Numerous brands have focused on increasing customer engagement as part of a successful customer-centric marketing strategy. Every day, customers interact with brands through online shopping, streaming, social media scrolling, and more. Brands may want to give customer engagement a higher priority to make sure they are reaching audiences with relevant messages at the right time.
What is customer engagement?
Customer engagement is the process by which brands actively build an ongoing relationship with their customers through meaningful interactions throughout the customer journey. Brands can cultivate customer enthusiasm and long-term loyalty by fostering this relationship.
The quality of the connection between brands and their customers—the message’s relevance and the motivation it inspires to take action—is known as customer engagement. This could happen when a customer clicks on an advertisement to buy more from a brand, signs up for a newsletter, or follows a brand on social media. This kind of customer engagement encourages brand love and loyalty for a longer period.
Why is it important to engage customers?
When a brand has a lot of customer engagement, it can reach audiences with ads that are meaningful to them and are more likely to get them to interact.
According to a 2021 Amazon Ads and Kantar survey of 1,000 US consumers, 88% of respondents said they had interacted with ads that were relevant to their interests, and 89% said they had interacted with ads that reflected their life stage. Ads that address a need are also more likely to pique the interest of consumers. Ad interaction is driven more strongly by this customer experience than by the ad’s humor, entertainment value, or inspirational content.
Customer involvement throughout the funnel.
Throughout the marketing funnel, from awareness to consideration to decision to loyalty, there are a variety of customer engagement strategies that brands can employ.
Brands can encourage customer engagement with new and existing customers at every stage of the marketing funnel in the following ways:
1. Awareness.
Knowledge of a brand’s name, messaging, tone and style, values, and culture are all forms of brand awareness. Brands want to get in front of customers to raise awareness. This could include digital advertising, audio ads, social media campaigns, content marketing, and television, both connected and linear. Brands can concentrate on engaging customers early in the shopping process here. These touchpoints have become increasingly important because 84% of shoppers begin their online research on digital channels that are not owned by the brand.
2. Conversion.
The conversion stage aims to get customers to buy a product or service because they think the brand they’ve chosen is the best answer to their problem or fulfills their needs. A well-detailed product page on the website and exceptional customer service are crucial during this phase to bolster customer confidence in their purchasing decisions. Brands can assist in improving customer engagement at the conversion stage of the funnel by providing a positive customer experience.
3. Loyalty.
By offering a high-quality product or service and making the purchasing process as easy as possible, brands can increase customer loyalty and retention. Brands can maintain their prominence among consumers after purchase by following up with them and cultivating connections with them. Some marketers also refer to this phase as the “engagement” stage because, on average, it costs a brand five times as much to acquire a new customer than it does to maintain an existing one.
Engaging customers who have invested in your brand’s products or services is essential to fostering loyalty. When it comes to fostering customer loyalty to a brand, engaging marketing strategies like email nurture campaigns, social media activations, and loyalty programs can have a significant impact. At the end of this stage, you want to have satisfied, devoted customers who will become brand advocates and long-term customers.
Developing a marketing strategy for engaging customers.
- Learn more about your audience: It is essential to have a multidimensional understanding of your audience to develop memorable creative and messaging. Beyond demographics, know who your audience is and how they interact with your product. You will learn the most effective strategy for increasing customer engagement with your brand from this.
- Offer value at every interaction: Brands may find it essential to be innovative in their advertising formats and to provide enhanced experiences that excite and motivate customers. According to a recent study conducted by Amazon Ads, Omnicom Media Group, and Latitude, 55% of consumers prefer ads that they can interact with by playing along at home, entering sweepstakes, and following links to directly purchase products. Additionally, 55% of consumers stated that they want to see novel ways in which brands are incorporated into the content they are watching. This demonstrates that audiences are open to novel and inventive content-integration strategies for brands.
- Optimize and Measure: Find out what works and what doesn’t by analyzing data and analytics, then come up with new ways to iterate in response.
