Customer Engagement: The Only Marketing Tool You Need
Keeping up with marketing trends in today’s frenetic environment can wear. You. Out.
Modern consumers, savvy and hurried, want more than a one-off transaction, and the minute you think you understand customer motivations, they shift. Bottom line—getting people to buy your product or service is the easy part. Creating a lasting relationship that keeps folks interested and loyal to your brand (what insiders call customer engagement) takes strategy, grit, and flexibility.
The Anatomy of Customer Engagement
Before tackling the science behind this buzzy industry term, let’s entertain a few statistics:
- Engaged customers bring in 23% more profitability, revenue and relationship growth.
- Brands focused on the customer experience report significantly higher profits.
- 80% of customers say ongoing experience with a business is as vital as the products/services sold.
So, we’ve established that prioritizing customer interaction can help your business flourish, but how can you put this theory into practice? First, it helps to understand the relationship’s dynamics. Though engagement takes two parties, it starts with the company and must be chosen by the customer.
Marketing analytics play a huge role in helping you improve your customer experience. Data that explains who your customers are, what they want, and how they live can give you valuable information about how to create a productive connection with your customers. There are many customer engagement tools available to help you get started analyzing your prospective customer, but that is only the beginning of your journey into customer engagement.
To nurture the relationship, you must consider the kinds of exchanges your prospects and customers want and on what platforms they will best receive them. Here are some solid practices:
Analysis
Build a profile of your potential customer. Start by putting yourself in their shoes and find out what experiences would matter most to you. Data will be helpful for this step, though building a good customer profile will be just as useful for getting started with building your customer experience.
The Power of Personalization
If you want people to stick around, treat them like humans, not commodities. That means personalizing content at every stage:
- Use their first name in correspondence to create a more engaging experience.
- Understand your customer’s transaction data so you can tailor products and services to their needs and behaviors.
- Empathize with their problems and aim to create solutions.
Also, don’t be afraid to tackle every point for potential customization, like the device they’re using, their preferred communication channels, or even the time of day.
Seamless Transitions
Omnichannel communication is not only useful, it’s essential to your customer engagement. Imagine you’re talking with a friend at a house party. You chat in the kitchen while you get refreshments, then you transition into the living room. For some fresh air, you both head out to the patio. You’re parched by this point, so you head back to the kitchen for more drinks.
If all goes well, the conversation maintains its rhythm regardless of locale. You don’t suddenly interrupt, change topics without warning, lean in too closely, or become distracted by another partygoer. We want to be engaging with our friends, just like you want to be engaging with your customers.
Omnichannel communication might sound complex, but when it’s executed properly, it should play out like having a chat with a friend at a party – effortlessly.
Here’s how to make omnichannel communication happen from a marketing perspective:
- Map touchpoints your clients have with your company. From pre-transaction to post-transaction and every stop in between, determine the journey they take working with you.
- Understand their preferred avenues of interaction with you (website, social media, mobile app, kiosks, physical storefronts).
- Create a strategy for service and reaching out that includes a mix of online and offline tools: email, text messages, videos, blog posts, and FAQ pages.
- Harness the continued power of direct mail. The point is to keep things flowing in the manner they want, when and where they want it.
- Measure business metrics and make adjustments when necessary.
Closing Arguments and Key Takeaways
The key to business survival today entails preparing for the future. Marketing experts agree that companies that step away from one-size-fits-all strategies and prioritize customer engagement ultimately have winning customer engagement strategies.
Overall, you’ll need to figure out how to effectively and authentically communicate with your customers and build a holistic, consistent approach to communication, and customers will stay by your side. On the upside, eating this elephant doesn’t have to claim the last remaining pieces of your free time and sanity.
Because set-it-and-forget-it is a beautiful thing.
So, when you need software and print collateral to reach all your superfans, trust Xpressdocs, and watch customer engagement and conversion rates take off.
Blog article originally published July 6, 2021