Over the years, digital marketing has become crucial in helping generate business growth, with companies spending between 5 – 12% of revenue on marketing alone. Previously, the sole focus of many brands when implementing digital marketing strategies, often within B2C sectors, was return on investment (ROI).
However, as the digital landscape continues to evolve, ROI is no longer the primary concern amongst digital marketers. Businesses are now prioritising customer experience and strategies to help maintain customer loyalty.
So, in an era where brands constantly battle to gain our attention, how can businesses secure loyalty amongst their customers and gain a competitive advantage?
Omnichannel presence
We are living in a society where consumers are constantly connected digitally. Over the past 12 months, user screen time on smartphones has increased by 76%, highlighting the accelerated number of hours we are using our devices, darting between social media platforms and general web surfing.
Whilst this presents an opportunity for businesses to establish an omnichannel presence, it also poses the challenge of companies competing for attention within the digital space.
Rather than focusing on one particular channel, such as Facebook ads, it’s essential to implement an omnichannel strategy to integrate your brand across multiple platforms to create a seamless customer experience.
Expanding across multiple platforms will widen your brand’s reach and help further engage your existing audience if you can consistently capture their attention. However, it’s important to note that this is a long-term digital marketing strategy; tangible results will build over time.
But what should brands focus on to create an effective omnichannel experience?
Convenience
Consumers have short attention spans and need to find the answers to their questions and locate the products they are looking for simply and quickly. Don’t wait to pique customer’s interests and make your brand values clear from the outset.
Consistency
Brands must create a unified experience when establishing themselves across multiple channels. Taking a different approach across each platform is confusing for consumers; the aim is to provide a solid yet consistent brand message.
Communication
Businesses must maintain the same levels of communication across all channels to help provide a seamless customer experience. Companies that keep their audience regularly informed have a higher ROI and retain their customers.
Focus on customer experience
A seamless customer experience from the point of contact to the point of sale and even post-sale is likely to result in brand loyalty. As a result, businesses must consider ways to consistently provide value to their customers rather than provide a one-off experience.
Many digital marketers often focus too much of their time on providing short term experiences through SMM (social media marketing) and PCC (pay per click) campaigns. Levels of enquiries and further sales are unlikely to increase long term unless you look at ways to nurture customers through each stage of the buying process.
Statistics generated by SMM and PPC, such as impressions and click-through rates, should be used to help improve future campaigns. Instead, the real focus should be placed on customer acquisition costs and the further sales that could be generated over the customer’s life span.
There are numerous ways in which brand can improve their customer experience:
Understand your customers
A thorough understanding of who your customers are will help you target your audience effectively, understanding their needs and pain points to craft the right message at the right time.
Reward your customers
Rewarding your customers is an excellent way for maintaining brand loyalty and making them feel valued. There are many offers and benefits you can provide customers, such as early access to your products and services and discounts for referrals or higher spending.
Leverage artificial intelligence
Deploying artificial intelligence (AI) across your website and social media platforms have been proven to help businesses secure faster growth and improve customer experience. Strategies such as chatbots help businesses save on customer support costs and answer customer queries in real-time.
Data-driven strategies
To truly measure the success of your marketing efforts, it’s essential that marketers thoroughly review the analytics of all campaigns. Analysing customer engagement, or lack thereof, will allow you to leverage all platforms and target users more effectively and devise ways of retaining attention and providing a seamless experience.
Other benefits of data-driven marketing include:
Reach the right people
Reviewing analytics of your website users can provide valuable information about your customers, such as their age, where they are located and their online shopping habits. Knowing this information can help you to target your audience more effectively.
See what isn’t working
Sometimes digital marketing strategies can be a case of trial and error. If a campaign garners little engagement, brands can use this information to go in a different direction and get a step closer to effectively reaching their target market.
Discover how your customers find you
Analytics can provide you with valuable information, such as which website or platform they came from to get to yours. Being aware of this information helps you see where your customers like to frequent and which times of the day, helping you target campaigns more effectively.
The priority within today’s digital age is to work on strategies that will provide value to your customers and encourage a long-term relationship with your brand.
If you’d like to know more about leveraging your business through proven digital marketing strategies, please give Soar Online a call on 0345 207 3727.
