Vezign

These days, businesses are experiencing a paradigm shift on marketing. Aside from spending tons of money on advertising, business owners have realized the power and importance of their customers. There was a time that a business could only rely on their customers in order to build a brand name, but with the arrival of new tools for marketing, the customers have taken a backseat while businesses rode on the bandwagon of TV, radio and print advertisements.

But in the last few years, business owners have awakened to the fact that their customers are their number one asset. They can decide whether a business would flourish and grow or, on the other hand, fold up and go on a bankruptcy claim. These days, engaging is the hottest marketing strategy, the question is, have you already hopped on the new bandwagon or are you still stuck on the traditional ways of advertising marketing?

If you haven’t focused your marketing strategy on engagement with your customers, there’s a high chance that your competitors are gaining more than a few step ahead of you in the race for a better brand name. If you want to cope up and you don’t want to get left behind, know the ways in which your competitors are engaging better with customers.

Below are some strategies that they most likely have been using in order to gain more popularity in the battle against the better brand name.

• Your competitors have made their business more customer-centric. These days, knowing the value of your customers is very important. Albeit having the most eye-catching advertisements may help you build your image, studies have shown that people think word of mouth is more dependable than a stunning ad on TV. People are becoming smart buyers and if you don’t focus your business on these buyers than you are most likely in trouble.

• Your competitors have invested on touching people’s positive emotions. Do you know that when one customer has had a good experience in a business establishment the word of mouth can go to four or five more? That’s good right. But be wary of bad experiences because if one customer’s negative emotions have been tapped by one of your employees, most probably the word of mouth about the incident will reach more than 10 people. Always make sure that your customers leave your establishment with the sense of satisfaction and happiness, because if you don’t, bad publicity can be hard to eradicate.

• Your competitors have already built strong and meaningful relationships with their customers. Have you ever wondered why some of your customers never come back? Maybe it’s because they didn’t feel that you wanted to have a long and lasting relationship with them. Customers are like lovers, they need attention and a certain degree of warmth. When they feel like they are being taken for granted, they will never come back to you and when that happens, you lose a chance to gain loyal customers who can be a big part of your sale’s percentage.

• Your competitor has realized that engagement needs an effort from the whole business’ base employment staff and even higher positioned ones. A lot of business owners forget that they should also be an active participant of their business. Aside from the efforts from your base employees (clerk, saleslady, barista, waiter, etc.) and higher positioned employees (managers or supervisors), even the owner should be an active participant of the engagement game. When a customer sees higher authority in an establishment this gives them peace of mind that the business is in the hands of a person who really wants to get to know the customers in order to serve them better.

• Lastly, your competitor may have engaged with customers not only in a personal basis but also online. Have you ever wondered why Facebook and Twitter is being used by businesses? Well it’s because social media is a great way in engaging with your customers even if they are not inside your store or establishment. It can help them build their own community where they can talk with each other and share their experiences and feedbacks. Before, a lot of businesses throw out a lot of money just to conduct surveys on what the customers want. But in the age of Web 2.0, you can get to know your customers better with just a few clicks away. The medium has also provided a tool in which businesses can offer customer service anytime and anywhere.

Written by: vezign| Web Design & Marketingon July 27, 2011.

In: Customer Engagement, Marketing