Enlightened marketers have been prioritizing customer engagement over the past few years, and you should, too.
In a world that is becoming even more connected, the modern customer is more empowered on account of the seemingly unlimited amount of resources available to them. Customer expectations are at an all-time high, and it is for this reason why customer-centric businesses have much to show in terms of ROI.
As a business owner, you’d do well to play the long game, and the best way to do that is to engage your customers on a regular basis. In fact, a Gallup research reports that a fully-engaged customer represents 23% more revenue than average.
But how do you engage customers effectively in context to the dynamic digital marketing landscape we have today?
Let me count the ways.
1. Understand Customer Journeys
The term “Customer Journey” has been a buzzword in the digital marketing space for years now, but it was only recently that the marketing concept started gaining ground as the choice platform for customer engagement.
To bring home the point, a 2017 Forrester study released an analytics report proving how powerful the customer journey model has been in driving conversions.
As a business owner, it’s time you start focusing on how to understand customer journeys better. This means focusing on the needs of your target audience within the entire customer lifecycle and then finding ways to provide relevant and valuable content that will address those needs. (Tip: To map out customer journeys better, read up on the so-called marketing hourglass)
One obvious channel that can guide your customer journey marketing is social media. It goes without saying that you need to use all social media channels to maximize the reach of your brand. You can even do better by using social media listening tools to your advantage.
By recognizing the fact that customer journeys are multi-staged and non-linear, you can deliver real value to customers when and where they need it.
2. Use Customer Context to Drive Positive Customer Experience
Data is sexy. But you know what’s sexier? Data with context. To put it simply, if you want to drive customer engagement, you have to use contextual marketing to your advantage.
You can start by leveraging the power of automation in your marketing campaigns. Do this and you get access to predictive, real-time analytics, which will, in turn, provide you actionable insights that will inform your marketing decisions.
Speaking of “contextual messages,” here’s a lifehack for you: leverage the power of web push notifications in your campaigns.
To those not in the know, web push notifications are the little pop-ups that appear on your screen’s corner when a website wants to communicate with you.
Push messages are permission-based, meaning you can only continue receiving notifications from a website upon approval. Also, you don’t have to be on that particular website to receive push notifications from it.
Push messages are highly effective in driving engagement. In fact, a research from Oracle reports that up to 70% of consumers enable web push notifications.
If you want a piece of that big pie, it’s in your best interests to subscribe to a web push notifications service like Maxtraffic or any other that you prefer. For one, these tools offer subscriber analytics that provide contextual cues with which to base your engagement strategy on. To top it off, they allow you to deliver a strong call-to-action via contextual push messages. Push messages in general have a high click-through rate, but the targeting flexibility and extensive customization features provided by web push notification tools can provide you opportunities to aim even higher.
3. Deliver an omnichannel customer experience
To drive high conversions, you need to engage customers wherever they are, on any channel and on any device, and at times that are preferable to them. We are living in an omnichannel world, and it only makes sense that you provide customers a truly omnichannel experience if you want to engage them at the optimal level.
Thanks to a plethora of customer engagement platforms available online — such as email marketing, social media, and blogging — it’s far easier to integrate all aspects of your campaign using one unified system. What’s more, they provide valuable insights based on disparate customer data.
4. Personalize
Personalization has always been an integral component of successful marketing, so much so that mentioning it is tantamount to cliché. That said, it’s a cliché because it’s true, and it’s even truer in light of our increasingly connected world.
There’s a ton of digital channels and technology you can use to capture personal data. Customer information are essential to your marketing campaign because they provide you excellent opportunities to engage customers in a personalized way, thus enhancing customer experience.
Key Takeaway
So there you have it. Key takeaway? If you’re not committed to providing customers (and potential customers) with real value on a consistent basis, chances are you won’t receive much value in return. In the final analysis, customer engagement is about relationships. And if you want relationships that will prove valuable in the long run, you have to nurture customers every step of the way.
