription apps, but email, SMS, and direct mail are the core. Customer service might honestly be one of the biggest retention marketing channels if you think about it.

The core philosophy around all of these channels is how people feel when they interact with your brand. Every email that goes out, every SMS, every postcard should develop that relationship and make people happy when they see your name in their inbox or mailbox.

Retention marketing is not always instantaneous like paid traffic. Sometimes it takes 10 or 20 touches before someone converts. People might join your email list and have already bought mentally, but the timing is not right. You just keep showing up, and it accumulates over time.

Why Retention Marketing Is Important

Retention marketing is important because it is five to seven times cheaper to retain a customer than to get a new one.

With Meta and Google, prices are always going up. Election season, Q4, Black Friday, advertising gets expensive. Retention becomes a cheaper source of traffic.

If you have an email list or customer list, anytime you feel like making money, you can send an email, send an SMS, send a postcard, and you are going to get something back. You do not have to pay Mark Zuckerberg to show up.

A five percent boost in retention marketing can increase profit by 25 to 90 percent depending on what you are doing on the back end. The back end is where profit is made. You break even on the first sale, and sales after that are where profit shows up.

Retention marketing keeps everything moving forward.

Owned Traffic and the Highest ROI Lever

When you are buying a business or taking over a company, the most important thing is the email list and the customer list.

That is owned traffic.

When you use Meta or Facebook, you are renting traffic. With an email list, that list is yours forever. You can send emails, run automations, and the cost is a fraction of paid advertising.

Customers are five to seven times more likely to buy again. You do not have to send front-end advertising or discounts. You can run automations and campaigns and see profit come in over time.

If acquisition costs suddenly go up, you can level it out by sending more emails, SMS, or postcards. Very few problems cannot be solved by sending more emails.

Watch the Full Webinar

If you enjoyed this conversation and want to tune in to the full session, you can watch the full recording.

This conversation covers what retention marketing is, why it is important, and how email marketing, SMS, direct mail, and customer service work together.

We talk about owned traffic, email lists, automations, audits, deliverability, Google Postmaster Tools, and what buyers and sellers should look for when buying or selling a business.

Email Marketing, Automations, and Consent

This is not cold email scraping lists and blasting people.

This is people who came to your website, gave you their email, booked an appointment, or requested a discount or lead magnet. They know what is going to happen next.

Automations run 24/7. Some automations built three years ago are still making sales today. They keep running while you focus on other parts of the business.

That is why retention marketing is powerful. It is consent-based, trust-based, and long-term.

The Million-Dollar Broken Integration Horror Story

A Shopify and Klaviyo integration was broken for two years.

No automations.
No cart abandonment.
No welcome flows.

Every email entered went into Shopify but never into the email platform. Purchasers were never added. Two years of emails went cold.

Email campaigns were doing about $3,000 per send. Three to four emails a week. Over two years, almost a million dollars in revenue was missed.

Email automations can be 40 percent of total email revenue. That was another million dollars gone.

Total revenue leaking was around $12 million.

No one noticed. CEO, CMO, head of marketing.

The Seven Audit Questions Any Owner Can Ask

Get on the email list.
Does anything get sent?
Does it go to spam?

Ask:

• How many campaigns are you sending per month?

• What is the process from idea to execution?

• Do you have a campaign calendar?

• What automations are running?

• When were automations last updated?

• How many people opened or clicked in the last 30 days?

• Do you have Google Postmaster Tools set up?

These questions quickly show whether things are healthy or neglected.

Google Postmaster Tools and Deliverability

Google Postmaster Tools show domain reputation with Gmail.

Think of it like a credit score: high, medium, low, or terrible.

It shows spam rate, authentication issues, and reputation. One technical fix can move reputation from low to high in days.

Deliverability issues can cripple a business. Emails not delivered mean lost revenue.

Touchpoint Cadence: Top of Mind vs Annoying

People worry about sending too many emails.

That is only true if emails are only promotions.

If emails are valuable, entertaining, or interesting, people do not mind. Some brands send daily emails. People may not read all of them, but they see the name.

Stories perform better than promotions. Customer feedback, testimonials, reviews, and real experiences make emails engaging.

Retention Overhaul: Where to Start

Big opportunities usually come from:

• Not sending enough campaigns

• Missing automations

• Automations not long enough

Quick wins:

• Build a campaign calendar

• Increase cadence

• Fix deliverability

• Build welcome flows, cart abandonment, post-purchase flows

• Set up surveys

• Win-back offers

• Direct mail

• Trim inactive subscribers

Retention can add hundreds of thousands per month once systems are turned on.

KPIs That Matter

Key metrics:

• Email revenue over time

• Percentage of revenue from email

• List growth

• Customer list growth

• Returning customer revenue

• Repeat purchase behavior

• Lifetime value over time

These KPIs show efficiency, scalability, and opportunity.

Buy and Sell Takeaways

For buyers:
Retention marketing is often a blind spot. Systems can be broken, missing, or not transferred in asset sales.

Email automations, lists, phone numbers, and systems must be part of diligence.

For sellers:
A strong email list, customer list, and returning revenue make a business more attractive and increase valuation.

Retention marketing is not just marketing. It is an asset.