Engaging with customers has been an integral part of the marketing process since the time that humans have engaged in trade and commerce. However, what has changed in the digital era is not just how we engage with customers, but also the intensity with which we do it. While in the past business communication was all about special offers, discounts and deals, the online era is centered on engagement. The fact that there are a multitude of online platforms that help a business engage with their prospects and customers in an organic way that sees them addressing their pain points in a manner that is not overtly sales driven, makes all the difference.
Let us see how this process unfolds and how you can make the most of online engagement-
- Leverage personalized communication
Modern data analytic tools provide a business with all the information, including things like personal preferences and buying histories, about their prospects and clients. One can engage very effectively with such people with the help of the right kind of website content as well as specially crafted emails that speak directly with the prospects’ or customers’ prime concerns. Doing so will make one’s message stand out vis-à-vis the competition and help enhance one’s business prospects considerably.
- Social Media Engagement
We live in the age of social media engagement and leveraging it for one’s business is a no brainer. In today’s times, customers are averse to being sold something, as they would rather find out what suits their needs and requirements on their own. Businesses can at best subtly and unobtrusively provide them with this information and what better way to do that than by using the power of social media engagement to connect with them and share with them the information that they seek.
The best way to do that is to consistently post fresh content so as to keep one’s followers engaged and interested in what one’s brand is trying to convey. The more one posts the greater are the chances of engagement leading to sales conversion.
- Getting Back to Every Time there is a Customer Response
Online engagement is quite efficient in persuading one’s prospects to engage with one’s brand. However, it is imperative for a business or brand to pay such responses the complete attention they deserve. Nothing can be worse than a prospect getting in touch with a business or a brand about a specific query and being met with silence. It, therefore, makes sense to respond in real time every time there is an online response to one’s messaging. It might be a good idea to use an automated set up of tools that responds to every single response from one’s prospects. This can be in the shape of a thank you followed by a call to action suggestion.
- Solicit Feedback
Every time one interacts with a prospect or a customer, be it by way of resolving an issue or even making a sale, one should conclude the engagement with a request for feedback. Comments about the level of service, the delivery of the product and so on are a great way of letting one’s target audience communicate to one about one’s business and help them improve their product, service, delivery and so on. That can only help enhance a business prospects in the time to come.
- Send out email newsletters
Despite the proven efficacy of social media, emails, especially of the newsletter variety remain a highly cost effective and efficacious way of engaging with one’s long time prospects and customers. As a matter of fact, email marketing is a very potent tool in the arsenal of a marketing person seeking to enhance sales, across all the sales lifecycle stages of a product or service. It is important that one create just the right kind of plan for sending just the right kind of email at every stage of the sales life cycle of a product.
- Host a webinar
The way one engages with one’s prospects and clients has changed and this is best represented by the trend of using webinars to engage with one’ prospects and clients. Not only is the reach of a webinar quite substantial, its interactive nature that incorporates interactive visual elements allows one to forge a personal connection with one’s prospects or existing customers, which can augur very well for one’s future business prospects. You can hold a webinar across geographies and time zones and find a way of connecting with your target audience in a manner that is up-close and personal-almost akin to interacting with all of them together face to face.
- Provide exclusive content
The ability to provide exclusive content that addresses the prospect’s or customers pain points in a brilliant fashion is a great way of engaging with them as well as cultivating them. The idea is to make that content exclusively theirs and theirs alone. Perhaps one could provide them exclusive log in access to that content. Not only will that make them feel special, but also make them receptive to any future overtures.
- Conclusion
Engaging with prospects and clients in the digital age is another ball game altogether and it is imperative that a business gets it absolutely right. If a business able to effectively leverage the measures and tools that are at one’s disposal these days, it would be able to enhance its bottom line in a very significant way indeed. The above tips should go a long way in ensuring that.
