Customers are the lifeblood of any business. So to grow a business, we must not only focus on generating sales and leads. We must also place equal importance in building relationships and interactions with our customers. This is because when you can understand your customers and interact with them better, you will be able to cultivate brand loyalty and repeat sales. Your happy customers will be also willing to share about your products and services to their friends and family members. You can encourage your customers to interact and share about your brand by having strategic customer engagement strategies in place.

Typically, you will know when your business has achieved good customer engagement when you notice the following:-
• Returning visitors to your website or blog
• Increased open, click-through rates and replies for your email campaigns
• Comments, likes and shares on your blog and social media posts
• Existence of user-generated content whereby your customers start sharing photos and testimonials about your products or services
• Repeat sales from your existing customers

There are several marketing strategies that you can use to achieve a high level of customer engagement. So in this article, I’m going to share with you 9 Best Strategies To Create Better Customer Engagement:-

Use Thought-Provoking Questions

One of the best ways to create customer engagement is by simply asking thought-provoking questions to your customers.

You can ask these questions to your audience through practically any platform that you have – whether it be YouTube, your blog, Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.

The point is to ask questions that will get your customers thinking. It could evoke a sense of curiosity, excitement, joy, regret, courage or pride. It all depends on the purpose of your questions.

And when you get your customers to the emotional state that you want them to be, they will be most likely eager to answer your question and give their opinion.

When you encourage your customers to get connected with you by answering your thought-provoking questions, you will be able to use the answers that they provide to further develop your products, services and brand.

You will be able to steer your business strategies towards the directions that speaks the best to your customers.

It also makes your customers feel valued, knowing that their opinions matter to your business.

Always remember to treat the answers provided by your customers like ‘gold’. They are the ones paying you money to get you to supply with your products and services.

So if they have a say, take note of it and see what you can do for your future business plans and ideas.

Create Engaging Content

To make your brand memorable, you need to constantly connect with your customers by creating engaging content.

The best way to publish your engaging content is by either having a blog, podcast, Facebook Fan Page, Facebook Group or YouTube channel.

There is a lot of talk about what engaging content means. Engaging content is content that educates your customers in specific areas that they need solutions in.

Your content can be topic-specific to address certain challenges that your customers are particularly facing. Customers also like content that provides them with actionable steps in solving whatever issues that they are encountering. They also like content that is not too boring and somewhat entertaining.

I’ve previously written a more detailed article on creating engaging content. You can find the article here.

By providing engaging content, your customers will constantly go back to the platform that you use to publish this content for help and guidance. When this happens, they will see you as an expert and will continue to remember your brand.

And when it comes to a point when they need to purchase again, your brand will be the first thing on their mind!

Use Multiple Platforms To Get Connected

It is important to publish your engaging content and connect with your customers through multiple platforms.

Your customers may have different browsing preferences. Some of them might prefer reading a detailed blog article is in written form while others may prefer you to convey the same message in a bite-sized video through YouTube. Others may want to scroll through social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest to read the topic highlights before deciding on clicking-through to read a blog or view a video.

So by broadcasting your content through multiple platforms, you will get the opportunity to reach out to your customers through several touchpoints.

The more touchpoints your customers have with your brand, the more likely they will want to connect with your brand. This is especially the case if your content resonates directly with what they want to learn about.

Practice Customer Segmentation

You can also reach a high level of customer engagement by practising customer segmentation for your business.

This can be done by simply segmenting your email list based on the actions taken by your customers. Have they clicked on a specific link that talks about a particular topic? Have they replied to your email with a question that needs to be answered? These are clear indicators as to where your customers will fit in your segmentation list.

You can use your segmented list to decide what types of marketing message go to each group of audience. This will enable you to speak to your customers needs better – hence improving the level of customer engagement!

You may also want to develop special marketing campaigns that target the high-spenders and frequent buyers to ask them more about their needs.

Make Them Feel Special

Make your customers feel special for following you on your social media and publishing platforms or joining your email list.

