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Customer engagement is the lifeblood of any business. In fact, engaged customers may very well be a business venture’s biggest asset. When customers are actively involved with your business, especially online, you’ll find it easier to attract new clients and make loyal ones, positively impacting your enterprise.
The keys to establishing customer engagement is in being responsive, and making positive interactions, even with the presence of negative-minded or ill-meaning online users. It’s important for a business to handle customers in a great manner, being that one negative comment may damage your long-term efforts in building your brand.
With so many online interactions happening at every time of the day, how do you make sure yours is leaving a positive experience to prospective and existing clients? Let’s find out how to engage your customers online.
Use analytics properly
In order to understand your customers and what they like, turn to website analytics and customer experience platforms to provide you with insights on which of your website pages have to most views, how long does a user spend time visiting your website, and how does a visitor rate feel after visiting your site or interacting with your chat or customer representatives online.
There are many ways to go about checking your website performance and web user analytics. You can check your venture’s social media metrics, email metrics, and customer success metrics, too, in order to come up with better tweaks to your overall online strategy.
Make your website (and content) visually appealing
Humans undergo through learning processes mainly through visual stimuli. In the same vein, we process images better that text. Hence, if your website or cover page is not aesthetically appealing, there’s a high risk of having missed opportunities.
Your website doesn’t have to be garish and filled with large texts that scream; “Read me!” It can also be vivid, and able to catch attention by not being too loud. Most importantly, it should be user-friendly to make your visitors’ experience more enjoyable.
If you’re building or revamping your site and don’t have the means to ask for professional help, it pays to learn about the basics of website building or designing.
Tap multiple channels especially social media
If you want to reach out to more people and expand your customer base, don’t stop at having your own business website. Sure, it’s an excellent way to formally introduce your business and provide helpful information about specific how-to’s and whys, but some people will prefer other types of media. But social media has proven to be a great driver for business growth, too. Learn how to use social media marketing to promote customer engagement and scale your business.
Link your social media accounts that focus on photos, videos, and short messaging platforms to your website and regularly update other users about what’s happening in your business. Encourage your users or followers to share your details.
Create dynamic content
Now that you’ve created your business account in several platforms, it’s time to get those creative juices going by posting various types of content.
While blogs, white papers and other text-heavy content help your business boost its search rankings via search engine optimization techniques, it’s not enough. Video content is slowly becoming one of the most preferred media these days. What you can do is insert images and videos in year long-form content. Always make sure to update your content regularly, to invite more visitors and hook your followers, turning them into loyal customers.
Encourage interaction in your website and other media channels
Communication is a two-way street and so is the principle in engaging your customers.
By asking your visitors or readers about how they feel towards a specific post, or encouraging them to post comments and share the content, you’ll make them feel like they’re a member of your community. This is important because humans have the primitive instinct of belongingness.
Don’t forget to out share buttons for every content you put up and integrate call-to-action and other forms to generate leads.
Be responsive and ask for feedback
When a customer or user leaves a negative or positive comment, especially about the product or service received, always respond in a courteous manner. Don’t add fuel to the flame by engaging in an all-out debate just so you can prove your point.
Don’t forget to respond to positive feedback, to ensure your customers feel they’re being heard.
Final Thoughts
Customer engagement is important in any business. Like marketing, it’s not a one-off deal, and you have to be always studying and always improving on how you keep your clients happy and involved. A successful customer engagement strategy not only attracts new customers. It is critical to building your reputation and increasing business revenues.
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