When I need a new sofa for my apartment or a warm jacket for autumn, the first thing I do is ask my friends and colleagues for recommendations. Their suggestions are more valuable than anything I find on Google because they’re tried and true. And I know I’m not the only one who feels this way.
Crowdsourced recommendation requests…sometimes entertainingly specific. That’s why it’s essential to keep your customers engaged and eager to recommend your business. If you haven’t prioritized customer engagement, now’s the time to start. In this article, we’ll explore:
- The definition of customer engagement
- The importance of customer engagement
- Effective customer engagement strategies Let’s dive in!
Understanding Customer Engagement
Customer engagement refers to the ongoing interactions between a brand and its customers that cultivate a lasting relationship. Ideally, these interactions occur across various platforms: email, your website, social media, during purchases, and beyond. However, engagement doesn’t mean bombarding your customers with constant communication—we all know how irritating that can be. Instead, prioritize quality over quantity. Fewer, more meaningful touchpoints are more effective in building trust, which is vital for nurturing long-term customer relationships. These relationships can significantly boost revenue and, even more importantly, generate powerful word-of-mouth marketing.
Image source We’ll delve into the advantages of customer engagement and its importance for your business shortly. But first, let’s clearly distinguish customer engagement from other concepts.
Customer Engagement vs. Customer Experience
It’s crucial not to confuse customer experience with customer engagement. Customer experience refers to your customer’s overall impression of purchasing from your brand. While it’s a vital aspect of customer engagement, it’s not the whole story. You want your customers to have a positive experience during every interaction, whether it’s through Instagram checkout for your online store or scheduling an appointment for local services like plumbing or lawn care. However, customer engagement encompasses more than just customer responses to these actions. It includes all ongoing interactions across all platforms, including the overall customer experience. When you successfully address both customer engagement and customer experience, you cultivate satisfied, loyal customers—and as we’ll discuss next, these are invaluable assets for your business.
The Importance of Customer Engagement
Customer engagement is crucial for three primary reasons:
- It encourages repeat business.
- It creates brand advocates.
- It meets customer expectations.
- It provides valuable customer insights. Firstly, customer engagement is vital for promoting repeat purchases. Acquiring new customers is significantly more expensive than converting existing ones. It’s estimated to be 5-25x more costly, depending on your industry, which is a substantial difference. These returning customers are more valuable than just their purchases and potential upsells. When satisfied customers are actively engaged with your brand, they become more likely to recommend your business to their network. These referrals are incredibly beneficial: customers referred by friends are four times more likely to convert. And these referred customers? Their lifetime value is 16% greater than other customers. Finally, prioritizing engagement is essential because it’s what your prospects and current customers anticipate. Salesforce discovered that 62% of customers believe brands should tailor their communication and offers based on their behavior during interactions.
With less than half of customers reporting that companies meet this expectation, you can make your brand stand out through genuine and authentic customer engagement strategies.
Effective Customer Engagement Strategies to Implement
Now that we understand what customer engagement is and why it matters, let’s explore some non-intrusive and effective strategies to enhance your customer relationships.
Here are some ideas:
1. Ensure Brand Consistency
This strategy is first for a reason. Brand consistency is important is essential for building any relationship, and it’s even more critical as the foundation for customer engagement. Salesforce found that 76% of customers interact with brands through different channels depending on the message’s context. This means you need to ensure your company delivers messages across various channels while maintaining a consistent and recognizable brand identity. Your brand needs a strong, identifiable voice across all platforms, including social media, email, content, and even your merchandise and events. It also needs consistent visual elements, including a clean, standard logo and cohesive imagery. (Learn more about branding your business here.)
Netflix maintains clear and consistent branding standards. Conducting regular audits of your materials is the most effective way to ensure you deliver a consistent and recognizable brand experience to your customers. Create a brand style guide and share it with your team to maintain consistency moving forward.
2. Implement a Loyalty Program
When customers are engaged and impressed enough to recommend your brand to their friends, colleagues, or even their social media followers, it’s crucial to reward their loyalty. Implementing a loyalty program is an excellent way to achieve this. The first step in setting up a loyalty program that boosts customer engagement is identifying what your customers value most. Discounts or credits are standard, but you’ll want to offer these valued customers additional benefits and an exceptional experience. For example, Shopify found that e-commerce customers appreciate early access to sales promotions and new product releases as part of loyalty programs.
Image source If you’re concerned about the potential impact of discounts, free shipping, and other loyalty program perks on your bottom line, consider the positive effects. HubSpot found that over half of consumers are willing to spend more to maximize their loyalty benefits.
