Editor’s Note: Here at Dispatches, we are always looking for ways to help our readers do things. For some of our readers, that means helping navigate the working world, for others, it means assisting in the ever challenging question, “what’s for dinner?” For still others, it means figuring out how to balance family life with everything else. In an effort to aid in all of these endeavors, we have collaborated on this article written specifically for our readers.
As a business, engaging your customers should be an absolute priority for you. You need to ask yourself not how you can sell to people, but how you can solve their problems. Customers come to you because you have a solution to their problem. If you are treating them right and putting them first, engaging them correctly, you are going to have loyal and repeat customers instead of just clicks in your online traffic. One-off marketing campaigns have always been the best thing to do for many years, but since the dawning of the internet and the digital age, customers need more than a few pretty posters to keep them interested.
Social media has become one of the biggest tools for marketing and engaging with customers. It allows a business to contact the people who are buying from them and it allows for conversations to be held in a public way, showing other people that problems can be easily solved. Customers head to social media first when they have a suggestion or an issue, and while there are plenty of ways to contact your customers when they sign up to your services, such as what you can find here, social media is always the first point of contact for new customers. The goal should be driving your customers into a deeper client/customer relationship with you, and helping your customers is the first way that you can get there.
Engagement marketing starts with what you say rather than your products. Anyone can buy a product, but if you’re not starting a dialogue with your customers or building a relationship, then you’re not going to have repeat business. Customers engage with content first, because it’s useful. The content tells them about you and what you’ve got to offer and the value of what you do.
When you’re engaging with your customers, you create a conversation with them. You get a chance to roll up your sleeves and show them what you can do. It also gives them a chance to learn about what developments that you have on the table for later and it gives your customers the opportunity to feedback about that. Of course, you won’t be able to take the advice and feedback of every customer out there, but there can be some excellent ideas on the table that you can keep in mind for other products.
Customers can be inspired by your business goals and objectives and make them feel like cheerleaders when they support you. This is a part of the entire engagement experience and means that you can offer more to them. Once you have customer engagement, you need to keep the conversation going. You should try to stay responsive to their needs and offer more to stay relevant. Customer engagement can mean everything to your business.