Some call it the age of social media. I call it the age of interaction.
because it's so much more than just social media. It's emails, it's meet ups, it's engagement, it's referrals.
We've spoken about the importance of interacting with your customers before.
It's very important that you're connected to them.
Most business comes from existing customers, not new customers (although this is very very important). So interacting with your existing customers is a great way to not only ensure you keep them, but this could also prompt them to do more business with you or even attract new customers via testimony and witness of your interactions.
Who doesn't want to business with a Friendly company that's in touch with its customers?
So what are some ways in which you can boost interaction with your customers.
Email Marketing
Email is a great way to stay in touch with your existing clients, you give them great updates, they read your emails and you'll stay at the forefront of their mind when they think about the product that you sell. The biggest companies never give up the opportunity to be in your inbox, why should you give that opportunity up?
Social Media
by Jakob Owens on Unsplash.
The very purpose of social media is to facilitate and encourage interaction and engagement between users and luckily you can take advantage of this. Nearly all Social Media platforms are now business oriented, meaning they have made the ability for businesses to interact with people a primary focus of the platform. As this is how they generate profit. So you should definitely be taking advantage of these platforms.
Some things you can do on social media include:
Posting content relevant to your customer base.
Running promotions that get your customers in high gear.
Ensuring that you reply to your customers comments and messages in a timely manner.
Promote Meet Up and Events.
Meet Ups and Events
by Jakob Dalbjörn on Unsplash.
The power of face to face engagement should never be overlooked. You're much more likely to convince someone to support your business in person than you are through the internet. This is because you can establish a tangible and meaningful interpersonal relationship with them this way.
So one great way of getting to know and meeting your customers is hosting events.
These events don't need to be anything fancy or huge. They could be in a park, parking lot or wherever you can find some space to rent (or borrow) to meet up with your customers.
But don't think they'll come just because there's an event being hosted. Ensure you're going to give them something worth their while. After all they're taking time out of their busy day to come to your event.
You'll want to offer them something that they won't be able to get (or not easily anyway) anywhere else, something exclusive. This could be a promotional offer or a special gift.
You'll need to appeal to their emotions.
Say you're hosting an event and you run an online store. You could give away free gift cards and coupons only available at the event. Or better yet, only at the event will you be able to get the most popular and in demand products at that price. This second option would be better, it is more likely to attract customers, as even if they got their hands on a gift card or coupon, they would not be able to get the product as it would be at that event.
Say that you're a tech company. You can rent out a space and show off your technologies, offering sign ups for your service for a premium discount rate and even drop in a few extras, just for users who sign up at the event, both new and existing. One really cool thing you could do is to host a small conference at that event, with speakers on the different products. This will show off your company's knowledge about the products they are offering.
As you can see, there's no shortage of methods to interact with your clients and prospects no matter your industry, just think about building a community around the common interest of your product and take it from there.
