Despite all the talk about brands needing to invest in customer retention, it’s important to know that brands cannot survive on retention alone: most brands only retain 20-30% of their customer base.
Retention is a metric to maximize, especially if you’re running a subscription business, but it cannot be your exclusive focus. Customer acquisition is equally, if not more, important. In fact, for the average brand, most of the revenue comes from light buyers rather than repeat buyers.
It’s also important to be mindful of the Double Jeopardy rule of brand growth: market share (acquisition) and market penetration (retention) grow hand-in-hand. There’s no growing one without the other. This is because, as your brand becomes more popular, it will become more and more the de-facto choice for your customers rather than being a decision they need to actively think about.