13 replies
I was wondering what everyone's retention rates are with clients. I have been doing a great job of landing clients, but have lost some clients over the months which seems weird since I was able to rank them well.


I provide mainly SEO services to offline businesses. I got into this business thinking that clients would stay with my for years, but so far it has exactly worked out that way. Need to make some changes to improve retention immediately.
#rates #retention
  • Profile picture of the author PaulintheSticks
    Do you ask them why they are leaving? Are they not getting quality leads from their sites? If they are getting good leads, how well do they convert them? It all comes down to results for those that actually track.

    Do you notice anything different about the ones that stay with you and the ones that leave? If so, you might think about targeting more of the types of clients that you retain.
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  • Profile picture of the author jsherloc
    This is an AWESOME topic of discussion. I too have had people walk away in the past for an assortment of reasons I'm sure. I believe this ties in with another important issue we deal with, and that is the "control" factor.

    Now, I know this does not happen the majority of the time, but it DOES happen. What if clients start reaping all the benefits of your hard work...then 4 months down the line, they are ranking for tons of stuff, built a list, etc. Why do they need you? Better still, why do they need to pay you a MONTHLY fee? They think, oh well, we'll cut this out of the budget for awhile and if it starts to dry up (aka rankings drop disappear, their nephew deletes their blog posts and screws up their site etc) we can come back on.

    Kind of puts you in a bad place because you will just go to a competitor, but it IS business....

    Basically, if you can get a business exposure on Google, you can "hide" them as well, but often you have to start fresh. Only speaking in special circumstances once again, but this type of stuff DOES happen.

    I think TRACKING / PROOF OF CONCEPT is a key to the retention rate in general though. It is hard to argue with hard numbers.

    - Jim
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  • Profile picture of the author Quentin
    We keep our clients for years however the SEO business does have a lot of competition and poor retention.

    I guess because once you get them to a certain position they can leave you and keep that position.

    Thats why we also get their hosting and do some webdesign for their sites which means if they want to leave they have to also get new hosting etc.

    SEO is one thing however product placement is much more important as they quite often add new products etc so it starts all over again.

    Quentin
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    • Profile picture of the author Bronwyn and Keith
      Hi

      We lock them in as long as possible on the bigger ticket stuff and always try to keep them "talking" to us with the smaller stuff as Quentin mentioned.

      Regards

      Bronwyn and Keith
      PS. Just remember it's not who they are but who they know...
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    • Profile picture of the author scoopy
      Originally Posted by Quentin View Post

      We keep our clients for years however the SEO business does have a lot of competition and poor retention.

      I guess because once you get them to a certain position they can leave you and keep that position.

      Thats why we also get their hosting and do some webdesign for their sites which means if they want to leave they have to also get new hosting etc.

      SEO is one thing however product placement is much more important as they quite often add new products etc so it starts all over again.

      Quentin
      Can you explain more in detail thank you.
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      • Profile picture of the author AndrewCavanagh
        The depth of relationships you build with clients is vitally important in "retention".

        I have to say I don't even like the word retention because I'm always thinking along the lines of suggesting the next project.

        So making sure you stay in touch with your clients in various ways (sending them a copy of an article or anything they might find interesting or useful, dropping them a note, calling on the phone, dropping in in person, going to their business and buying someone, bringing a friend to buy something etc etc).

        And reminding clients and educating them of the value you're delivering to them (assuming you are delivering value).

        That's also a great time to ask for referrals.

        Also if you're always heavily focused on generating real sales and profits for your clients that dramatically increases your chances of clients wanting to stay with you and hiring you for project after project.

        Kindest regards,
        Andrew Cavanagh
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  • Profile picture of the author Ryan Shaw
    I agree with Andrew. I build relationships with each one of my clients. They wouldn't want to leave and use someone else they don't know just because it could save them money.

    They get quality customer support and service and I treat them as a partner in my business.
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  • Profile picture of the author adriver38
    As far as the issue of control: I remember reading a post here a while ago about a guy who was buying seperate domains to promote and then redirect those domains to his clients URL. That way if the client decided to discontinue service, he could just redirect the domain to another site and they wouldnt continue to reap the benefits of all your hard work unless they continued to pay. I thought it was a brilliant idea, but I havent seen him post since. If you're worried about the client having all the power though this could really help.
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  • Profile picture of the author patadeperro
    My retention rates comes hand to hand with the number of qualify leads I give to the clients, you must understand that with offline clients you are not talking about SEO services, PPC or Facebook advertising, what you are talking about is: LEADS.

    Nobody buy processes, they buy results, you must sell them leads that will convert into sales, we know that via SEP, PPC and Facebook we will generate the traffic to bring leads, but if you are not generating leads and even more important tracking those leads then you are loosing clients.

    What to do? easy... you control the auto responder (among other things). Hope it helps
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  • Profile picture of the author Rus Sells
    2 words....

    relationship = retention

    nuff said.

    Cheers
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  • I must add. Just like the #1 rule in Internet Marketing. People join people , people do NOT join businesses. They would rather join you,(relationship) than to join your company , that they could care less about.

    THis works the same way. If you keep up the communications, you will have a strong relationship. BUt, you still need to provide value!

    Although, you will always have retention. Just have to replace them. Dont sweat it.If you did your job great, you cant help it. People like to join people, (hire you)


    Tommy
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    Solving Multimedia Expectations. AppleCreekMedia

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  • Profile picture of the author beargy11
    client retention is obviously a very important topic in any business ... we have been lucky in that we have retained a majority of our clients but there are always ones that get away ... it's a good idea to have contingency plans in place to try to keep or win back these clients ... if nothing else, it gives us an opportunity to know where we may have made a mistake
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