In the business world, there are various metrics and important points that need to be considered in order to have a successful business in the long term. Some of these important points are Retention Rate, Customer Loyalty, Lead Generation, Brand Awareness, Customer-based Profit, Churn Rate, and Customer Retention.
The important points mentioned above can be achieved through social media marketing strategies and can also be done by increasing Customer Engagement. For example, Facebook Ads, which is one of the social media marketing strategies, can be used as a means of product promotion so that the number of customers increases and the Churn Rate can be minimized.
Meanwhile, Customer Engagement, which is often used as a benchmark for assessing how close a brand is to their customers, can be used to increase the number of loyal customers and leads. So, speaking of Customer Engagement, in this article we will specifically discuss what it means, how to measure it, and interesting tips for maximizing Customer Engagement. Happy reading!
What is Customer Engagement?
For Erzedka Friends who are new and not familiar with the term Customer Engagement, here is a brief explanation. According to Qualtrics, Customer Engagement is a metric that assesses the closeness or emotional connection between brands and their customers.
In simple terms, Customer Engagement is a communication interaction that is closely intertwined between brand owners, customers, producers, and all parties involved in the scope of business operations. Through Customer Engagement, we can assess how close a brand is to their customers and whether the brand really understands the needs and wants of customers.
Customer Engagement has several important aspects as a source of assessment, including:
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Interaction or engagement between brands and customers can occur offline or online. Offline interactions can take place when brands hold promotional events or product launches in certain cities directly so they can meet and get feedback face to face with customers.
While online interaction can occur through social media. For example, a brand that uploads content as a content marketing strategy via Instagram. So, from there, many customers gave feedback on the brand's upload, such as commenting, liking, and sharing.
Customer Engagement is also considered to be an important part of a business because it can ensure customers are satisfied with the products they buy. So they will tend to subscribe to our products and increase the number of sales and profit transactions. This is very helpful to maintain the dynamics and stability of the business in the long term.
How to Measure Customer Engagement?
Customer Engagement is often used to measure how effective social media content is in attracting audience interest to interact. So, if the "Pageviews" metric is used to measure how many people read our content, then "Customer Engagement" is used to measure how high the interaction of people is with our content uploads.
The interaction referred to here is commenting, liking, sharing, and clicking on uploaded social media content. So, how do we measure the value of Customer Engagement? Based on the results of a study from Forbes, the following will present an example of a brief analogy regarding calculations to measure Customer Engagement on social media.
For example, in one month a social media account manages to upload 25 contents. From these 25 contents, a total of 2,500 organic attainments were obtained and several interactions with the following details: 100 comments (feedback), 35 shares, 250 likes, 15 clicks.
Based on the description above, the total interaction obtained (complete response activity) on the content is 400.
So, using the calculation formula:
(Complete Response Activity/Attain Organic) x 100%Result obtainedCustomer Engagement Rate: (400/2,500) x 100% = 16%
The higher the Customer Engagement Rate, the better and more interesting the social media content we create. Therefore, the marketing team and social media team must continue to monitor Customer Engagement Rate figures to ensure that the content created is truly liked and desired by our potential audience.
How can you improve customer engagement?
Well, we have come to the main part of this article. The following will describe tips and effective strategies to optimize Customer Engagement.
1. Occasionally Share Educational Content Through Social Media
According to Laurence Dessart (Laurent Dessart, 2015), Customer Engagement has seven sub-dimensions namely Enthusiasm, Absorption, Learning, Sharing, Enjoyment, Endorsing, and Attention. So, to fulfill one of the Customer Engagement sub-dimensions, namely Learning, Erzedka Friends can occasionally upload educational content that is useful and adds insight to your audience.
The educational content that you share can be in the form of tutorial content or creating a Microblog using the "Carousels" feature with topics such as QnA (such as answering several audience questions on social media regarding certain matters).
There is a fact that educational content performs better on Instagram because it is considered to be able to provide inspiration, education, insight, and new knowledge for the audience.
2. Creating Entertainment Content on Social Media
The next great tip for increasing Customer Engagement is through creating entertainment content on social media. Because sometimes someone visits social media like Instagram or Tiktok to find entertainment and escape from the stress of busy daily activities.
So, there's nothing wrong if occasionally social media is not only used to upload business promotions, but also to present content with the pure purpose of entertaining your audience.
How do I create entertainment content? Erzedka Friends can take advantage of game templates, create small giveaways, or simply open a question box to facilitate the audience in sharing sessions regarding light discussions.
However, don't forget that uploaded entertainment content must still be related to your business niche, OK! Because it can highlight your Unique Selling Point (USP) as well as the character of your business or brand.
3. Sharing Current Content on Social Media
If the "Target Market" of your business is Gen Z and millennials, then one way to increase Customer Engagement can be through uploading up-to-date content. Because usually Gen Z kids are very up-to-date on viral news and hot topics being discussed.
The idea for contemporary content that Erzedka Friends can try is creating challenges (such as the make up challenge or ice bucket challenge) that can attract the audience to interact and participate, creating Geeky content (content about pop culture that young people really like). , to presenting Chillax content (content about the Gen Z lifestyle, such as music recommendations or others).
4. Providing Exclusive Offers to Customers
Another way to increase Customer Engagement is to provide special offers so that customers feel special. Special offers that are given can be in the form of exclusive members, referral programs, discount programs and special promos, to sneak peeks of products that will be released.
When customers feel they are specialized so that a closer bond with the brand is established, then these customers will be more comfortable to continue subscribing and will not switch to competitors.
