Business owners have one common goal– to create success for their business, right? The first step to success is making sure your customers love your business. Loyal customers make up about 80% of revenue for businesses so turning one-time customers into loyal advocates for your business is always in your best interest.

The first step to creating that necessary loyalty is building a strong relationship and gaining the trust of your customers. How do you do this? Engage with your customers to make them love your business. According to Forbes.com, “Customers are in the driver’s seat now and many businesses that don’t have the technology and systems in place to support an omni-channel customer experience will be forced to take the backseat”.

How can business owners today avoid taking the backseat to their competitors?

Send Targeted Engagements

Engagement marketing is the use of strategic content to engage consumers,  and create meaningful interactions over time. Targeting means that you are strategic about those engagements. Targeting defines a segment of customers based on their unique characteristics and focuses solely on serving them. Putting all of this together is the recipe for customer retention.

Engaging with customers should be useful and targeted. Sending messages to your past and current customers that are irrelevant to the services they need from you won’t do any good for you or your customers. Instead, focus on targeting your emails, texts and social posts so your customers will find value in what you have to say. How you engage with your customers sets the stage for the future relationship you will have with them. Your emails and texts should be sent on a regular basis, between each purchase. Meanwhile, you should be engaging with your followers on social media daily in order to keep your business relevant to them. 

Automate Your Processes

HubSpot.com tells us, “Marketing automation is all about using software to automate marketing activities. Many marketing departments automate repetitive tasks such as email marketing, social media posting, and even ad campaigns — not just for the sake of efficiency, but so they can provide a more personalized experience for their customers. The technology of marketing automation makes these tasks easier.” 

Save yourself time by automating your processes for customer engagement. Marketing automation is the future of business success, and it’s not just about saving time. The process of sending targeted engagements is much more seamless and proactive when it’s automated. It’s time to connect with the right customer segments using the right message, at the right time, on the right device.

Connect with Customers their Way

Most consumers prefer to interact with a business through chatbots and instant messaging on a business’ website than other forms of communication. Connecting with customers their way means your business is available to customers through web chat, text, phone calls and social media. People use all sorts of communication methods to reach businesses when they are in need of services. Part of effective customer engagement is customer communication when and where your customers want. Build trust with your loyal customers by being reliable and easily accessible to them.

The simple truth is: You have to engage with their customers if you want them to love your business. There is no substitute for powerful customer connections and this begins with strong engagement. 

For more insights on marketing strategy that actually works for small business, connect with Jay Bean, Founder of FreshLime and Small Business Marketing Expert on LinkedIn and Twitter. 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!