Customer engagement has been all the buzz lately for local business. How you connect with customers – when you should start, how often you should reach out, what you send them, etc. etc. etc. It’s overwhelming if you are welcoming new customers to your business consistently. Yet, if you look at the difference between extremely successful small businesses, and those that seem to plateau or just squeak by, there is always one common denominator – the quality and effectiveness of their customer engagement.
This is so important that before FreshLime even became a business we started studying the customer experience and dove deep into why customers loved certain businesses and broke up with others before a relationship started. We knew if we could crack the code of great customer engagement we would have a product that any business would have to have, because it would easily pay for itself in repeat business. Here is some of what we found.
- Personalization – making a customer feel like you get them is key to better engagement. Have you ever received a text, e-mail or call from a company that literally does not apply to you? 82% of typical small business customers responded in our survey that they do on a weekly basis. Can you imagine how that makes them feel? 50% of them stated that they would be likely not to return to a place of business after receiving a marketing message clearly not related to them. For example, a good friend of mine went into a hair salon once to get a clean shave. Afterward he kept getting e-mails telling him it was time to come and get his hair cut. The problem is he’s bald. So yeah, it backfired. Had they sent him information about getting another shave he’d probably be a regular customer. Now he goes to a place across town
- Pleasant Persistence – 94% of respondents in our customer engagement survey said they heard from some companies more than 1-2 times per week… and it turned them off – not on from calling that business again. The key is to reach out when your customers (or potential customers) need you to. Seems impossible but there is actually a lot of information available to know the right time and the right way to contact customers. Access to the information is available with intuitive CRM and Marketing Automation systems – and FreshLime is at the top of the list.
- Data, Data, Data – Send a blanket text to everyone in your database and you will only connect with those that happen to need what you are offering right at that moment. Send a customized messaged with information about their past relationship with you and that changes – all the sudden your customers know that you are paying attention to your relationship with them and that you care about their business. Check out these examples of how to do it well, and how to do it all wrong.
This proves you are a text marketing amateur:
When you know you’ve got marketing text game:
Keep these 3 strategies in mind when you engage with customers – past, present or potential. Personalizing your message, sending communication at the appropriate time, and using customized data are all important in developing a loyal customer base.
For more insights on marketing strategy that actually works for small business, subscribe to the FreshLime Newsletter here. Connect with Jay Bean, Founder of FreshLime and Small Business Marketing Expert on LinkedIn and Twitter. And last of all, if any of these tips have helped you or if you have anything to add please comment below. We’d love to hear from you!