(Updated: 24 June 2023)
How do you get people to engage with your brand?
This is a question that should always be on every business owner’s mind. With the marketplace constantly evolving and adapting to fit into today’s technology-driven world, the focus on customer engagement has become a vital part of business.
In the past, customers were limited in terms of what they could buy and how, meaning companies didn’t need to try as hard to win over prospective customers. However, with the advancements in technology, customers can select from a wide pool of companies that would not have gone unnoticed in the past. With the option to bypass ads on YouTube, block ads in browsers, skip through commercials on TV, customers can now choose to ignore your brand’s attempts to market to them.
This change has forced businesses to rethink their marketing strategy, so to appeal to their target audience and promote customer engagement. Let us take a look at the 4 key challenges to achieving customer engagement:
4 Key challenges to achieving customer engagement
Richard Sedley, director of Customer Engagement at UK digital agency cScape, has identified the 4 key challenges companies face when it comes to client engagement and has provided a few solutions on how to solve this puzzle:
The Challenge: Increased Distractions
In today’s data driven world, customers are faced with an abundance of increased distractions with tons of information being thrown at them every minute, screaming for attention across multiple platforms. This is the first major challenge businesses must face when coming to their customer engagement strategy. After all, they need to find a way to cut through the noise time and time again.
The Solution: Simplicity and Persuasion.
Simplicity: When it comes to your marketing efforts, you need to have a good understanding of your target audiences’ needs, to reach them through their scarcest resource. For example, one customer segment might have time constraints, another may not want to exert too much mental effort, whilst another customer segment might have both constraints. Therefore, keeping your marketing messages ultra simple might help set your brand apart and may increase the chances of them engaging with you.
Persuasion: With your customers having to face all the distractions associated with daily living, looking for viable solutions that will make their lives easier becomes a priority. Therefore, highlighting things about your product or service that will make your customers’ life easier can help influence their decision to engage with your brand.
The Challenge: Increased Expectations
When it comes to your customers’ it’s important to know what they are looking for and what they need. With a variety of offerings available online, window shopping has changed to jumping from tab to tab on our customers’ internet browsers. This means your customers can easily switch products and suppliers at the click of a button. So how are you expected to meet and exceed your customers’ expectations?
The Solution: Insight and Personalisation.
Having deeper insight into your target audience can help your business find the right way to increase the relevance of your product or service, improve your communication, and bolster after-sales support. By putting more focus on customer satisfaction, you could:
- Create relevant personalized marketing messages.
- Establish the correct channel to communicate with customers on.
- Establish the right time to distribute the marketing message.
The Challenge: New Authority Models
In recent years, there has been a noticeable shift how customers gain information on a specific topic. For example, in the past, customers would actively consult with Financial Advisors, Travel Agents, or Doctors, or Sales Reps for their specific needs. Nowadays, customers review websites’ such as Fintech, or Trip Advisor, WebMD for advice, deeming these platforms as new authorities in the field, or more so people trusting people.
The Solution: Openness and Authenticity.
Instead of constantly pushing your products or services down a prospective customer’s throat, you could create content that provides free expert advise on a specific topic that your target audience may be interested in. This not only shows your willingness to help your target audience by providing them with useful, relevant information, but also helps establish your company as an expert in the field.
The Challenge: New Opportunities
With customers referring to user-friendly platforms and relying more on people-to-people content, it becomes harder for businesses to join in on the discussion without appearing as an outsider or disrupter. However, these new platforms offer companies new ways to connect with their target audience.
The Solution: Partnerships and Involvement.
When participating in new communities, it is absolutely vital to add value. Through this valuable interaction, your company can establish new partnerships and encourage customers to engage with your brand. By offering insights into your business and explaining why things work the way they do, especially from product developers, company decision-makers, or industry experts, can help drive the conversation and increase customer engagement.
Conclusion
Customer engagement tactics will vary over time and with your target audience segment and by using the above-mentioned four challenges within your customer engagement strategy, you can address these challenges head on, to ensure an greater chance of long-term success.
