Customers are the lifeblood of any business or organisation.
Few would argue with this statement yet the reality is that customers often play a peripheral part in any business and for many customers it feels that way.
Customer engagement marketing can help businesses redress the balance and put customers at the centre of communications with an emphasis on involvement and dialogue. The result of this approach is a customer base that feels valued, connected and involved in the organisation, which means increased loyalty and value for your business.
Customer engagement marketing is particularly suited to businesses and organisations with more complex products or services. These include those in the services and technology industries, public and not-for-profit sectors and business-to-business.
Some benefits of a customer engagement approach
- Stronger, more valuable customer relationships
- Increased profitability, customer lifetime value and reduced churn-rate
- A pervasive customer-centric ethos
- Finding and nurturing customer advocates
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Customer engagement is a powerful process that focuses on communicating with your customers in a way that builds trust, loyalty and goodwill.
To truly engage your customers you must:
- Speak your customers' language
- Demonstrate you're in touch with customer needs
- Create a continuous conversation
- Involve your customers in the business
- Create a culture of collaboration
There are a range of methods that can be used in the CE process including developing a more interactive website, consultations, newsletters and events.
The choice of method depends on the overall engagement strategy and should be based on sound market and customer analysis.
Who is responsible for the CEM process?
It is common practice for the marketing or communications department to lead the process. However, everyone in the organisation from top to bottom is part of the customer engagement process. Some organisations appoint 'customer champions' that will help facilitate and promote the process throughout the organisation.
Rich Dialogue is experienced in working with a variety of departments and fields.
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There are a range of measures that can be employed to assess the impact of any customer engagement activity. The most appropriate measure wll depend on the type of business and market.
- Website and other media usage
- Customer satisfaction
- Participation in events
- Referral rates
- Churn rates (loss of customers)
Who can benefit from Customer Engagement marketing?
All organisations can benefit from using communications to engage their customers. For those in the public, not-for-profit, professional services and tecnology sectors the return on investment will be particularly high.
How to get started?
This depends on how serious your organisation is about engaging your customers!
A typical process begins with a thorough audit that analyses the current situation focusing on customer relationships. This is followed by a proposal for a new approach and how this will be implemented. Once agreed, the new communications activities can be coordinated in the start of an continuous process of customer engagement.
Rich Dialogue successfully implements new processes by developing a consultative and collaborative relationship with client staff.
Contact Rich Dialogue today to discuss adopting a new approach to engaging your customers.
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Multicultural Marketing 