This blog post was originally published on April 21th, 2024 and updated on May 11th, 2024.
Information for this blog post was obtained from HubSpot, Forbes Advisor, Sproutsocial
Have you ever imagined waking up to a beautiful day, all set to work on a project? You head to a retail home center to shop for your project, only to find yourself unsure of what to buy and need recommendations from the sales team. However, to your surprise, the experience falls short of your expectations. In such a situation, what options would you have? This is where customer engagement, a key driver of business success, comes into play. It empowers brands to forge lasting connections with their customers or target audience, paving the way for significant business growth. Whether you're a budding start-up or a seasoned industry player, embracing customer engagement can turbocharge your leads, foster brand loyalty, and ignite your business growth, promising a bright future for your brand.
This blog post is a comprehensive guide to customer engagement and a practical toolkit that equips you with the knowledge you need to master it. We don't just provide theoretical concepts; we offer practical strategies and tips that you can implement in your business today. To make these strategies more relatable, we've included real-life examples of successful customer engagement from companies like Glossier and Birchbox.
What Is Customer Engagement?
Customer Engagement is a dynamic process that involves understanding and meeting your audience's needs, preferences, and desires for a specific product or service. It's not just about selling; it's about creating a meaningful connection with your customers. This process establishes a clear communication channel for customers to interact with the brand, providing valuable insights that can improve your existing processes or products.
This starts with brand awareness, which is the first step in the customer engagement process. It then moves to the post-purchase phase, where the customer has already bought the brand’s product or used their service. This phase is not just crucial, it's the make-or-break point that determines whether the customer will continue engaging with the brand. There is no doubt that the goal of any customer engagement scheme is to have a sustainable, lasting relationship between the two parties.
Why Customer Engagement?
Customer engagement is never completed until the products reach the end users or your customers and their experience of your brand is positive. This routine helps brands gain a reputation due to repeat purchases or service use.
According to a Salesforce study, 80% of customers believe experience influences their decision-making process. This underscores the direct impact of your customer engagement on your customers' purchasing decisions. It's crucial to identify your goals for each interaction process. When engaging with your audience, key goals include customer loyalty, increased retention, positive brand perception, higher revenue, and personalization growth.
How to Implement a Customer Engagement Marketing Strategy
We have provided step-by-step tactics with detailed explanations to help you implement a reliable marketing engagement strategy for your customers.
A SMART goal—specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound—is the first step in implementing an effective and efficient marketing strategy for your audience. This asks why the business needs more customer engagement rather than just assuming it alone. Once this question is answered, you can also understand the benefit of keeping your customers engaged. As an initial activity, the marketing manager or responsible personnel should figure this out before planning marketing campaigns to ensure that everything is within the nature and scope of the business.
In this stage, departments within the organization must unite and work together for a successful engagement. This collaborative effort allows functional units to work harmoniously, each playing a crucial role in achieving the common goal. It's much easier to achieve an objective or complete a goal when a collaborative force exists, fostering a sense of teamwork and unity within the organization.
Your brand must identify and select the right social media networks for engagement. Your audience may want to stay connected with you on different platforms, so choose the right ones to maximize an opportunity for more engagement. This will help the brand segment its efforts in the short and long run, which will also help the brand concentrate on the deliverable for the period.
Once you have executed your campaign, you need to review the goals you set in the first phase of the implementation stage. It would be best to track the metrics corresponding to the goal for a successful outcome. Feedback from internal department units and external stakeholders should be included to source the innovation funnel. Moreover, customer feedback, which falls under external stakeholders, should be prioritized when gathering information.
Regularly iterating your customer engagement strategy is not just about tracking progress; it's about listening to your customers and appreciating their feedback. This process helps you understand whether the milestone has been achieved or what needs to be done to accomplish it. Depending on your decision, these milestones can be tracked weekly, monthly, or quarterly. By consistently measuring over time and incorporating customer feedback, you show your audience that their opinions are valued and appreciated, fostering a sense of being heard and included in your brand's journey.
Customer Engagement Strategies
Build your brand voice
Customers play a crucial role in shaping a brand's voice. They prefer to interact with a brand with a good reputation and personality. This is why most brands have differentiated themselves from their competitors to achieve a unique voice. By embracing this uniqueness, your brand can be more relatable and memorable to its customers, making them feel valued and integral to your brand's success.
