How To Use RFM To Find And Retain Quality Customers

How To Use RFM To Find And Retain Quality Customers

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The RFM analysis is a powerful marketing strategy that allows businesses to quantify and categorize their customers based on their recent transactions. By assessing the recency, frequency, and monetary value of these transactions, businesses can gain insight into which customers are most valuable and tailor their marketing efforts accordingly. The RFM system assigns numerical scores to each customer based on these factors, providing a clear and objective analysis. This approach is rooted in the principle that a majority of a business's revenue typically comes from a small percentage of its customers.

TheRFM analysisconsiders the following key factors:

• Recency: How recently did the customer make a purchase? Recent purchases are still fresh in the customer's mind, making them more likely to repeat the action. Recency is often measured in days, but it can also be measured in weeks, months, or even years, depending on the product.
• Frequency: How frequently does the customer make purchases? Repeat customers are more likely to continue to make purchases, and businesses can target first-time customers with follow-up advertising to convert them into more frequent buyers.
• Monetary: The total amount of money that the customer spent in a given period. High-spending customers are more likely to spend money in the future, making them valuable assets to the business.

Let us explore how you can use the RFM model to draw in more customers to your business.

RFM Segmentation plays a crucial role in identifying and targeting the most valuable customers for a business. Companies can effectively differentiate between high-performing and low-performing customers by analyzing the Recency, Frequency, and Monetary value of customer transactions. This can be particularly beneficial for larger organizations with a vast customer base, as it allows them to focus their resources and efforts on the customers who are most likely to generate significant revenue.

Through RFM Segmentation, businesses can prioritize the customers who have made recent purchases, frequently buy products, and spend a higher amount on your products. This allows businesses to create cost-effective marketing strategies that target the most profitable and engaged customers, leading to increased revenue and growth.

TheRFM modelis a popular choice for marketers due to several advantages it offers. Some of these benefits include:

• Accessibility of data: The RFM analysis relies on data that is easily accessible from a business's transaction history. This eliminates the need for expensive software or specialized data analysts.

• Simplicity: The RFM model is easy to understand and implement, making it ideal for businesses of all sizes and industries.

• Personalization: By segmenting customers according to the RFM model, businesses can differentiate between new and long-term customers, loyal customers, and those who are no longer interested. This allows businesses to create bespoke communications and personalization strategies to increase engagement, loyalty, and customer lifetime value.

• Impactful marketing: The RFM segmentation model provides an overview of a business's customers and enables businesses to identify the most important customers, trends, and traits among high-value groups. This information can be used to focus resources where they can make the most impact and build lookalike audiences for targeted PPC advertising.

By identifying users with high scores in different RFM metrics, you can gain insight into what keeps them coming back and how to improve your application.

Users with a high-frequency score can provide valuable feedback on what they find engaging about your app. By understanding what keeps them coming back, you can ensure that those features are maintained and enhanced.

Additionally, users with a high monetary value score can give insight into their spending patterns. By understanding why they are spending, you can encourage those behaviors and increase their frequency of use. High monetary value users are also excellent candidates for additional outreach and promotions to encourage continued use of your application.

Users with high scores in all RFM metrics are particularly valuable as they can give insight into what makes your application engaging and how to reinforce the value it provides to users.

Tracking RFM scores over time can also help identify users who are starting to use your app less or spending less money. Falling frequency scores can indicate users who may be disengaging and allow you to take measures to address the issue.

The recency metric can also be useful for identifying users who have a healthy RFM score but haven't been active recently. By targeting them with specific offers or incentives, you can entice them back to your app.

Finally, RFM scores can be particularly helpful when a customer gets in touch to ask for help. Support resources have the power to make high-end customers a priority --- particularly those who may be losing interest while category less valuable users who rarely interact with the application in lower priority. Support agents can quickly identify the type of user they are dealing with by glancing at their segment or RFM score without having to perform an in-depth check on their history.

RFM analysis involves three key steps: data collection, establishing base values, and grouping and ranking customers.

First, gather all available customer data, including both online and offline purchases. Organize the data by date of purchase, frequency of purchases within a specific time frame, and the total number of purchases made.

Note that RFM analysis does not take into account the specific products purchased. However, you can add a column to your spreadsheet to include this information if desired.

Next, set the base values for recency, frequency, and monetary categories. For example, define a recent purchase as one made within the past week or two weeks. Additionally, set logical values for frequency and monetary categories. Keep in mind that these values can be adjusted as needed.

Finally, group the data according to the established base values and rank customers based on their performance in each category. For example, a customer with high frequency but the low monetary value may be considered a repeat customer.

Once the data is analyzed, you can determine the best approach to engage with each type of customer.

Once you have calculated the RFM scores of your customers, it becomes easy to identify your most valuable customers - those with the highest scores. This allows you to analyze the characteristics and purchasing habits of this group to understand what sets them apart from the rest. For example, do they tend to purchase specific products or services? Do they live in similar neighborhoods? Are their lifestyles and life stages comparable? Understanding these distinctions can help you better target your marketing efforts and communicate with potential and current customers more effectively.

It's important to note that while RFM is an effective and simple method for segmenting customers and identifying your best ones, it's not always the best tool for predicting customer behavior. More advanced methods may be more accurate, but they may also be more difficult for small businesses to understand and implement.

