There are a lot of factors that determine whether or not an eCommerce store will be successful.
While all of them are important, one thing without which a store could never be profitable is a good relationship between the brand and its customers. This is why customer engagement is crucial.
Customers who are fully engaged have a 23% higher share in profitability, revenue, and relationship growth, which means that good customer engagement is essential to your success.
There are multiple ways an eCommerce store can engage with customers and you need to know which ones work best.
Here is a list of the most powerful ways you can use to engage with your eCommerce customers.
Use your social media channels wisely
All successful businesses realize the importance of having a strong social media presence on multiple channels.
This way, you can have a strong impact on your customers and determine how they view your brand, as so many customers nowadays rely on their social networks to make purchasing decisions.
However, having a social media presence definitely isn’t enough. You need to know how to utilize those channels and engage with your customers in the best possible way.
Here are some things that you can do on your social media channels:
- Post regularly. If you want your customers to engage with you, you need to give them content they can engage with. Post interesting, informative, and fun content at least once or twice a day that will cause your followers to comment, tag their friends, and share your posts.
- Monitor what people say about your brand. Keep a close eye on popular social media channels to see how people talk about your brand. By monitoring your brand on social media, you can see the general perception people have of your brand and reach out to people who mention your brand.
- Reply to all comments. Keep an eye out for comments people leave on your social media pages and make sure to reply to as many of them as possible, no matter if they’re positive or negative. Show gratitude to those who praise your brand, and if anyone has a complaint, address it and try to resolve it.
You need to do all of this and sometimes even more if you want to increase engagement, so it does take a lot of time and effort.
To accomplish all of this and still have time to focus on your business, the best solution would be to hire a social media agency to run your pages for you.
Start a customer loyalty program
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Creating engagement with customers can be an easy thing to do. Sustaining it in the long run is much more difficult, but also much more important. Long-term customer engagement leads to customer retention and as a direct byproduct, more sales.
One of the most popular and best ways to keep your customers satisfied and always coming back for more is to start a customer loyalty program.
When a customer signs up for this program, they get certain incentives when they purchase your products, such as discounts or free shipping.
You can also start a referral program, where every member will have their own referral code, and every time a new customer purchases an item with that code, the referral gets a reward. This is a great way to keep existing customers happy while also attracting new ones.
When you start these programs, promote them to your customers and you won’t have any issues getting them to sign up.
These types of programs are extremely popular and 58.7% of internet users believe earning rewards and loyalty points are among the most valued aspects of the shopping experience.
Allow customers to leave reviews
Image by mcmurryjulie from Pixabay
Customer feedback is very valuable, as it provides you with insight into how your customers feel about your brand, what you’re doing right, and more importantly, if you’re doing something wrong.
Customers need to have a platform for leaving all of their feedback and reviews.
It’s good to add a customer reviews page to your website just for this purpose as it will make it much easier for you to engage with all of your customers in one place.
Once you add this page, encourage customers to leave reviews and tell them exactly where they can do it.
However, adding a review page is only half of the work. It’s also important to monitor this page every day and reply to all comments and questions so you can build a strong relationship with your customers.
Show them you’re a company they can put their trust in and you’ll gain many loyal customers.
As an added bonus, customer reviews are a great way of building social proof. As customers can’t physically see the items you’re selling, they need reviews so they can determine whether or not your business is trustworthy.
As 93% of consumers reported that online reviews affect their purchasing decisions, it’s clear to see why a customer reviews page is something you need to have on your website.
Contact customers on special occasions
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Everyone wants to feel appreciated and treated as an individual, including your customers. One of the worst things you can do is treat your customers as nothing more than a group of people who provide you with income. This behavior will undoubtedly ruin your engagement rates.
To show customers you truly care and appreciate them, reach out to them on special occasions.
This can be as simple as sending a personalized message that will commemorate a special day such as their birthday, an anniversary of the first time they bought something from your website, and so on.
However, it wouldn’t be enough to send something like “Happy birthday” and hope for increased engagement rates. Make the message more meaningful and enticing to customers by including a special offer as a gift like a free product, discount, special promotion, or a coupon.
Optimize your website for mobile users
Smartphones are becoming better and more advanced every year. For many people, they are the tool they use to do everything online, including shopping.
If you want to engage with all of your customers, they need to actually be able to visit your website on their preferred device.
Optimizing an eCommerce website for mobile users means that your website has to have a responsive design, a high hosting speed, and work effortlessly on all mobile devices.
Another important component of optimizing a website for mobile users is usability.
Test out how easy it is to use your website on a smartphone, if customers can easily visit all of the pages, and most importantly, if they’re able to leave comments on your reviews page.
Final thoughts
There is a lot more to finding success when running an online store than just working hard on making a good website and then advertising your products in as many ways possible.
Remember that there are people who purchase your products, and those people need to be engaged.
All of the ways you can increase the engagement you just read about may seem overwhelming and difficult at first. But if you’re organized and have all the necessary tools, you will see customer engagement, and your profits skyrocket in no time.
from Feedster https://www.feedster.com/ecommerce/5-powerful-ways-for-ecommerce-brands-to-engage-with-customers/
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