5. Publish Regular and Periodic Newsletters
Newsletters are a "communication tool" that can bridge brands or businesses with their customers to share important and interesting information related to brands.
Newsletters are considered capable of building good relationships and communication between loyal customers and the company's brand. Customers can more easily and continuously remember your brand when they read the newsletter. This is what is expected to increase Customer Engagement later.
Apart from being a promotional medium, newsletters are also considered capable of being used as survey media to collect complaints and feedback from customers. Surveys that are routinely conducted on customers are very useful to find out customer behavior (such as customers who buy products more often through which channels) and customer segmentation (groups of customers who frequently interact and open newsletters). Newsletters can also be used as a source of data in terms of creating personalization features.
A few tips regarding newsletters, you should send regular newsletters every month. Because based on a survey compiled by Qiscus, 80% of people prefer to receive a newsletter once a month.
6. Serve as a Place for Customers to Give Product Testimonials
One of the sub-dimensions of Customer Engagement is "Sharing". By providing a place for customers to provide testimonials regarding the products they have used, indirectly your brand will be considered to value the voice of customers.
In addition, through the testimonial and review programs, customers can exchange product experiences while increasing the sense of trust for new prospects to try your product immediately.
7. Considering Marketing Psychology Concepts
Marketing Psychology is a branch of science to understand consumer psychology when they look at the products offered and finally decide to buy the product.
Marketing Psychology concepts can be applied in marketing strategies and product promotions through websites, social media, or others. It is hoped that by implementing Marketing Psychology, a brand can more easily understand behavior, preferences, habits, traits, and other things that are of interest to consumers before they are finally convinced to buy a product.
When we understand and know about the habits and things that consumers like, it will be easier to establish positive interactions and bonds with them in order to increase Customer Engagement Rate.
8. Using an In-App Communications Strategy
In-App Communication is a communication strategy with users through notifications (pop up messages) that appear while they are using the application. So, if your business also has a mobile app, it will be very beneficial to use In-App Messaging to establish communication and interaction with users or customers.
The form of In-App Messaging that is displayed can be in the form of product promo offer banners, invitation banners to register for membership, pop up messages to remind you to check out products immediately, survey banners, and others.
However, it should also be noted that you should install In-App Messaging at the right time. Also don't spam so that it makes users feel uncomfortable and uncomfortable with pop up messages that suddenly appear when they open the application. It's best to show In-App Messaging when users have been in the app for 15-20 seconds.
9. Utilizing Push Notifications To Interact With Users
Push Notification is a notification or short message sent by mobile apps to everyone who installs their application. Push notifications are an easy and powerful way to build engagement and remind users about your brand.
Because through short messages or notifications sent to users, they can get information quickly and concisely without the need to open the application first. They can read short messages from the Push Notification pop up more easily and quickly but can still interact with your brand.
10. Using Some Customer Engagement Tools
With the development of technology in a digital direction, more and more tools are available with very useful and functional uses. Some of these tools can help you maximize Customer Engagement.
Following are some recommendations for Customer Engagement tools that Erzedka Friends can try:
a. Analytics Tools
For the needs of analyzing ad performance, user behavior, performance analysis, sales conversions, and other analytical needs, Erzedka Friends can try using Amplitude, Mixpanel, Fullstory, Google Analytics, Hotjar, Heap, Woopra, Treasure Data, Clicktale, Optimizely, or Segment. .
b. In-App Communication
If Erzedka Friends is currently looking for tools to make it easier to implement In-App Communication, then you can try using Appcues, Wistia, Help Scout, Drift, Helpshift, Zendesk, LiveChat, SendBird, or SnapEngage.
c. Push Notifications
In the following, several tools will be presented to help you implement Push Notifications to increase Customer Engagement. These tools are Twilio, Airship, Iterable, Airship, Pushwoosh, OneSignal, and Localytics.
d. User Feedback and Survey Tools
Feedback and surveys are a very powerful customer retention strategy to try. Because through surveys and feedback, a brand can communicate in two directions with consumers. So, here are some recommendations for tools to help you conduct surveys and collect user feedback, namely Typeform, SurveyMonkey, Qualaroo, GetFeedback, Zoho, Google Forms, Checkbox, or Surveygizmo.
e. Newsletter Tools
Following are recommendations for tools that can help Erzedka Friends in running an email newsletter. These tools are Hubspot, Customer.io, Marketo, Klayvio, Vero, Watson (IBM), Mailchimp, or SendGrid (Twilio).
Conclusion
Customer Engagement is a metric for assessing communication interactions that exist between brand owners, customers, manufacturers, and all parties involved in the scope of business operations. Through Customer Engagement, we can assess how close a brand is to their customers and whether the brand really understands the needs and wants of customers.
Customer Engagement greatly affects the number of loyal customers, Lead Generation, sales conversions, and brand awareness. The higher the Customer Engagement Rate, the higher the number of loyal customers. Therefore, the brand will be increasingly recognized and sales conversions will increase significantly.
Some of the right tips and strategies that Erzedka Friends can apply to maximize Customer Engagement are occasionally sharing educational, current and entertainment content through social media, providing exclusive offers to customers, publishing regular and periodic newsletters, providing a place for customers to provide product testimonials, considering the concept of Marketing Psychology, using the In-App Communications strategy, utilizing Push Notifications to interact with users, and using several Customer Engagement tools.
So, that's enough discussion this time about Customer Engagement strategy, OK! Hope it is useful!