Lead Nurturing & Increasing Client Retention: How to Decrease Customer Churn

Proper Lead Nurturing is Key to Reducing Client Attrition

When Credit Union 2.0, a digital marketing fintech company, approached SharpSpring looking for help increasing client retention, they were experiencing a customer churn of 6 to 9 months.

Credit Union 2.0 wanted to be able to display greater value to their clients. But because they relied on their customers to administer and run automated marketing solutions, Credit Union 2.0 wasn’t able to manage projects from start to finish, which meant they could only control certain parts of each project. The result? Deadlines that were often pushed back and lackluster KPIs.

SharpSpring was able to deliver results in partnership with Credit Union 2.0 by:

• Providing a simple, embeddable marketing automation solution
• Creating effective lead nurturing campaigns for Credit Union 2.0’s clients
• Increasing customer retention for Credit Union 2.0

About the Agency

Credit Union 2.0 is an agency focusing on inbound marketing and digital transformation providing credit unions with the digital tools and strategies they need to be competitive in today’s tough economic landscape. They support clients with custom content, automated marketing and strategic representation to increase digital engagement.

Credit Union 2.0’s key to success is creating automated lead nurturing campaigns for credit unions that increase the probability of a sale.

For many of their clients, Credit Union 2.0 provides content and sales funnels to help increase lead generation. Prior to partnering with SharpSpring, Credit Union 2.0 was struggling with their CRM to find an all-in-one solution that was simple to implement for existing clients and easy to replicate for new clients.

Using SharpSpring, Credit Union 2.0 was able to leverage marketing automation for nurture campaigns specific to each client. This, coupled with the ability to score incoming leads, increased not only engagement but allowed sales teams to focus on the leads most likely to convert.

“We have been able to leverage marketing automation and SharpSpring to create automated nurture sequences that drive lead scores, build the online presence of a startup, and generate a consistent flow of leads for our clients”

– Kirk Drake

The Results – Increasing Client Retention

Credit Union 2.0 was able to utilize the SharpSpring platform to take advantage of marketing automation that built brand awareness, generated leads and nurtured those leads into customers. With SharpSpring’s agency-focused automation tools, Credit Union 2.0 was able to work more efficiently and show a higher rate of success to their customers.

• With SharpSpring, Credit Union 2.0 found a simple solution to add automated marketing to their client’s websites.
• Using custom nurture sequences, they’ve been able to generate a consistent flow of leads for clients.
• Being able to build landing pages without relying on an outside web team has increased the speed and effectiveness of lead magnets.
• With the SharpSpring platform, Credit Union 2.0 was able to double their customer base and increase their recurring monthly revenue by over 100%.

The Approach

By using SharpSpring’s suite of tools, Credit Union 2.0 was able not only to show the value added to each customer, but they were also able to add value to their current offerings by streamlining services. Here are some of the methods Credit Union 2.0 uses to increase conversions for clients:

• Campaigns – By setting up campaigns, SharpSpring can track specific interactions with your website — such as when a customer visits a page or clicks a button. Every time a prospect interacts with a client’s website, Credit Union 2.0 gathers valuable data on what is and is not working. This allows for real-time adjustments to marketing efforts.
• Custom Forms – SharpSpring’s native form builder has allowed Credit Union 2.0 to create optimized user-friendly forms with higher chances of converting. The simplicity of embedding SharpSpring forms also allowed Credit Union 2.0 to take the results back into their own hands without relying on external web teams.
• Automated Workflows – Lead nurturing campaigns have been essential for Credit Union 2.0 to demonstrate success to their clients. Automated workflows make lead nurturing simple. These types of workflows can be set up once, in advance, and triggered as users take action across the website or in email to send follow-up messaging. Potential customers can get marketing messaging as soon as they fill out a form or perform a specific action on a page, removing the manual process of tracking down leads and crafting custom messaging each time.
• Lead Scoring – A key feature used by Credit Union 2.0, lead scoring allows scores to be assigned to incoming leads. Sales teams can then focus on the most qualified leads — the higher the lead score, the more likely they are to convert. Credit Union 2.0 is able to save time and resources for clients by fine-tuning exactly what makes a qualified lead.
• Landing Pages – To obtain lead magnets that convert, Credit Union 2.0 used SharpSpring’s native builder to create custom landing pages. The native builder offers templates for pages, making it easy to quickly duplicate progress for multiple clients and making the process of completing client assignments quicker. This has allowed Credit Union 2.0 to increase workloads and number of clients.

Wrapping it Up

Before adopting the SharpSpring platform, Credit Union 2.0 was working too hard to hand-hold their clients through the process of setting up marketing automation. Their staff was tied up with working one-on-one with clients to set up all the key elements of their marketing strategy, which kept down the number of clients they could take on at one time. Proving KPIs was also difficult when left to rely on clients to run and administer the marketing automation piece. In order to keep increasing client retention, they needed a simpler solution that offered them more control over the process from start to finish.

By partnering with SharpSpring, Credit Union 2.0 is now able to implement marketing automation themselves, build and launch effective lead magnets and report back to clients on the success of these campaigns. This solution has helped Credit Union 2.0 increase client retention while taking their — and their clients’ — business to the next level.

For more on Credit Union 2.0 and how they grew with SharpSpring, please check out our case study.