We all know that it is harder to retain a customer than to acquire a customer. Already we are seeing that customer experience has overtaken price and product as a key brand differentiator. Getting new customers is more costly than retaining your previous customers. But still, we see businesses pour money and effort into acquiring more customers and not putting enough effort into maintaining their previous customers. If you place your resources into making sure that your existing customers keep coming back to you, you will see much better results, and it will be less expensive for your business. And it will help drive customer acquisition.
How is that?
Your existing customers will become your brand ambassadors. They will do word of mouth marketing and influence others to come and interact with you. It’s a win-win if you understand what is more important and focus on it. But for that, we first have to find out what customer engagement is.
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What is Customer Engagement?
Go to the internet, and you will see all sorts of definitions of customer engagement. Maybe this is why a lot of businesses don’t pay much attention to it. But don’t worry. Let us simplify it for you. At the core of it, customer engagement means the interactions that happen between your customers and your brand. It makes the customer trust your brand and, in the end, purchase your product or your service. Customer engagement drives customer loyalty. The more you interact with them, the more they will trust you and prefer you over other brands.
Now the question arises, how can we use content marketing to drive customer engagement?
Content Marketing to Drive Customer Engagement
We know that marketing nowadays is all about providing the customers what they want. Content marketing means giving the customers the information that they are looking for. You can use content marketing to listen to the customer, start a conversation with them, help them with their needs and demands, and create content that solves their problem. Sure, you can find random topics to write about , which works too, but the more specific you are, the more results you will see.
Content Marketing Trends To Watch
Let’s talk about the latest content marketing trends that we can use to drive customer engagement and customer retention.
1. Content Personalization
Everything is about personalization nowadays. The customers seek for special treatment, and what could be more special than content written primarily for them? Thanks to the technology at hand, it is no more a problem for a brand to gather data about their customers, analyze that data, and deliver content based on their interests and needs. If you are looking to submit your content then submit a guest post technology at different sites is a great opportunity.
It enables you to speak to their hearts and increase brand awareness. Studies have shown that content personalization brings customers closer to the brand much more effectively than a static page.
2. Interactive Content
Gone are the days when you could throw some content at the customers, and they would lap it up. As we move more and more towards personalization, another critical aspect that has come forward is interaction. People don’t want to be passive receptacles of information. They want to interact with the brands that they prefer. How can you enable them to interact with your content? By using the latest technologies. It includes Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and more. These two technologies have made a mark on the industry, and we see more and more businesses leaning towards them to increase their business and build a better customer base.
Just see the way people use Snapchat and Instagram. Both these platforms give their customers many AR filters that they can apply to their faces and change them in a plethora of ways. Another example is the IKEA AR app that allows you to select a piece of furniture and place it in your house to see whether it goes with the overall theme or not. You can even choose different lighting to see how it will look.
3. Visual-Heavy Social Media
As time moves on, we see more and more people prefer to interact with visual media than textual media. Talk to experts, and they will tell you that the most effective type of content is video and graphics. That is how people want their information, and that is how they share their lives with others. According to Pew research, people now prefer social media over print media for their news consumption. That is saying a lot. 73% of internet users in the USA said that they use YouTube, Facebook came second at 69%, and third is Instagram with 37%. All of these are visually loaded social media platforms.
4. Classic Storytelling
In our haste to get the message across and promote products to acquire new customers, many of us have forgotten what it is like to tell a story. It was and still is one of the best ways to engage the customers and bring them closer. The benefit is that you don’t need gimmicks or trickery to connect with them; you need to be authentic and entertaining. You have to create stories that resonate with the customers and revolve around the customers. You have to share how your brand can help them out.
5. Voice Search
Voice and image searches have increased because more and more people are using their mobile phones and other handheld devices. Also, we see an increase in the use of voice-based devices like Alexa and Siri. It is the age of hand free computing, and businesses have to consider all their marketing strategies and campaigns. Voice search is fast becoming the norm, and content marketers cannot ignore it anymore. You have to make sure that your content is optimized for voice queries and questions.
Conclusion
As we said earlier, retaining a customer is far easier and less costly than acquiring new customers. And content marketing is one of the most effective ways of doing it. Keep it personal, interactive, and exciting, and the existing customers will take it upon themselves to get new customers for you.
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