Customer Engagement Tactics That Build Loyalty

Obtaining customers is one thing, but getting them to stick around is quite another. There are just so many options these days, that it’s hard to convince any customer to stay with you long-term. Building customer loyalty is a sure way to build your business and brand.

With that said, some brands are more successful than others. And that’s not by chance. They’ve figured out various customer engagement strategies that increase their conversions and lead to higher customer loyalty.

But what exactly are they doing that works? Let’s take a look. 

Tug On Their Heartstrings With Video

Video is by far the most powerful way to engage with customers emotionally. It absorbs your audience in whatever message you’re looking to convey, letting you connect with them on a much deeper level than you ever thought possible. 

There are many ways you can do this, too. One option is to invest in soundbites and put out short-form videos in a highly sharable format. This way, you can turn your customers into brand ambassadors, getting them to share fun content with their contacts. 

The other option is to use long-format videos where you go into detail and seek to build a closer relationship with clients. Three to ten-minute videos draw audiences deeper into your sphere of influence. It engages people in narratives and helps them make sense of the world and what you do. Brands that create interesting or unique stories are much more likely to draw large audiences and sell more goods and services.

Telling stories is also a good way to avoid the advertising trap. Today, firms spend billions of dollars on marketing, but most consumers ignore it, even if it is beneficial for them. But that’s often because their advertising is explicit. They’re not advertising implicitly in video content creation that tells a story that is interesting in and of itself. 

When they switch tactics and choose native advertising, the results also change. They get more engagement and build customers for life, not just short-term. 

Improve Your Social Media Marketing Efforts

Social media marketing is a no-brainer for many of today’s businesses. However, relatively few know how to best engage customers and succeed in the space. They clamor for customers’ attention but do not get very far. 

Smart firms, however, understand instinctively how to appeal to people on Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok. For instance, they post frequently to ensure that they are always top-of-mind among their audience. They also regularly start conversations with their audiences, trying to get the buzz going. Posts are always up-to-date and cover the latest issues or products. Highly engaging firms constantly push the boundaries and look to say new things to their customers every day. 

Beyond this, many companies use explicit interactive tools. Many make use of polls, quizzes, and contests. They also use interactive content if they don’t have any fresh news to share with their communities. Regularly following up is also a big part of the process. They want to make customers feel heard, loved, and understood. Checking in with their audience is part of the way they continue to develop such valuable content. 

Focus On Retention

Retention is your number one ally when it comes to customer engagement. The more you can keep people hooked on your news, latest products, and content, the more likely they are to share your message with others. Almost always, keeping the customers that you already have is significantly more lucrative than gaining new ones. Expanding your customer base is, strangely, less effective than deepening it, getting your current clients to purchase from you more often. You can’t have effective customer retention without engagement. 

But what can you do to retain customers? Here are some ideas: 

• Start a corporate social responsibility program to prove to customers that you are acting in the interest of the community
• Get a group of customers to take part in your beta testing program of a new service and then collect their feedback
• Arrange a customer loyalty program, perhaps giving regular customers discount programs or points that help them get better deals
• Master your customer onboarding, particularly if you operate a B2B brand. Give customers the impression that once they’re with you, they should stay with you for life
• Offer a product or service that solves a narrow set of problems and become known for that. Don’t try to solve every problem that your audience faces. You won’t be able to do it
• Keep customers loyal with a one-of-a-kind product that other firms can’t copy
• Try to involve yourself in your customers’ lifestyles
• Create a community around your product and service. For example, turn your firm into the go-to resource for health-promoting supplements, fostering conversations between customers and colleagues
• Offer your customers incentives before they terminate their membership. Consider an Amazon-like strategy where you offer them money off their premiums for a few months or additional perks that they aren’t getting right now to encourage them not to leave you
• Take time to regularly thank your customers for contributing to your business and staying with you long term

Use Conversational Marketing

Regular banner ads no longer work for most firms. That’s why companies are taking advantage of conversational marketing, a new technique that seems to offer everything that digital audiences want. 

But what is conversational marketing? Essentially, it’s a service that facilitates a conversation between your firm and your customers whenever they want to interact with you.

For example, suppose a customer arrives on your website and communicates with you via a live chat box. Good conversational marketing would be to respond to their query immediately with a human agent. The same goes for your Facebook and Whatsapp chat facilities. If you can reply to customers immediately, it’s often more powerful than any form of paid digital advertising, particularly for prospects closer to conversion. 

Of course, you might not be able to provide human reps twenty-four-seven. That’s expensive. But you could provide chatbots to answer basic questions and direct customers to the right areas of your website.

Send Them SMS Messages

Texting hasn’t gone anywhere. In fact, firms that mass text their customers have significantly higher open rates than those that communicate solely via email. 

Text messages are a potent marketing tool because of how customers relate to them. Most clients experience positive sentiment when someone sends them a text message, compared to the negative feelings associated with having an email inbox that’s chock full of unopened spam. 

Text messages also let you communicate information in a timely manner. There’s a greater sense of immediacy with SMS than with other forms of digital communication. When customers open their inboxes, they expect information that they should act upon immediately. 

Set Up Push Notifications

Another strategy is to set up push notifications, reminding people what you have to offer. Push notifications typically appear as short pop-ups on customers’ phones or browsers. When they push these, they can opt-in to newsletter subscriptions, video feeds, and marketing information. 

However, you’ll need to be careful. Push notifications can backfire, particularly if they don’t offer customers value. You want to make sure that the messages you send make your audiences’ lives better. Think compelling offers, smart discounts, and opportunities to enter competitions to win prizes. 

Just be warned, the average person receives more than forty push notifications per day. And most users have now learned to ignore them, so you’ll want to use them sparingly. 

Create A More Relatable Brand

Many brands struggle with relatability. They get so absorbed in their own jargon that they forget about how customers perceive them on the other end.

Having a relatable brand isn’t just about providing customers with a slick experience. It’s also about developing a corporate personality that people feel comfortable and happy to be around. 

This is where brand awareness can help. Yes, part of the goal is to get customers moving towards conversion. But more than that, it’s about drawing people into your corporate personality. You need to create conversations with audiences that are meaningful. 

Offering authenticity is one of the most powerful ways to do this. If you can prove to your customers that you’re willing to stand by your values, they’ll flock to you in droves and want to be a part of what you’re doing. In the modern world, audiences are desperate for leadership. 

Make The Customer Experience Central To Everything You Do

Lastly, you’ll want to make sure that your customer experience is up to scratch. You could have the best marketing in the world and wonderful customer loyalty programs, but if your clients don’t enjoy the fundamental experience you offer, they won’t come back. 

If you want to understand the importance of the customer journey, just think about your own experience. When a brand wants to increase loyalty from their customers, they need to make sure they have a good experience.

Good customer experiences come from all sorts of unexpected sources. In many cases, it’s not about the product or service at all. Instead, it’s about the way a customer service rep spoke to them or the little gift that came in the parcel in the post.