3. Communicate Your Company Values
Customers increasingly want to support businesses that share their values. One genuine and impactful way to enhance customer engagement is to transparently share your company’s core values. This could involve integrating your values into your mission statement or business model or taking a stance on relevant issues through events, ad campaigns, or even specific products. Nike’s Colin Kaepernick advertising campaign is a prime example. An athlete’s right to political expression aligns with Nike’s brand, making it a natural avenue for the company to take a stand.
Ben & Jerry’s Pecan Resist ice cream flavor is another great example. While the cause isn’t directly related to ice cream or the Vermont-based brand, the company launched this politically charged flavor in 2018 and clearly explained its message: to stand with those fighting for LGBTQ+ rights, climate change action, immigrant rights, and more against the Trump administration.
4. Respond to Customer Feedback
No one enjoys negative feedback or complaints. It’s never pleasant to discover that your company’s service or product hasn’t met expectations, whether due to shipping delays, setup difficulties, or mistakes. However, responding to negative feedback (the right way) can be incredibly valuable. Customers who take the time to express their frustrations care enough about your brand to reach out, meaning they’re still invested. More importantly, you still have the opportunity to change their perception of your brand. This is precisely what Jay Baer emphasizes in his book Hug Your Haters. He outlines how to enhance customer engagement and retention through thoughtful responses to negative feedback. Even if you miss the chance to win back a specific customer, your response isn’t wasted. 97% of consumers who read online reviews also pay attention to businesses’ responses.
5. Highlight Customer Stories
Showcasing your customers is a fantastic way to boost engagement and encourage them to share their experiences. Social media is a perfect platform for this. When your company is mentioned, prioritize engaging with comments and resharing posts. This not only engages customers but also serves as a staple social media marketing strategy.
An excellent example from PWRFWD. Regularly monitor your tagged posts or even create a brand hashtag to find stories from your engaged customers. Highlighting customer stories can also involve more traditional approaches. SendGrid, for instance, features customer success stories on its website. Their “Why SendGrid?” page showcases client logos and links to case studies detailing each company’s accomplishments.
This approach effectively markets SendGrid while also benefiting their customers. It provides a link from a high-authority website, highlights their email marketing achievements, and serves as a positive indicator of trust and authority (EAT) for potential customers.
6. Prioritize Customer-Exclusive Content
While every content marketing strategy is unique, most focus on customer acquisition. Common goals include building brand awareness, fostering brand loyalty, and generating leads. However, it’s equally important to create content specifically for your existing customers to enhance their engagement. Developing a comprehensive customer resource hub is one way to achieve this. Similar to your prospect-facing content, your resource center or knowledge base should feature a clear hierarchy of topics, cornerstone content, and a balance of concise and in-depth articles that provide valuable information and solve problems. Depending on your business, you can take it a step further by offering personalized content. Spotify excels in this area. The platform’s personalized playlists are exclusive to customers and individually tailored. Additionally, their annual “Year in Review” playlists often gain significant traction on social media—demonstrating that customers are engaging with both the content and the brand. Admittedly, I’m not sold on Spotify’s attempts to get me to listen to their pet playlist. I’ll stick to playlists based on my musical preferences, but I appreciate the effort.
7. Surprise Customers with Meaningful Gifts…
Another effective strategy for non-intrusive customer engagement is surprising your loyal customers with meaningful gifts. This shows that you value their business and recognize significant milestones in your relationship. Consider using a service like Nift to offer gift cards, or get creative and tailor gifts to your brand. Take Chewy, for example, the online retailer that offers everything you need for your furry friends. Chewy is known for its exceptional customer service—as a two-dog owner, I can personally vouch for this—and consistently goes above and beyond to engage its loyal customer base. When a regular customer cancels and returns an order after their pet passes away, Chewy sends flowers.
Image via Jennifer Brookshire, an understandably moved customer.
…And Emails
As the year comes to a close, avoid sending generic holiday greetings. Instead, opt for something more meaningful. Draw inspiration from these 11 creative holiday email ideas and templates, or consider sending a customer-centric year-in-review email. Both are excellent ways to engage your customers authentically.
Reaping the Rewards of Enhanced Customer Engagement
The examples above demonstrate that customer engagement strategies can be both effective and far from annoying—as long as you plan them thoughtfully. Here’s a recap of our suggestions:
- Ensure Brand Consistency
- Implement a Loyalty Program
- Communicate Your Values
- Respond to Feedback
- Highlight Customer Stories
- Prioritize Customer-Exclusive Content
- Surprise Customers with Meaningful Gifts Now it’s your turn. Experiment with these strategies, determine which ones resonate most with your customers, and start reaping the rewards of enhanced customer engagement!