It’s never a bad time to improve your marketing strategies. With a new year just around the corner—and a whole new decade, at that—everyone is making resolutions to better their lives and their businesses. What better time to resolve to increase engagement and action with your customers?
These resolutions take your customer’s intentions into account, meaning that every marketing move you make will work to convince and convert them—whether they’re first-time shoppers or long-time brand fans.
Resolution 1: Personalize the Experience
Consumers have made it
quite clear that they don’t mind giving up a little bit of personal information in order to receive more relevant shopping suggestions. You have
dozens of chances to get information from your buyers, too. There’s the first touch—perhaps a social media post or ad that featured a product that interested them. There’s the browsing history after they reach your site, which tells you exactly what they’re looking for.
One of the easiest and most effective ways to gather contact information is to offer a discount or other item of value in exchange for an email address. This gives you the chance to reach out with relevant offers later, whether a purchase is made during their first visit or not. The more relevant the offer—using the data you gather from their browsing session—the more likely you’ll be able to convince and convert them into buyers.
Resolution 2: Create a Community
Sometimes, nothing you do will convince a customer to make a purchase. Word-of-mouth is more powerful than any marketing material you release. You can still control the narrative by creating
communities around your brand, whether through Facebook, Instagram, or even YouTube.
Within these communities, you’ll develop brand advocates who’ll be happy to share their experiences with your products. Members can also reach out to other brand fans with questions or to ask for reviews of your products.
As valuable as the word-of-mouth marketing you’ll receive is, perhaps even more valuable will be the customer complaints. This will give you a chance to make things right for your buyers before they even reach out to your customer service department. Imagine if you could replace or refund an item without the customer even asking! How powerful would that be?
Resolution 3: Create Brand Loyalty (Maybe Even Without a Loyalty Program)
A loyalty program is a great way to keep customers coming back for more. However, you can’t expect a first-time customer to immediately sign up for your loyalty program. They need assurances that their loyalty to your brand is a wise decision. So, how can you
create brand loyalty without turning first to a loyalty program?
The first big step is to simply listen to what the customer says. When they tell you through their social media or browsing actions that they’re looking for specific items, deliver information about those items—not a general link to your website as a whole. Even worse would be to send information about specials or discounts on items that appear to be the
opposite of what they’re searching for. For instance, if they’re searching for women’s shoes, don’t send them information about your latest sales on men’s boots. By all means, you can add that as a postscript in your email marketing, but only after providing information about the exact things they’ve searched.
Next, ask how you can make the products they’re looking for their best choice. They’ll love the chance to give some feedback in order to get exactly what they’re looking for. For instance, if they’re shopping towels, ask if a monogram would make those towels even better. If they’re searching for potato chips, ask if they’d like to submit suggestions for new flavors. Lay’s does an amazing job with this particular tactic.
Finally, provide incredible service before, during, and after the sale. You already have two great examples for before and during. What can you do after? An email follow up to see if the buyer has any questions or feedback about the purchased is a great start. If the buyer reaches out to you, be sure to answer quickly, even if you need to more time to seek out answers to their questions. Leaving someone hanging is never a good look.
Source: https://marketingiw.com/3-resolutions-to-convince-and-convert-customers-in-2020/
