Improve Your Customer Engagement Using Online Marketing Strategies

No matter what your business is, you will be affected by digital media. The rapid growth of the internet has transformed not only how many of us do business, but also how our customers engage with us and each other.

With the rise of the smartphone and the increasing popularity of other connected devices, everyone seems to be spending more time online. Here are some of the ways that this behaviour has been reflected in the context of sales and marketing activities.

Online sales

Whether as an exclusively online store or as an extension of the main face-to-face business, online selling offers your customers convenience, reliability and easy access 24/7. This all helps develop customer relationships, as long as you are ‘discoverable’ on the fiercely competitive web.

Website marketing

Even if you don’t sell your product online, customers expect you to have a website. This helps customers find you, contact you, investigate whether your offerings will meet their needs and compare you against competitors.

Email marketing

Email marketing is a cost-effective way to share offers and promotions with existing and new customers. This is a good way to remind customers about your business if they haven’t purchased from you in a while.

Online communication

Many customers engage with multiple social media platforms now, and this can be an excellent way to encourage two-way communication with existing and new target markets.

Having active accounts on platforms like Twitter and Facebook provides customers with information about your business, but also allow them to contact you directly. Business-to-business marketers may also benefit from sites such as LinkedIn, which is specifically aimed at professional networking.

Social media also lets customers communicate with each other by sharing reviews or by promoting your business to others. Customers are more likely to do this if they are in a relationship with the business, and if you are meeting or exceeding their expectations; ‘electronic word of mouth’ is a highly credible influence on people’s behaviour.

The benefits of online relationship marketing 

Online relationship marketing offers a convenient way for your customers to engage with your business, and for you to interact with them. This can help to create customer loyalty for your brand and result in continued custom.

It is important that you consider the way in which you implement an online marketing approach to reduce the risk that your messages will ultimately be ignored.

When online relationship marketing strategies are used effectively though, they offer a range of potential benefits.

Convenience & Accessibility

Since communication is a significant element of relationships, and being able to communicate at times and places that minimise inconvenience to customers is important, these two characteristics are clearly an important part of online relationship marketing.

Accessibility

Online relationships can be undertaken with a more diverse range of customers. It may be possible to identify small segments of customers with whom relationships can be developed, who would otherwise have been too small if the business was more geographically limited.

Reputation

Online relationships can be facilitated with the tools marketers have for developing and improving their reputations.

Customer engagement that affects reputations can range from being of a low level (requiring little effort or commitment), such as people liking or following a brand, to customers giving a product a star-rating or telling members of their social networks that they have bought something.

More significant levels of commitment are required where customers write reviews or share their experiences of owning and using different brands in online communities. The latter type of activity can be very effective in developing brand loyalty.

Access to more honest feedback

Customer feedback enables you to improve your products or services and identify both quality issues and potential gaps in the market.

By showing your customers you value this feedback, and are willing to act on it, you can strengthen existing relationships while growing your business.

Reduced costs

Whether its email marketing or via social media, marketing products online costs less than physically promoting your offerings via mailshot campaigns and advertising boards. This can enable marketers to have a wider availability of products available or even items better suited to individual customer needs. The British retailer Marks and Spencer, for example, has a wider collection of sizes available for its clothes online than it does in its stores.

Humanise your business

By utilising social media wisely and engaging with your customers as a brand, you can present your business in a more human way, which helps customers engage and build loyal relationships with you.

The limitations 

It is also important to recognise that there are limitations to online relationship marketing. As you have just seen, certain customers – or specific types of products and services – fit less well than others in an online selling model.

The details below provide more information about potential barriers to online selling and marketing.

Information search

As per traditional marketing trends, sometimes being able to see, touch and perhaps even use the products prior to purchase is an important requirement. It is difficult to judge the resolution of a television screen online, and impossible to judge how well a pair of shoes will fit.

For some products and services marketers can use technology to try and address this problem.

For example, Amazon’s ‘Look Inside’ feature allows potential customers to see what the actual pages of a physical book look like (in order for them to see things like the font size) before they decide whether to make a purchase. Likewise, many online retailers provide a means for you to zoom in on a product in order to see it in close detail – sometimes closer than you could actually see the product in real life.

However, this sort of approach is only possible for some product categories, and is limited in terms of how much of the physical experience of shopping it can replace.

Search engine optimisation

Your website won’t even be found by customers if it doesn’t rank highly enough on search engines.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a process that affects the visibility of a web page and how it is ranked on searched engine results. Not many users will search beyond the first page of results, therefore, the lower down the rank a business appears, the less likely it is to receive customers.

The simplest ways of optimising a website are to ensure that the content is as relevant as possible to the specific customers’ needs you are trying to address, and that the keywords you use on the web pages are the ones customers will be searching for. Updating pages regularly also enhances their ranking on search engines.

Cost

Although there are many savings from online marketing, it still requires finance and time to set up and maintain. This can be prohibitive for small enterprises.

Safety

You need to ensure your website is secure, especially if you have an online shop. A huge amount of damage could be done to your existing customer relationships and the way potential customers perceive you if there are doubts about the security of their personal data.

Face-to-face preferences

Some customers still prefer to engage with more traditional ways of doing business, namely face-to-face. This feeling may be more prevalent in some markets and segments than others. For example, customers may feel a greater sense of trust purchasing complex legal or financial services in this way, because trust in the individual service provider can be important. Also, it may be easier to communicate a complex problem face-to-face.

Competition

The internet makes it possible for customers to compare products or businesses quickly and effectively, increasing the amount of competition in a market significantly.

