If you want to make your small business a success, maintaining customer engagement and loyalty needs to be a major priority. Attracting customers to your brand or product is only the first step. Small businesses that fail often do so because they didn’t understand that a great marketing campaign doesn’t stop with an ad or a promotion; it needs to be bolstered by strategies to keep customers coming back, and that means giving them solid reasons to choose you over your competition.
Here are some tips from the European Business Review to accomplish just that.
Revisiting the concept of marketing.
Entrepreneurs need to be aware of what works in marketing right now. It’s not about splashy advertising or catchy slogans. Authenticity is absolutely key. If you present a sales pitch, that is what your customers will hear, and people tend not to trust sales pitches. They need to be given a reason to believe that you’re offering something of genuine value that can truly improve their lives. They also need to see that you are ethical and reliable. One way you can do that is by partnering with ethical companies and demonstrating good business values in how you treat your clients and employees.
The importance of personal engagement.
Personally engaging with your customers allows you to ensure that they have a great experience with your product, customer service, and sales process. There are many ways you can enhance engagement. The first and most simple is to be sure that what they purchase really is of the best quality, and exactly what you promised. You can use conversational marketing to make sure that they have access to personalized customer service at short notice. And when you have an actual in-person interaction with a customer, on the phone, on social media, or in person, remember to be empathetic, polite, and a good listener.
Using social media marketing.
Follow up on customer interactions by using social media marketing and push notifications to stay on your customer’s radar. You can also use social media to respond directly to customer comments and even complaints. As much as you might prefer to ignore the negative, it’s essential that you address them directly, not only for the customer but in how you run your business. Negative responses on social media may indicate where changes need to be made. But work for positive responses and positive engagement. This means frequent postings, especially of content that invites customer interaction, such as polls or invitations to share or retweet.
All of this means that hiring a social media manager might be just what you need to not only raise positive awareness of your business, but avoid any potential pitfalls. So if you’ve ever wondered, “How much do social media managers make?”, now might be the time to find out!
How to be memorable.
What sets you apart from the competition? Hopefully, a stellar product and top-notch customer service. Good prices also help. So do customer loyalty programs and incentives. You don’t want your customers simply to have a vague sense that doing business with you wasn’t bad. You need to stand out in their minds. Having good branding is essential here. You don’t want your customers thinking about what a great experience your company offered, but be unable to recall your company’s name. If your company’s legal name is bland or doesn’t reflect your brand, you can file a DBA (doing business as) name which will make it easier for customers to identify and remember you.
If you are able to guarantee a great experience for your customers, this will in turn guarantee a degree of customer retention. Make sure public experiences of your business are largely positive and easy to remember. Be willing to make changes if needed, too, to optimize customer satisfaction and loyalty.
