Customer Engagement Tips
In 2016, Casper mattress company created Insomnobot-3000, a late-night chat bot that keeps customers company when they can’t sleep. The bot operated from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. and held conversations like a friend would. It also pulled $100 million in sales for Casper the first year, then doubled to $200 million in sales, as well as secured customers’ phone numbers for SMS marketing purposes. Key takeaway: Big brands create customer engagement campaigns all the time, and while they don’t always directly drive sales, they usually strengthen brand loyalty.
Keep these points in mind when developing your customer engagement strategy.
Maintain the customer lifecycle – A customer lifecycle is the length and nature of a customer’s relationship with a particular brand or company. For marketers, the goal should be to make the customer’s lifecycle as long and prosperous as possible. That means maintaining and continuously improving the continuum by supporting a customer journey that’s mutually beneficial to the customer and the marketer. Maintaining the cycle involves acquiring the customers, retaining their interest in the brand and extending the relationship beyond a single purchase. [See how CRM software can help manage your customer lifecycle.]
Look past the purchases – While purchase history is the most likely insight beyond basic demographic data to influence campaigns, it doesn’t go far enough. It’s also important to consider your customers’ channel-preference data, propensity scores, household composition and other metrics. These often-overlooked pieces of information will yield results, both because they’re inherently valuable and because your competitors aren’t likely to consider the information.
Use all available data – There is a plethora of information marketers simply do not have access to when crafting customer communications, including behavioral data and online/offline profitability. With the rapid growth in digital channels, the only way for marketers to remain competitive is to use all of the available information about their customers.