You can do this by providing updates on what you’re up to in your business using a simple behind-the-scenes write-up or video. You can also announce about product updates, launches or any upgrades you have developed for your business that will serve your customers better.

As for email subscribers, you can make them feel extra special by sharing exclusive content and offers to them. You can also send them birthday wishes and vouchers that will encourage further purchases.

When you make your customers feel special for following you, they will feel valued and develop a sense of loyalty and begin to engage with your brand better.

Connect With Them At A Personal Level

People love dealing with people. So if you want to develop stronger customer engagement with your business, you need to break down the walls of having an icy-cold business. You need your customers to feel that they are dealing with an actual human being. Many use personal branding to do this.

Personal branding is getting popular nowadays, especially when a business owner wants to expand its market share online or become an online influencer. Usually, the owner of the business shows up in front of an online audience to showcase his or her knowledge and skills in his or her particular field. You can use this method to build a personal connection with your customers.

If you have a business that has several team members, you can also ask your team members to show up on your various social media or publishing platforms to introduce themselves and talk about how they can help your customers.

Apart from this, you can also give your customer a sense of personalization by addressing them by their names whenever you send them your email campaigns. You can also seek feedback from those on your email list and respond to them individually to let them know that they are dealing with someone who has their best interests at heart.

Build A Supportive Online Community

You can also work towards building a supportive online community to further engage with your customers. The best way to do this is by either starting forums or by having your own Facebook Groups.

The beauty of having an online community that you own is that you can encourage your customers and other like-minded people with similar needs to support one another through member-generated content.

By establishing your forums or Facebook Groups, you also get to reply to your customers’ questions directly and discuss any needs that they may have.

This will make your customers feel much more connected to you and your brand compared to just posting your content on social media.

Organize Attractive Competitions

Who doesn’t love getting free stuff? I know I do. And your customers will probably love them too!

You can motivate your customers to get to know your brand better, learn about a new product feature or take notice of a recent product launch that you have organized by holding attractive competitions.

Being in a chance of winning a prize by learning more about your business is usually enough to build excitement that will get people to talking and engaging with your brand more.

You can get your customers to share photos of them using your products or share testimonials and tag your business to create more awareness for your business getting your customers engaged with your brand. You can also use a specific hashtag for your competitions.

And of course, there are many other types of competitions that you can organize for your customers to get engaged with your business and brand.

The sky is the limits so it’s time to start putting on your thinking caps to work on the best possible competitions that will get more people engaged with your brand!

Ask Their Opinions For Continuous Improvements

You can also develop more engagement with your customers by asking their opinions about either an existing product or service your that you have or about an upcoming product or service that you are currently developing.

The best way to collect such opinions from your customers is by using social media. If you have a good number of followers or have people constantly engaging with your social media platforms, then you can simply ask questions to get their opinions on these matters.

Customers love to be heard. And so by allowing them to express their opinions about what you offer in your business, they will feel appreciated and be motivated to engage with your business and brand more.

Another advantage of this is that you can use your customers’ opinions to upgrade your product or service offerings and develop new products and services that will be in line with what your customers are looking for.

Creating better customer engagement for your business is one of the key things that makes people want to connect with your brand and support it. When you can develop increased customer engagement, you will find more repeat customers, more people sharing about your products and services to others and an increase in leads and sales. What are you currently doing to encourage customer engagement for your business? Do you have any strategies that work particularly well for your business? And if not, which of the above strategies that I’ve shared do you plan to use for your business? I’d love to hear from you in the comment section below.

References:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnrampton/2015/09/14/8-ways-to-engage-better-with-your-customers/#38212ab351f3
https://www.copper.com/blog/engage-customers
https://www.outbrain.com/blog/3-golden-customer-engagement-strategies-that-marketers-cant-ignore/
https://neilpatel.com/blog/10-ways-to-make-customers-fall-in-love-with-your-business/