Top 5 Tips For Taking Your Customer Engagement to the Next Level in 2012

Want to make 2012 your best year yet?

Here are our top tips for getting the most out of your customer engagement programmes for the next 12 months:

1. If you’re not already tracking the engagement level of your customers, now’s the time to start

Customer engagement is all about building relationships – and like any relationship it pays to keep an eye on how the other partner is feeling: do you need to spend more time with them or less? Are you giving them good reasons to notice and interact with you or are you turning them off?

By observing customer interactions with you over repeated communications you can start to see who in your database is highly engaged with your brand and who is just a click away from opting out, then tailor your messages and approach to optimise the relationship – and your results!

Track engagement levels yourself by monitoring your uptake and response rates or make use of tools like our new Insight reporting feature to easily monitor customer engagement scores over multiple campaigns.

Ideally, you’ll start seeing an increase in the number of highly engaged customers over time – that’s a sure sign that your communications are hitting the spot.

2. Segment your highly engaged customers and target special communications just to them

This group are your goldmine and deserve VIP treatment. Consider incentivising them to become your brand advocates with unique offers or opportunities and make it easy for them to share relevant content and messages with their own community, using features like our share-to-social function.

3. Consider re-engaging lapsed customers with a win-back campaign

Absence makes the heart grow fonder: if customers haven’t opened an email for a while, give them a mini-break for three or four months before welcoming them back with a “We’ve missed you” approach.

4. Start thinking more broadly to make connections that count

Provide customers with a range of ways to engage with you; don’t be afraid to ask them for their preferences and give them a choice of channel options for different messages, such as the ability to receive TXTs instead of emails for special offers/promotions.

Consider integrating direct mail (DM) and digital experiences by sending customers and prospects an intriguing piece of DM and then inviting them to respond via TXT or coupon.

5. Finally, don’t forget the basics

Some rules don’t change: the key to keeping your existing customers engaged is to provide relevant, timely content.

Segmentation by location can be a great way of delivering a highly personalised experience, and thanks to fuctionality like dynamic content change-outs, it doesn’t need to be expensive or resource-intensive.  Simply set rules around what information you want a customer to receive depending on their physical address, and a platform like Engage will automatically add or delete content based on that customer’s profile, removing the need for you to manage multiple templates.

Great examples of relevant local content include providing in-store specials for the franchise or outlet nearest each individual customer, or sharing details of any local sponsorships or community initiatives that your brand is involved with.

By ensuring you’re relevant you’re more likely to win your way into your customer’s heart, continue to earn their attention and ultimately enjoy an ongoing – and profitable – relationship.