In the end, customer engagement is about delivering value during every step of the customer journey \u2014 and having positive interactions with customers along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An engaged customer is a loyal customer. When customers are excited to talk to you, hear what you\u2019re up to, or buy your offers, it means they have a relationship with you. This connection can lead to a lifetime of consistent sales, pleasant customer interactions, and word-of-mouth advertising from each customer relationship. Let\u2019s take a look at some other benefits of having a customer engagement strategy. An engagement strategy can help you: 1. Increase customer engagement<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Having a strategy to test, measure, and track results helps you tweak your processes and increase engagement. 2. Consistently interact with customers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n When you have a strategy, you also have a customer communication plan. This helps you interact with customers regularly. 3. Be proactive about building long-term customer relationships<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Having a strategy helps keep you accountable for building long-term connections with customers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Building an integrated customer engagement strategy means building an engagement strategy that applies to your entire business as a whole so that every cog and wheel in your business machine has a customer engagement component. In other words, all hands have to be on deck when implementing a customer engagement strategy. Frontline managers and staff need to greet customers and nurture relationships. High and middle managers need to foster strong relationships with clients. And everyone from your customer service team to your sales department needs to have a guide on speaking to customers and strengthening bonds. When creating an integrated customer engagement strategy, ask yourself the following questions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our top 10 strategies to increase customer engagement in 2021 are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can\u2019t drive brand awareness and customer engagement without building a brand voice first. Your brand voice is the personality your brand takes on during any form of communication. Whether it\u2019s your marketing copy or a social media post, building a brand voice means deciding what you want to say and how you want to say it. It\u2019s about creating consistency across communication channels. When building your brand voice, consider your company\u2019s value statement or mission statement. Then research your audience and best-performing copy for inspiration. Finally, create a communication document and fill out a brand voice template<\/a> that outlines three to five core characteristics your brand voice will have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Conversational marketing means exactly what it sounds like. It\u2019s communicating with customers through dialogue instead of a one-way transmission from your brand. Conversational marketing humanizes your brand and builds trust with conversation throughout the customer journey. You can use conversational marketing in emails, marketing campaigns, landing pages, social media, and anywhere else you speak to your customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your existing customer data provides key information about who your customers are. Make sure to comb through existing data to spot buying patterns and signs of consistent customer behavior. Then, use the insights you gather to strengthen your customer engagement strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Increase customer engagement by personalizing customer experience<\/a> during every stage of the customer journey. From providing customer support to recommending relevant offers, creating a personalized experience helps you nurture customer relationships. Keep these tips in mind when personalizing the customer experience:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking of relatable stories, your customers crave content they can see themselves in. Marketing to mothers? Share a funny and relatable parenting story. Marketing to first-year college students? Share tips on how to get through freshman year. When planning your content, make sure everything you produce is either informative, helpful, relatable, or problem-solving. The goal is always to add value, not act as a sales rep. It\u2019s also important to create various kinds of content to appeal to your segmented audiences. While some audiences will prefer watching videos, others will prefer reading articles or other forms of content. Here are some examples of relatable and meaningful content other brands have created: Video Content:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Bay Alarm Medical<\/a> uses personalized videos<\/a> to explain the benefits of its products and show customers how to use them. The company has also developed its own character called \u201cGrumpy Grandpa\u201d to relate to its caregiving customers. Email Content:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Active Campaign is so good at email marketing that it created responsive email templates<\/a> that marketing customers can set up in seconds. Article Content:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Motley Fool<\/a> keeps customers engaged by constantly providing high-quality, updated finance content for its financially savvy readers. And Earlybird, an app created for helping parents invest in their children\u2019s future, has a blog specifically tailored toward informing parents and caregivers on financial literacy for kids<\/a>. Social Media Content: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Business Strategist Jasmine Star uses social media to share her best marketing and business tips with customers. Here\u2019s an example of her Instagram caption ideas board on Pinterest: Increase customer engagement by reducing your customer churn rate. Here are some ways to boost your customer retention:<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the main pillars of increasing customer engagement is being intentionally interactive. Here are some ways to do that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Asking for customer feedback is crucial for any business that wants to grow and increase customer engagement. Quick ways to ask your customers for feedback include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can also use a chatbot<\/a> like the route planning software<\/a> company Track-POD does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Online user engagement can\u2019t happen if you