The Art Of Building A Successful Customer Engagement Strategy
Customer engagement is the science of involving your consumers in the product’s journey (empathetic dialogues), as well as the art of applying the product/brand in the customer’s journey (compassionate conversations) (user interaction). Let’s explore the art of building a successful customer engagement strategy.
We live in a world where converses are united. These opposites form every element of existence, every moment, and every discovery. You can use either one to guide your progress. Striking a balance, on the other hand, is usually always what propels you forward. When it comes to establishing and scaling a business, there is always a combination of science and art associated with different aspects. It comes down to finding correct balance and understanding.
Read for more insight into the art of building a successful customer engagement strategy.
Customer Engagement
It’s a two-way street when it comes to customer involvement. Engagement can be defined based on the user’s location in the user journey. For example, how the user interacts with the product (applicable to product users only). Plus, it depends on how businesses interact with users outside the product to establish a good connection (both for current users and potential customers).
As products and services, engagement refers to user interaction and involvement with the product. Over a specific length of time, it refers to the frequency, intensity, or depth of engagement between the user and the product, or service.
Importance To Customer Engagement
Customer engagement stands as the most reliable strategy to create and sustain your relationship with your consumers. That is especially true in today’s relationship-centric market, more specifically, where most firms are subscription-based.
Understanding your customers’ engagement and behavior with your product and brand reveals how well it fits their genuine needs and how much they are hooked to using it. Different engagement metrics can disclose the frequency and the depth and volume of use, which are more indicative of value and a positive user experience.
Customer Engagement Benefits
Digital consumer engagement has become a crucial benchmark for all firms, regardless of their size. It’s all about utilizing digital communication channels to engage customers to provide excellent service and meet customer expectations.
The benefits of well-engaged customers cannot be overlooked. Engaged customers tend to buy repeatedly.
Improve Client Loyalty
Customers are loyal to businesses that provide exceptional customer service. Those who receive a personalized experience are more likely than disengaged customers to return to their favorite brand and purchase more in the future.
Boost Revenue
When companies spend in improving customer engagement procedures and ideas, it shows up in their bottom line. Increased income is the result of improved customer happiness.
Creating Competitive Advantage
A well-thought-out engagement strategy enables you to provide a consistent customer experience, which helps you differentiate your brand and attract more customers.
Brand Advocacy Matters for Your Company
You undoubtedly realize why your business must define who should be brand ambassadors.
Here are a few reasons why brand advocacy should be a big part of your company’s marketing initiatives.
- Organically Increases Brand Visibility – As briefly noted above, brand advocacy leads to brand growth in a more natural way. Instead of spending thousands on advertising, you may have champions spread the word about your brand with little effort. This can be an exponential increase depending on the size of your organization.
- Demonstrates The Quality Of Your Product/Services – Your brand becomes more valuable since people trust other people more than corporate statements. Customers are charged more than corporate leaders, and employees who contribute educational content, industry content, and work culture are trusted. Together, these factors will result in more sales, top talent, and more people desiring to use your company’s product or services.
- Media and publications pay attention – When more people talk about your brand, publications and news outlets pay attention. Your organization now has a better chance of being highlighted in articles or news stories. This increases your marketing reach by exposing your brand to even more people.
- Brand advocates have a wider reach – Concentrating on your brand advocates can help you generate more sales. Brand advocates are 3x more likely to share brand knowledge. Particularly, with someone they don’t know, sets them separately from the rest of the pack.
- Frees up time for other corporate efforts – Having an army of employees and customers who are continually discussing your brand frees up time for the company to focus on other elements of the business. For example, more free time for marketers to try new things, executives to focus on new divisions, public relations teams to spend less on sponsored placements or dealing with bad news, and so on.
Before you focus all of your efforts on brand champions, you must first ensure that your company’s culture, products and services, and environment are in good shape.
Examples Of Successful Social Media And Brand Advocacy Campaigns And Programs
Large or small businesses may profit from social media advocacy programs, from global juggernauts to challenger retail brands. Here are the ideas:
Ikea
Ikea organized a contest to tap into the strength of their social media followers. Their #JoyOfStorage campaign encouraged Facebook users to share photos of Ikea products in their homes in exchange for a prize. In the form of images of their items in action, the user-generated material that resulted successfully served as a mini-advertising campaign for both the contest and the brand. As a result, more people were encouraged to participate.
Starbucks
In less than a month, Starbucks’ famed @Tweetacoffee Twitter campaign produced $180,000 in direct sales. Users only had to tweet the hashtag along with the Twitter account of the person to whom they wanted to “tweet a coffee.” The free coffee could be readily transferred to the recipient’s Starbucks account and consumed immediately.
Closing Thoughts
Understanding your customers is key to engagement. However, it is not a one-time occurrence. For this reason, businesses need to continue creating an experience that builds customer loyalty and encourages interaction between consumers and their products and services. What is more, companies that consistently provide value for their customers incorporate the art of building a successful customer engagement strategy will more likely experience continued connection with their clients.
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