For example, Glossier, an e-commerce makeup and skincare company, has differentiated itself with an authentic personality. This has influenced its customers to be glossier girls who embrace their authenticity and use skincare and makeup to highlight their features rather than disguise them.
Share your brand voice
Sharing your brand voice with others through content can be effective and successful. This enables your brand to establish a digital presence and showcase its unique identity. You should engage your audience and attract more reach to your platform by posting content that aligns with your core values and overall brand objective.
Personalize customer experiences
Tailoring customer experiences can also increase your engagement rate. Companies like Amazon Logistics have developed complex software that customizes or recommends products based on purchase history. A brand can also personalize its customers with the help of customer journeys, which are the steps a customer goes through when interacting with your company. Understanding these journeys aids the brand in understanding their preferences.
For instance, Birchbox asks its customers about their skin and hair type, which also helps the company tailor the experience of its customers in its monthly subscription boxes. This enables the company to obtain customers' feedback and personalize their experience.
Create content based on customer history
Information derived from purchase history can help the brand create and share content. The Birchbox example mentioned above may not be considered vital to customer experience. However, it adds value to the customer's expectations.
Spotify is a perfect example of creating content based on user demand or experience. The app has a unique weekly playlist consisting of songs the user may like. This feature consists of an algorithm that understands the user's music taste and recommends a playlist that the user may want based on his taste. This support helps their user to discover songs they enjoy listening to.
Four main ways Customers Interact with brands on Social
They like your post
Research shows that 45% of customers like a brand’s post from their social media accounts, making it the most popular form of engagement. Tracking your brand's likes helps you understand what customers are interested in. For example, suppose your content about corporate social responsibility has more likes than a post about your product or service. In that case, you can use that information to create more compelling content for social messaging.
They follow your brand
Customers follow a brand that they are interested in and considering. Whether they are loyal customers, first-time buyers, or visitors, clicking the button is an action for becoming a brand member as they exist in the AIDA funnel.
According to the Sprout Social Index Report 2023, 68% of customers follow brands to learn about their products and services. To generate more leads, create engaging content, make room for positive feedback, and source the marketing funnel.
They share brand content
When you care for your customers, they will treat your business like theirs. Organic content from people with experience with your brand will share their thoughts about your product and service in a friendly manner, helping reach a wider audience at no cost. A survey shows that 71% of customers said their decision is influenced by posts from someone they know, compared to 53% influenced by social media ads.
They report issues
According to research from Zendesk CX Trends, companies have realized a 60% increase in support requests from their social media networks over the years.
Every brand needs an escalation management plan that helps the team identify issues related to the brand and its customers. When problems are addressed with customer communication, it helps strengthen the bond between the brand and the customer.
With Sprout's Zendesk integration, you can expect an improved communication experience with greater visibility into tickets and prior communication. Get ready to streamline issue resolution and enhance overall team efficiency.
Conclusion
Effective customer engagement is crucial for companies that want to succeed in their industry. To beat the competition in their industry, they need to prioritize customer communication strategy so that their voice is heard. At the heart of successful customer engagement lies the ability to offer tangible value that resonates with their needs and preferences. This is where exclusive offers, rewards, and customized recommendations come into play. By understanding what matters most to our customers, you can create experiences that truly connect with them on a deeper level.
Also, actively engaging the customer through feedback can help the brand identify its areas of weakness and create room for improvement. Encouraging community involvement by fostering a sense of belonging can also help companies establish a solid customer base and lasting relationships with their customers. It would be best to continuously refine your engagement strategies to keep up with the changing customer preferences and behaviors. Investing in customer engagement is not just about acquiring new customers but also nurturing mutually beneficial relationships that are essential for long-term success. Businesses can increase customer satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy by prioritizing customer engagement and achieving their desired outcomes.
Discover the secrets to improving customer engagement and gaining a competitive edge in the market. Don't miss out on valuable insights that can help you boost your business! Check out our related blog post now.
Resources
Basha Coleman (October 21, 2021). The Ultimate Guide to Customer Engagement in 2024. HubSpot. https://blog.hubspot.com/service/customer-engagement-guide
Monique Danao (Sept 12, 2023). Customer Engagement In 2024: The Ultimate Guide. Forbes Advisor. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/customer-engagement/
Ronnie Gomez (May 19, 2021). Eight ways customers interact and engage with your brand on social. Sproutsocial. https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-interaction/