don\u2019t know when to respond to customers online. To demystify the process, consider responding to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The customer life cycle describes the five distinct steps a customer goes through when they\u2019re considering, buying, using, and remaining loyal to your product or service. To increase customer engagement, be sure to be there for your customer during each of the five stages: Present your prospect with a mouthwatering offer. For instance, this revenue acceleration platform<\/a> offers free sign-ups for all of its services. Give your prospect a reason to stay by providing them with value (i.e., a tutorial) or a free offer (i.e., 10% off their first order). Continue building your relationship with the prospect by providing consistent value. After the relationship is established, present relevant offers that you know the prospect will love. When the prospect makes a purchase, thank them and invite them to join something special \u2014 like a niche newsletter or a Facebook group. Continue nurturing the relationship. Then, survey your customer and create new offers and engagement strategies based on the survey\u2019s results. Drive loyalty by continuously personalizing your content, offers, and brand voice to match your customer\u2019s preferences. Invite existing customers to join your VIP or member rewards program. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You can\u2019t increase customer engagement if you don\u2019t know how to measure customer engagement. But since customer engagement can be applied to multiple channels, it can be difficult to measure without the right metrics. To measure customer engagement, keep the following six metrics in mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Conversion Rates (CR) are the average number of conversions per ad or offer interaction, often shown as a percentage. You can calculate CR by taking the number of conversions and dividing that by the number of total ad or offer interactions tracked to the conversion during the same period. For instance, if you had 100 conversions from 1,000 interactions, your conversion rate would be 10%, since 100 \/ 1,000 = 10%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Net Promoter Score <\/a>(NPS) shows how likely your customers are to recommend your offers to people they know. To keep track of this metric, use your current NPS company score as a benchmark. Then, collect this metric any time you engage with customers through surveys. If a customer score is less than 9 or 10 (the \u201cpromoter\u201d score), be sure to ask follow-up questions. Pages Per Session (PPS) and Session Time (ST) refer to how long customers stay on your website and how many pages they viewed during the session. This viewing activity helps you see which pages on your website are the most engaging and likely to convert. Use a tool like Google Analytics to gauge your customers\u2019 viewing activity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bounce Rates<\/a> refer to the percentage of website visitors that leave your website after viewing only one page. The lower the bounce rate<\/a>, the longer customers stay on your website \u2014 and the more chance you have of them buying something. If your bounce rates are high, it\u2019s time for a content audit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) measures how much value your company will receive from a customer from the start of the relationship until they leave. The longer a customer stays, the more money they\u2019ll spend with your company \u2014 and the more they\u2019ll recommend your business. To measure CLTV, use this simple formula: CLTV = (Frequency of purchase) x (Time period) x (Profit)<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/rocketium.com\/academy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/A-diagram-showing-how-to-engage-and-retain-customers.png\")
Benefits of having a customer engagement strategy <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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<\/p>\n\n\n\nBuilding an integrated customer engagement strategy <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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<\/p>\n\n\n\nTop 10 Strategies to Increase Customer Engagement in 2021<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
1. Build a brand voice<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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<\/p>\n\n\n\n2. Humanize your business through conversational marketing<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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<\/p>\n\n\n\n3. Take advantage of existing data<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
4. Personalize the customer experience<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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<\/p>\n\n\n\n5. Create relatable and meaningful content (articles, videos, webinars, etc.)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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6. Focus on customer retention<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n7. Be intentionally interactive<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n8. Ask your customers for feedback<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n9. Know when to respond to customers online<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n10. Maintain the customer lifecycle<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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<\/p>\n\n\n\n1. Reach:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n2. Acquisition:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n3. Conversion:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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<\/p>\n\n\n\n4. Retention:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n5. Loyalty:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
How to Measure Customer Engagement (6 Important Metrics)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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<\/p>\n\n\n\n1. Conversion Rates<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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<\/p>\n\n\n\n2. Net Promoter Score<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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3. Pages Per Session + Session Time<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n4. Bounce Rates<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
5. Customer Lifetime Value<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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<\/p>\n\n\n\n6. Customer Satisfaction Score<\/h3>\n\n\n\n