The digital marketing world is moving at lightning speed. From Facebook to Twitter, Instagram to TikTok, the platforms and channels you use for promotion are constantly evolving.
But despite the rapid growth of new platforms and trends, one thing remains true: your customers will always care about how you make them feel. The best digital marketers know their customers intimately.
Savvy business owners know that they want to stay ahead of the competition and keep their marketing campaigns relevant for years to come. Achieving that goal requires understanding what their customers think about their digital presence.
Summary
- Go beyond the social media numbers to get a deeper understanding of your customers
- Enhance your relationship with your customers by listening to their wants and needs
- Offer incentives that help you connect with your customers and get them talking about you
- Don’t forget about the people behind the scenes who make digital marketing possible — invest in them, too!
1. Go beyond the social media numbers to get a deeper
understanding of your customers.
Social media platforms can be a great place to get a quick snapshot of what your customers are saying about your business. However, it’s more important to go beyond the numbers. Advertisers require a deeper understanding of who their customers are, what they care about, and how they’re interacting with your brand.
This relevant information can give your customers an invaluable opportunity to connect with you. You can use it to onboard new customers, increase loyalty, and drive revenue.
These customer insights come across in Stone Temple Consulting’s research, conducted among more than 1,000 business owners, and published in the February 2019 issue of Theory & Strategy Digital Marketing.
The survey highlighted the importance for an advertiser to model customer’s digital behaviors and interactions. Based on these responses, the researchers discovered seven categories of digital customer behaviors and interactions that indicate how much a customer cares about your brand on social media. Here are the main insights:
- One of the first things researchers identified was a patient influx onto social media. Research indicated that 76% of respondents had made changes to their social media use in the past year due to “unhealthy” amounts of negative commentary directed toward businesses and their companies.
- The second significant finding relating to customer behavior is a lack of engagement. Some consumers are relying less on social media usage due to negative commentary. 70% of respondents indicated that they seldom or never engage with digital-native content on social media.
Advertisers can leverage insights from these studies, to better understand the customer’s needs and behavior. It’s also essential to respond to inquiries in a timely fashion. Lastly, this research further reinforces the importance of personalized digital experiences and real-time customer feedback when building your digital strategy.
2. Enhance your relationship with your customers by listening to their wants and needs
To create a relationship with your customers, you have to understand them and what they want. The better you know your audience, the more you can cater to their individual needs, and the more they’ll appreciate your brand experience. As we know, for online customers, success is all about providing an outstanding experience.
According to Gartner in a recent report, an 85% optimization effort is required on the front end of your website to start positively impacting search engine optimization. All businesses should follow a customer-centric approach to marketing and building growth.
This strategy enables the advertiser to conduct targeted marketing campaigns and products with the right mindset. Instead of thinking about “opportunities” to make money, think of each customer/visitor as “the” opportunity. Concentrate efforts on making each interaction valuable. You can then focus marketing efforts by combining these goals.
What most people don’t consider when it comes to digital marketing is that being customer-centric is about more than just customer experience — it’s about value. It’s about serving the needs of the customers and not the other way around.
Unfortunately, there’s a lot on the line in keeping customers and businesses satisfied. Being good at delivering a positive online customer experience means identifying what your customers want.
“Being better means connecting you the advertiser, to your client and doing it in a way that’s authentic and genuine. Customer experience is the cornerstone of a great digital marketing strategy,”
3. Offer incentives that help you connect with your customers and get them talking about you
You need to always think about how you can offer incentives to customers. Not just any old incentive. Push promotions that drive consideration, action, and loyalty. For example, when someone mentions your brand on social media, you can offer them a discount code or a free product as a way of saying thank you. Turning social media into a customer-centric marketing channel is an easy way to stay ahead of your competitors. You can play this game in other ways too.
Keeping your social media in check is essential to keeping your marketing campaigns relevant. Let’s not forget about retargeting. Consumers LOVE re-discovering products that they have considered purchasing from you.
How do you encourage shoppers to return to your site? It is not easy when you think of all of the options available for consumers.
At Digital Clicks Marketing, in 2019, we launched a brand new online store — a fresh start for the brand. However, instead of offering the same “free gift” with every purchase, we offered discounts for buying multiple products. As these new customers discovered the store, we directed them to the product detail purchase page.
In essence, this strategy is a direct psychological referral that helps brand loyal customers complete purchases quickly. How do you do this? Play around with discounts and gift codes to see what works best for you. If you can offer the same value with each purchase, you increase the odds that your customers will buy from you again, and again.
Another way to implement a customer-centric approach is by setting up an automated loyalty program.
4. Don’t forget about the people behind the scenes who make digital marketing possible — invest in them, too!
If you want to stay on top of your game in the digital marketing industry, you need to invest in your staff. You can’t expect outstanding performance from your employees if you’re not willing to invest in them. Giving your team the tools and training they need to do their job and making sure they’re happy and fulfilled in their career.
Your employees are going to be your brand ambassadors and should know your company’s culture inside out. They’re also going to know your customers best.
Many businesses want new employees. That’s fine — many companies need to grow. But it’s essential to think long-term when it comes to your workforce. It’s important to respect your employees and give them the tools they need to advance in their careers. The tools and technology they require will only become more and more critical as competition increases and your company grows.
What sets a company apart is the reputation, expertise, and attitude of its employees. If the employees are excited about their jobs and want to work hard to earn the trust of potential customers, that’s all that matters. Many companies make bad hires and then feel like it ruined their strategy. If that’s the case, then
Chances are if your company’s digital presence is struggling, it’s because your employees don’t understand how to promote your business online or on social media.
If you’re looking for an expert who knows how to create a stellar SEO strategy that drives sales by considering how customers think?
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