Your company is made up of more than your products and services. It comes down to the individuals who purchase from you. That's what marketing is all about: connecting with the right people.
*Updated 7/11/2024
Even the best digital marketing strategies can fail without proper planning, and the primary key result you should aim for in all digital marketing campaigns is engagement and interaction.
According to research, 86% of customers will pay extra for superior experiences, and 64% want personalized engagement based on previous interactions.
Perhaps most importantly, more than half of customers believe companies need to rethink how they engage customers. Here are some customer engagement strategies to help you begin changing that statistic.
What Is Customer Engagement?
Customer engagement is the process of creating meaningful interactions and exchanges between you and your customers. Some examples of customer engagement include:
- Excellent and prompt customer support
- Interacting with people on social media channels
- Sending personalized emails, SMS texts, direct mail, and even phone calls
The primary goal of customer engagement is to build a relationship with the public as a whole, which should result in a more loyal customer base, and thus, a healthier bottom line.
13 Proven Customer Engagement Strategies
- Know your customers
- Content personalization
- Consistently post on social media
- Use email marketing
- Loyalty programs
- Utilize push notifications
- Implement live chat
- Tell a story
- Focus on customer retention
- Respond to customer reviews
- Create engaging content
- Dropshipping
- Collect and respond to feedback
Custom image created in Canva
1. Know your customers
You need to clearly understand your target audience and how they connect with your company to begin creating or implementing any customer engagement strategies.
Work on building deep knowledge and understanding of your target audience. Making a map of your customer's journey and identifying all significant touchpoints, bottlenecks, and difficulties is an intelligent place to start.
You can do this by running customer satisfaction surveys, asking for users' preferences, and observing customers using your products with the help of a user research platform.
You may begin creating customer profiles or personas by examining the behaviors and habits of your customers. You may explore factors critical to your business, such as location, income, motives, previous interactions, and more.
With this knowledge, you may think of strategies to engage each person precisely and in a favorable direction. Hiring a skillful virtual assistant can keep your time free and effective.
2. Content personalization
Personalization is one of the best marketing strategies.
Emotions trigger something in people, so keep that in mind when you write content. And if you connect with your target audience by providing relevant, loyal content, it ultimately boosts your bottom line.
“91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands that recognize, remember, and get them with relevant offers and recommendations”. - Accenture
For example, Cadbury's decided to produce its personalized video after seeing the popularity of Facebook. Instead of reviewing the brand's previous year, it discussed customers' specific chocolate preferences.
The campaign had a 65% click-through rate (CTR) and a 33.6% discussion rate, indicating that the personal touch worked.
3. Consistently post on social media
It's simpler to post on social media frequently when you produce high-quality, exciting posts that increase engagement.
Social media, however, may help you stay in your audience's minds and provide them additional opportunities to engage with you even if you don't have any material to share.
More than 90% of businesses use social media for their branding and marketing plans. The public anticipates it!
However, increasing interaction cannot be done by merely being visible on social media. Regardless of the platform you choose, social media is a busy place.
Also, let’s not forget that you will have some social media management tasks to compete.
Consistency is essential for this reason. Your possibilities to interact with your audience increase as you become more engaged.
And although coming up with different types of content for each platform can be challenging, you can use social media templates to speed up the process and keep a consistent schedule and look.
There are several methods to interact with your clients on social media, such as:
- Asking inquiries
- Releasing polls
- Sharing videos and distributing advice
- Publishing your most recent blog posts
- Running competitions on social media
- Introducing market research
- Taking a look at your business
If you want to improve customer engagement, don't just chat with your customers but spark discussion with your posting. Active dialogues with customers will raise the value for everyone who sees it.
4. Use email marketing
Email marketing is one of the most cost-efficient digital marketing tools.
Its excellent ROI (Return on Investment) demonstrates that even with a tiny investment, it may significantly increase a company's revenues.
- Start by building your email list. Use a lead magnet like a free e-book, checklist, or case study.
- Segment your email list into groups based on demographics or interests.
- Curate relevant and personalized content for each group and send them out.
Sending tailored newsletters may help promote content engagement through shares, whether your subscribers forward them through email or post links to your material on their social network profiles.
Including a comment option in your articles can help improve interaction with your content.
