Make New Friends, but Keep the Old

Chapter 10 of "Real-Time Marketing & PR" discusses real time customer connection.

Friends Tweet Friends First:

In this section of the chapter David Meerman Scott questions why companies offer special deals to new customers in order to get them to sign up before people who have been customers for years.  For example, in the book Scott says he renews his “$50-per-month subscription to the Boston Globe newspaper only to see Special Introductory Offer: Sign Up for home delivery for the Boston Globe and save 50% off the home delivery rate” (119).

“Well, shoot!” Scott says, “What about me?  And don’t get me started on the mobile phone companies and their amazing phone pricing that everyone except existing customers qualify for” (119).

This is almost like buying something you really like at full price and then seeing it go on sale a few days later.  It just seems unfair.  I can think of multiple companies at the top of my head that also try to lure new customers in in stead of paying attention to existing customers.

For example, I use the music steaming service, Spotify, to download and listen to all of my music.  When I fist found out about this music application, I noticed it allows new customers to have free music for a month, while current customers pay close to $10 monthly.  It was pretty nice for the first month, but continuous months of using the app really do add up.
Today I just saw a commercial for the Kindle Fire HD giving buyers free Amazon Prime for a month, hoping to receive more customers on Amazon.  Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.
An online store that I have previously ordered from, Tobi, offers customers 50% off their first order.  It also offers existing customers special deals once in a while to make sure they stay interested.  I still use this online shopping brand because they frequently give me deals, as if treating me as a brand new customer.

Companies try to lure new customers all the time by giving them deals, but who can blame them?  The only problem is, companies need to continue these deals to let customers know they are not being forgotten.  Once a company builds the trust of its new customers, the customers usually stay loyal.  This is the ultimate goal of most companies: building loyal customers.

I do, however, completely agree with Scott’s complaint.  I think new customers deserve special deals, as long as current customers also get that opportunity at least once.