However, RFM can be used as a valuable starting point for identifying the segments of your customer base that are most likely to respond positively to direct marketing campaigns. It can also be used to improve your decision-making process in general. Overall, RFM is a systematic approach to marketing that can be highly beneficial when used correctly.

Here are a couple of examples that demonstrate how RFM analysis can be applied in real-world scenarios.

1. Understanding the customer's perspective

Customers with high scores in all three RFM categories, such as VIP customers, have a strong emotional connection to the brand and appreciate feeling valued. To keep these valuable customers engaged, consider offering them exclusive perks such as early access to new products or personalized gifts.

2. Identifying purchasing power

Customers who primarily purchase cheaper products likely have less purchasing power. While they may not significant contributors to your company's profits, if they have a high frequency of purchases, they may still be open to discounts or special offers. On the other hand, if a customer has a high monetary value but a low frequency, it's worth investigating why their frequency is low and developing a strategy to increase it.

RFM Analysis is a valuable tool for segmenting customers and predicting their likelihood of making future purchases. However, it's important to be aware of its limitations to prevent misunderstandings or poor decision-making.

For instance, while a high recency score may indicate a customer is likely to make another purchase, it's important to keep in mind that it's based on the number of recent transactions. A customer that made one purchase recently may not be as likely to make another purchase as a customer who made multiple purchases. The more recent transactions, the more accurate the recency score becomes.

Furthermore, measuring recency in "weeks since the last transaction" may not be the best approach. It might be difficult to compare customers with different purchasing patterns. For example, if customers generally shop every six months, comparing a customer who purchased two weeks ago and another customer who purchased four weeks ago based on recency score, would not give much insight into their likelihood of making another purchase.

When it comes to customer behavior segmentation,Smartico.aiis a trusted and globally recognized leader in the iGaming/Casino/Sports Betting industry and beyond.

Smartico Behavioral Segments: An Introduction

Recently, we introduced a segment based on the behavior of the user.

It combines data from both the user profile state and their behavior. The segment is based on the historical behavior of the user, e.g., users that did total wagering of more than 100 EUR on Slot games in the last 30 days. A defined schedule updates this type of segmental. For example, once a day at 5 PM.

From all other perspectives, this type of segment can be used as any other in all possible contexts of the Smartico platform.

To set up the segment, you must fill in the following sections:

• User activity and timing - which activity you would like to track and for what period? The maximum time for analysis is 90 days
• Event attributes - you can define related to the event (activity) attributes
• Total conditions - could be a count of activities, Total, MIN, or MAX conditions. E.g., to segment users who made a "Total" bet amount above 1000 EUR
• Update schedule - define a plan for when the segment will be rebuilt.

To make your segment even more precise, you can also add a user state condition like brand, registration country, language, etc.

Behavioral segments, like other segments, can be exported and have a scheduled export if needed.

This type of segment can be used in any context in CRM Automation or Gamification modules:

• To limit Real-time and Scheduled campaigns
• To limit Automation rules
• To limit the visibility of Tournaments, Store items, and Mini-games

In addition, Smartico.ai provides state-of-the-art Gamification and CRM automation software solutions. Its CRM tool combines player analytics data with machine-learning algorithms to help sports betting and iGaming businesses have a deeper understanding of players and their needs while also providing valuable data insights to ensure retention and loyalty, and much more.

As a leading Gamification & CRM Automation solution, Smartico offers the following:

• Various intuitive challenges and gaming techniques.
• High-value incentives that encourage long-term loyalty and retention, elevate player value, strengthen engagement, and boost user acquisition.
• Multi-Currency/Language/Deep Brand Support.
• Missions – Engage players with fun real-time solo or multiplayer tasks.
• Points – Encourage players to keep coming back through point-based incentives and unlockables.
• Badges – Stand out from the rest with sleek badges and earn free spins for each earned badge.
• Levels – Players gain experience and special perks after each successful level or tournament completion.
• Incentives – Motivate players to come back for more with unique rewards and bonuses.
• Marketplace – Players can actualize their points by cashing them in for free game spins or other awards, such as online shopping vouchers.
• Mini-Games – Players can reset their senses through short, award-earning games.
• Tournaments – Set your own qualification rules and offer your customers a powerful endorphin rush with Smartico's particular tournament system.
• Leaderboards – Set daily, weekly, and monthly prizes and watch your user engagement skyrocket.
• Bonus Engine Integration – Cash bonuses, free spin bonuses, and more.

And that's just a small sample of what's on offer. Smartico can help your business grow exponentially by supplying the solutions needed to bring the motivation in your company to a whole new level. Book your free in-depth demo today at:https://smartico.ai/request-a-demo

In conclusion, some may consider the RFM method outdated, but it is still highly valuable for analyzing customer behavior. By making small adjustments, you can tailor your approach to your customer base and achieve positive results. Keep in mind that external factors such as promotions, seasons, and holidays can greatly impact customer data. A drop in purchases from a loyal customer does not necessarily indicate a loss of interest in your products or services. It could simply be a temporary shift in buying habits due to seasonal influences, and the customer may return to their regular purchasing patterns in the future.

Want to find out how our event triggered campaigns can raise your customer engagement through the roof? Contact one of our experts for a free demo.