5. Loyalty programs
Loyalty programs are a great way to keep your customers coming again.
By offering loyalty points or rewards for continued business, you create an incentive for customers to keep using your products or services. Additionally, loyalty programs can help you collect valuable customer data that you can use to improve your marketing and operations.
For example, Starbucks gross revenue increased to $2.1 billion from its rewards program in 2022, and their app generated about $6 million in new monthly revenue or about 22% of all sales in the United States.
There are many different types of programs, so choosing one that will fit your business model and goals is essential.
6. Use push notifications
Numerous mediums are used in effective customer engagement tactics to communicate with your audience. Push notifications are one such medium that doesn’t get enough effective utilization.
However, if used correctly, it may enhance service engagement by up to 88%, with 65% of users returning to an app within the first 30 days after the push is activated.
Additionally, providing push alerts enhances app retention by 3-10 times. Push notifications are messages that appear on a user's computer or mobile device outside of the online browser.
Examples of push notifications:
-
Personalized push notification
-
Promotional notification
Push alerts are successful because customers must opt-in to receive them. Essentially, they're authorizing you to send them information about the items and services you provide.
They engage with your brand by taking the initial step of opting in. Furthermore, they express an interest in continuing to interact with your brand.
Leveraging push notifications effectively requires balancing messaging and timing. To get them to click through, you should create a compelling message.
However, you want to refrain from interfering with their day.
Push notifications are delivered to the typical app user 46 times each day.
If they receive five or more push notifications from a company each week, over a third of consumers will turn off all of them. Choose your times carefully.
7. Implement live chat
Customers of today demand prompt responses and anticipate quick communication from companies. They want to avoid jumping through hoops, filling out forms, or navigating a complex IVR system.
Live chat lets you communicate with your website visitors on a large scale whenever convenient.
Chatbots, which employ artificial intelligence to mimic human speaking styles and give quick, complete solutions to your customers' most popular inquiries, can help you automate this functionality.
When chatbots cannot answer the client's inquiries, they might escalate the interaction to your human customer support staff.
True, your consumers may understand they're speaking with a bot rather than a person. But customers want one thing: their demands to be met.
Customers are only bothered about how they achieve the end product if a bot can accomplish it swiftly and efficiently. Customer satisfaction rises, and they are more likely to contact you in the future.
8. Tell a story
One of the best content marketing strategies is storytelling. Don’t believe us? See the picture below.
Storytelling has the potential to bring people and brands together.
Messages that resonate with audiences or elicit an emotional reaction are more likely to stimulate engagement. As a result, narrative contributes to better, deeper ties with your consumers.
Furthermore, it is essential for expanding your brand and letting customers know who you are and what you stand for. It also makes sure that people think of your brand often.
In fact, according to research, sharing a story about your business may make it 22 times more memorable!
One of the best ways to tell stories is through video storytelling.
Unlike blog entries and social media photographs, someone watching your video can't quickly browse it and get all the details. Your target audience must pay attention and read or listen to your offer.
Even if people don't actively participate in your video by liking, sharing, or commenting, their passive support increases the number of views on your video, giving you social proof.
Video storytelling may help clients feel more attached to your company by going beyond passive participation.
Highlight the emotional aspect of your company when you share your interests through videos, such as customer and employee testimonials, humanitarian endeavors, success stories, and words from your creator.
Reports enable clients to learn more about your core purpose and not only your products or services, which helps you stand out from your rivals.
These characteristics help individuals feel a connection to a firm. When consumers feel like they're a part of it, they'll keep visiting your website, social media sites, or other material.
9. Focus on customer retention
Another primary content engagement strategy that you can’t ignore is customer retention.
According to the Harvard Business Review, getting a new client might be five to twenty-five times more expensive than keeping an existing one. Moreover, Harvard research says that increasing your customer's lifetime value and retention by just 5% can increase your profits by 25% to 95%.
The numbers don't lie: Retaining customers earn companies a ton of ROI. Customer retention is crucial to a company's development and success for several reasons:
- Affordability: Acquiring a new client is 6 to 7 times more expensive than retaining an existing customer.
- ROI: A 5% improvement in client retention can result in a 25-95% increase in corporate revenue.
