Although the more traditional marketing approaches such as direct and email marketing and PPC, or pay-to-click marketing still hold their own in today’s digital world, they are slowly but surely becoming obsolete. As technology makes our lives more engaging, it becomes necessary for the marketing techniques to be engaging as well.
Businesses have started to adopt a conversation-like relationship with their customers, as opposed to using direct marketing strategies aimed at particular individual or audience. With engagement marketing, the consumers themselves choose when and how they want to communicate with your brand or business.
What are the examples of engagement marketing?
Once there’s a direct line of communication between you and loyal customer or a potential one, you can start implementing specific strategies such as using an influential individual to advocate for your company and promote its image.
A number of large brands have started implementing this approach in the last couple of years, as these advocates are an excellent way to increase the conversion rate while recommending and promoting your products and services in a friendly and enthusiastic manner, typically to their personal network of friends and coworkers.
Another thing you must do to fully enjoy the benefits of engagement marketing is to work on promoting a conversation between your company and the potential or loyal customer with the objective of helping them make their decision regarding the final purchase.
Engaged customers are more likely to become loyal customers, so make sure to treat them as unique individuals and focus on what they actually want and need from your business. Making them happy is the key to engagement marketing, and with a properly devised marketing strategy, you can not only encourage the move from a potential to a loyal customer but also get both new and loyal customers to actively promote your brand.
1. Engage users with interesting and relevant content
Have you ever heard that saying, content is king? If you haven’t, remember it. No one is going to like, comment and share your brand if it doesn’t appeal to them on some level, or provide them with the information they need.
Always strive towards making your content that engages the audience and makes them want to comment on it and discuss it with others. Video content has seen an increase in use over the last couple of years, with over a half of all internet content now being video.
2. Work on presenting a compelling value proposition
Value proposition represents the main reason why a potential customer should buy your products or use your services. It determines the conversion rate potential for your business. Marketers have tried to improve the results by changing and tweaking website elements such as button shapes, font types and sizes, color schemes, graphic incentives, and so on, instead of concentrating on the value proposition.
Creating a good value proposition requires finding out what exactly is unique when it comes to the services and products offered by your company and refining it into a single sentence which accurately describes and represents your brand.
3. Build trust with your customers
A successful business is a trustworthy one, so try to make sure that all the information offered on your website can be easily verified and checked for accuracy. The best way to do this is to use articles in known publications and provide the customers with citations, testimonials and source material for all the information you present them.
Even if people don’t actually check your claims, having third-party support only shows that you have confidence in your products and offered services.
You can further work on building trust by showing that there are real people working on the website. This is best done by adding employee and offices photos, listing the physical address of the company and highlighting your worker’s individual expertise regarding your products and services.
Making this clear allows for potential customers to relate to your company on a more personal level, which is an excellent way to increase conversion rates and ensure the existing customers continue to seek and use the services you offer.
4. Try to make the shopping process simple
Making the purchasing process simple is vital for any business. If the customer has to devote time to figuring out how to use your website and buy a specific product, then there are good chances that they’ll look for a simpler shopping experience. Don’t burden the customer with too many options and try to use indicators to guide them towards making the desired action.
Try to avoid using too many fields that people need to fill in and never force the customers to sign up to make a purchase. The best way is to simply offer to sign up with Google or Facebook, as it can be accomplished with literally two or three clicks.
5. Use analytics to improve your strategy
Information such as how many times a person has entered your website, at what time of the day, where from, how much time they’ve spent interacting with your brand and what part of the website and available content interests them the most can all be used to further target your customers with personalized product offers.
There are different plugins and websites which collect this information and present it either as numbers or as graphs, which can be later analyzed and implemented into you current or new marketing strategy.
Building lasting and long-term relationships with your customers have become crucial for operating a business. This relationship needs to be based on open communication, support, and trust, as well as mutual value exchange with the customers.
Treating both loyal and potentially new customers as respective individuals and taking the time to work out what they want and how can you help them achieve it is a sure-proof way of not only keeping afloat but also staying ahead of the competition.
Article by
John Stone is a business consultant and web entrepreneur. Through years of experience, he became a devout believer in the notion that form should always follow function and that developing the ability to think outside of the box is a prerequisite of being a successful entrepreneur. He currently collaborates with Nirmal ecommerce web design in Sydney.