The importance of social media 

Getting your business to go digital means more than having your own website. As you have heard, many people (but not all) now expect a more interactive relationship with product and service providers.

With so many people using social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, it is hard (and perhaps unwise) to not use them as part of your marketing strategy. Without an online presence, your business will certainly fall behind the competition but, more importantly, will be missing out on the crucial social benefits it will bring to your customer relationships.

So, what can social media do exactly for your relationship marketing strategy?

Interaction

Social media allows the two-way communication that is vital for relationships with your customers to flourish. It removes some of the communication barriers that can prevent customers from engaging in dialogue with you by presenting straightforward and convenient platforms to communicate through.

Response time is also often faster via social media platforms than it is through website or email contact, where some companies require a number of working days to respond. Expectations of timeliness can therefore be an important feature for potential customers, too.

Exposure

With so many people connected to social media, making it part of your relationship marketing strategy can give you more market exposure for your business.

If you deliver what your customers expect, or exceed their expectations, it is easy for them to share this experience with others and recommend your business. This is an effective way to increase new business as potential customers are more likely to listen to recommendations from people they know than they are from targeted marketing activities.

Personal

Social media gives you access to who your customers really are, and using it to engage customers helps your business to be viewed in a more humanised way. Marketing efforts are often perceived by recipients as general social media interactions rather than targeted marketing when they are delivered through these means and, therefore, they can be more accepted by recipients.

Feedback

Social media also presents you with lots of customer feedback that you can use to develop your marketing strategy regarding your target market and what it is your customers want. Similarly, it can help you to keep up to date with changing trends so that you can continue to meet new customers’ needs.

Your customers’ online experience 

Online relationship marketing can be a powerful tool for a business, but it is vitally important that the messages it conveys accurately reflect the goods, services and user experience on offer. If not, there is a very real risk that customers’ expectations will not be met.

Your online presence is often the first point of contact your customers will have with your business so it needs to be an accurate portrayal of what you offer and what you are about. The details below provide some advice about how to deliver a good online experience.

Present a joined-up brand

Your brand image should be consistent whether in print or online. Logos, colour schemes and designs need to reflect your business but have to work visually online.

If your digital media feels like an after-thought and disconnected from your business then customers will be less likely to engage with it.

Stay easy to navigate and contact

Keep websites as simple as possible to promote easy navigation.

It should also be straightforward for customers to find how to contact you via a variety of platforms. Integrate the social media icons you are using into your website so customers can follow their personal preferences.

Use mobile-friendly approaches

Your customer is increasingly likely to be engaging with you via smartphone or tablet rather than laptop or desktop computer. Ensure that your content can be browsed easily on a range of mobile devices so potential customers can quickly find what they are interested in.

Offer high-quality information

An online presence enables you to communicate up-to-date information as soon as it becomes available. This means you need to be committed to active engagement across all your platforms to ensure your marketing messages remain current and relevant at all times.

Knowing your target market well means you should be able to anticipate the information they require, so concentrate on providing this in whatever online media channels you are using. And note that the quality of information provided via social media should be as good as that offered through other means.

It may also be useful to introduce popular culture and pose questions that are current in your marketing messages. This can be a good strategy for prompting customers into active engagement, and what they communicate can tell you a lot about who they are and what they value. Make sure you consider the responses provided.

Twenty questions for online relationship marketers 

As the use of social media grows, so does the need to adopt effective marketing practices around it. This is where an evaluation of your efforts can highlight what is likely to be working well for your business, what you need to develop further, or where you need to refocus your efforts.

As a starting point, why not carry out a simple self-audit of your current activity against the headings outlined in the previous step. How many of these 20 questions can you answer ‘Yes’ to?

Present a joined-up brand

• Do you use a brand logo and colour theme across all media platforms?
• Have you included key words in your information to help with search-engine optimisation (SEO)?
• Do all the platforms you use get your business message across?
• Will potential customers find it easy to contact you?

Stay easy to navigate and contact

• Is your website easy to navigate?
• Is your contact information easily accessible?
• Are your social media icons clearly displayed?
• Is your text personal and welcoming?
• Do you have a mailing list?
• Do you send out a monthly newsletter?

Use mobile-friendly approaches

• Is your website optimised for mobile as well as desktop?
• Do you engage daily (by liking, sharing, retweeting, commenting, etc.)?
• Are you using #hashtags to make your messages more easily found and shared?
• Do you check and respond to customer messages more than once a day?

Offer high-quality information

• Are you using the most appropriate platform for your business to share information with your audience (e.g. blog, Twitter, Facebook)?
• Are you sharing information regularly on a planned basis?
• Are your social media posts current, engaging and of interest to your customers?
• Do your posts have a personal touch?
• Can your posts be shared by other users?
• Do you ask for ‘likes’ and comments?

Some of these questions may be more or less relevant to you depending on your situation and experience, but they are all associated with effective online marketing. And as before, if you can think of any other questions that could be added under these headings then why not share them with your fellow readers in a comment below.

What changes are you most likely to make? 

Having covered this article on the role of social media in getting your customers to engage in building long-term relationships, what changes would you now make to your own online relationship marketing efforts?

These changes might include the channels and platforms that you use for different types of communication, the customer groups you are targeting, the design of your existing channels or how you handle negative feedback.

Share your initial thoughts in the discussion thread below. Your fellow readers will also have some useful ideas that you may not have considered within your own context. Make sure you reply to at least one other comment and ‘like’ anything you think would be a good idea in order to encourage others to implement the changes.