- Loyalty: Repeat consumers buy more frequently and spend more money than new customers. They recognize the worth of a product or service and return it repeatedly.
- Referrals: Happy, loyal consumers are more inclined to shout a company's praises and refer their friends and family, bringing in free new clients.
It may seem simple — businesses should want to retain customers — but when companies begin to develop fast and struggle to create a good customer care strategy, proactive customer assistance for current customers can fall between the cracks.
10. Respond to customer reviews
While we're talking about social media engagement, bear in mind that interaction is always a two-way street. It applies to both the content you share and the content that your audience shares.
For instance, you may reply directly to a customer's online review if it appears on your Facebook page or Google My Business site. In reality, the majority of consumers anticipate businesses that answer their questions.
It is especially true for bad reviews since other consumers will be watching how you reply to the reviewer, and the reviewer wants a response from the company.
How you answer can influence whether a consumer chooses to conduct business with you from their point of view. Customers anticipate the same standard of care when leaving comments and sending direct messages on social media.
According to one survey by Small Business Trends, 38% of consumers desire a response within the first hour, while over 80% want businesses to reply within 24 hours.
Don’t ignore customers when they contact a brand on their initiative. Customers will feel more comfortable contacting you with queries or comments if they can see that other customers have received a response.
11. Create engaging content
What is the simplest and most precise way to boost customer engagement? Simple: provide them with engaging content. For example, every day, there are:
- 23 billion texts sent
- 500 million tweets
- 3.7 million YouTube videos uploaded
- 7 million blog posts published
- 8.5 billion searches on Google
Nine out of ten marketers include content creation in their broader marketing plans. Customer engagement is an understandable challenge, given the volume of material distributed to consumers worldwide.
Customer interaction strategy must rely on more than just content. Your material should have an interactive element if engagement is your objective.
It should feature an exciting mix of a futuristic business logo design with AI tech, interactive call-to-action, and a message to stir the right emotions and connect with the audience.
Or it may be material that finds solutions to some of your audience's biggest problems. Because it speaks to your audience's genuine needs, valuable content is captivating. Your brand's reputation is enhanced if they take anything significant.
Focusing on themes or concepts your clients find appealing is the secret to developing exciting content. Being able to stand out in crowded online places may be achieved by producing content that connects with your target audience.
By discovering what your target audience is currently discussing, artificial intelligence (AI) may support the ideation process for your content.
Using Copy AI or alternatives to Copy AI can help you generate a few sentences that will give you a little push to get started with writing.
12. Dropshipping
Dropshipping is a business model in which eCommerce entrepreneurs sell products without having to keep any inventory.
When a store owner gets an order from a customer, they contact the supplier, who will then ship the products straight to the customer’s doorstep.
Dropshipping is a great way to start an online business with little up-front investment, and it can be especially helpful in boosting customer engagement.
Customers can browse and purchase items in a dropshipping store without committing to a large upfront order. This flexibility allows customers to try out new products and makes it easy to find the perfect item for their needs.
Dropshipping stores also allow customers to track their orders and receive updates on shipping status, which helps keep them informed and engaged with the store.
13. Collect and respond to feedback
It's no secret that customers are the moving force of any business. Keeping them happy should be a top priority for any business, but how can you ensure that your customers are satisfied with your product or service?
The answer is simple: by addressing and collecting feedback.
Showing that you value customer feedback will go a long way toward increasing customer engagement and loyalty.
There are a few different ways to collect feedback from your customers. You can use online and in-person surveys or collect comments and suggestions via email or social media.
Once you've collected some feedback, it's time to address it.
Conclusion
Although challenging, you are creating content that draws leads and converts them into paying clients is possible.
All you have to do is be aware of the goal of your content and comprehend the readers for which you are writing the content. Next, craft intriguing headlines and introductions. After releasing, promote your content via social media and newsletters. Make sure to offer a fantastic user experience.
Everything else in the industry does. You'll notice results when you start putting these tactics into practice.
Author Bio
Makashib Kadri is a Growth Hacker & Content Marketer. He enables SaaS Startups and businesses to generate results digitally in search engines and content marketing by implementing a thoroughly actionable Content Strategy.
Connect with Makashib ➡️ @LinkedIn @Twitter @Instagram
