Taking a new marketing approach is not limited to Facebook, Daily Deal or Location platforms. Change is not just about building reviews and positive content.  As important as those all are, it’s the legacy areas of your programs, the “rules” that have “worked” for decades and decades [read: neglected and yet defended] that are truly the opportunity goldmines.

Nowhere is this more true than remarketing. For any company that intends to last, remarketing revenue is where the gold is mined. Sure acquisition gets the glamour and big budget but it all comes at a loss and it’s only after the second, third or sometimes even later stage purchases that the ink starts to darken up into a nice shade of black. But despite the value, and our proclamations about being transparent, modern, “connected” companies, most of us still send the same offers… if not the same exact creative… to win customers back that went out in 1996.

Enticing as they may be to bring people back, the real chance to grow [and I mean really grow] comes when you know why they left first.

I’m not talking about sampling or cluster surveying. That’s all wonderful information and research you should do to know where your audience lies as a whole, it says nothing to the average customer to show them that you have even the slightest real interest in them beyond their money. And that’s a problem.

By asking each customer you gain two very valuable opportunities. First you give them a reason to respond… the promise of being heard without the thread of being sold too… and that’s enough to restart a connection. Second, and more obvious, you find out what drove them away, and potentially even what might bring them back.

Think about it… If you’re a cable company that sends a letter a week, you may discover that customer Frank doesn’t want TV and instead target him with high speed web, which they he uses for streaming movies daily. If you’re a gym, you could uncover that Sally is 7 months pregnant and taking a break giving you the chance to offer her a new-mother class with child watching upsell. If you’re a CPG you may learn that your product is being made to last longer, that generics are entering the market in offsetting cycles or one of a million of another insights that doesn’t reflect everyone, but is essential to that one prospect ever returning.

1:1 segmentation will never be the easiest or cheapest but then again, building return business isn’t simple or cheap. But thanks to the “social world”, what was once seen as prying is now the consumer’s expectation… People are willing to talk for nothing, heck, social channels show they talk even without being asked. So start asking them and let them tell you how to earn them back – rebuild their trust — or when to move away and save your funds for a warmer prospect.