How to Connect With Your Customers in More Personal Ways
Genuine connections with your customers can leave a lasting impression. It can mean the difference from a mere browser or follower to a loyal, repeat customer. With digital marketing, however, it can be easy to just send a personalized email and call it a day. That’s only the beginning of how you can initiate conversations with your audiences. Here are some ways that you can connect with your customers in more personal ways.
1. Personalize Your Communication Tactics
Consumers expect to be treated as unique individuals. They don’t want to be seen as just another buyer, a mere number in your pool of consumers. For brands, this means ideating ways to tailor relevant and timely messages to the intended audience. Using a combination of first-party and third-party data, you can segment your audience based on different factors. These factors can include anything from geographic region to how often they’ve visited your site.
Of course, with the third-party cookie depreciation, relying on third-party data sources is a short-term strategy. Predictive audiences are a privacy-safe replacement that relies on first-party data and AI learning to build new audience segments. These can be based on buyer behaviors, content engagement, interests, preferences, and spending habits. With this information, you can create various personalized messages that will resonate with different individuals within your core audience.
For example, you can serve geographically relevant banner ads to customers notifying them of weekly deals and promotions. Once a buyer lands on your site, you can show them other recommendations based on prior purchases or similar items. Amazon is notorious for doing this, creating custom home landing pages based on search history and recent purchases. Brands that are successful with their personalized communication tactics often see higher consumer retention and increased brand loyalty.
2. Leverage Social Media
Social media has enabled consumers to form closer relationships with their favorite brands. Before Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, consumers relied on customer service to have their questions answered. Today, many will comment on a brand’s post asking about a product or send them a direct message. Because of this, they expect two-way communication and they don’t want to wait hours or days for them to get a response back. Waiting this long could encourage them to seek out a competitor and purchase from them instead.
To grow a loyal community, brands need to take their social media accounts seriously. Having a dedicated social media lead or marketer available to respond to comments and DMs is important. If this isn’t possible, seek out social media services that can automate some messages and help manage your various accounts. Alongside this, look for any themes or trends amongst messages; if you’re seeing the same type of question or complaint, it’s best to address it on your site or via a social media post directly.
Another advantage of social media is leaning on influencers who fit within your intended audience and/or are already fans of your brand. By doing a social media audit, you can see who posts about your brand and how often. Partnering with a micro-influencer who is already using your brand is a more natural fit than finding someone blindly and teaching them about your brand and product offerings. Working with influencers can help grow your community, generating more leads and conversions.
3. Ask for Feedback
Asking for feedback isn’t always the easiest, but it can benefit how you do business. Knowing what your customers are looking for allows you to meet their needs. It’s also a way for you to identify areas of improvement. Because no matter how great your customer service is, there are always ways to improve upon it.
Feedback doesn’t have to be a lengthy survey, although these can be advantageous. It can start with polling your community on social media and seeing which color they prefer. Knowing an overwhelming amount of people prefer navy blue to hot pink can help inform product decisions. If you were about to create a large purchase order for hot pink sneakers, you may rethink the decision and instead order more in navy blue.
Another way to collect feedback includes asking questions in an e-newsletter. Enticing consumers with a discount code for a future purchase or the chance to win a gift card can lead to more responses. You also may decide to host smaller focus groups for a specific request. These can be insightful when you’re creating a new product line or enhancing your current offerings. Just be sure your focus groups represent a diverse scope of your audience personas.
Takeaways
Just like in a friendship or relationship, communication cannot be one-sided. Look for ways where you can get that firsthand customer feedback, whether it’s on social media or via a survey. Hearing from your audience directly can allow you to show up for them better in the future. It will also prove to them that you care about what they have to say and want to provide the best service possible.
If you decide to lean on AI tools or automated messages to streamline processes, ensure that there is also a human being reviewing these messages. You never want to come off as just providing canned responses. Customers will see right through that and many may decide to take their business elsewhere. Because at the end of the day, customers are human beings just like you, and they want to be treated as such.
