Building Relationships: The Power of Personalization in Financial Services

In today’s digital landscape, generic marketing blasts are brushed aside, especially in the sensitive financial services industry. Customers expect more than just transactional interactions; they seek understanding, relevance, and solutions tailored to their unique financial journeys. This is where personalization transforms how financial institutions connect with their audience and build lasting relationships.

What is Personalization?

Personalization goes beyond simply addressing a customer by their name. Allison Clark, Principal Analyst at Forrester, defines personalization as “An experience that uses custom data and understanding to frame, guide, extend, and enhance interactions based on that person’s history, preferences, content, and intent.” It’s about leveraging the information available to deliver value at every touchpoint, making customers feel understood and catered to.

The Indispensable Need for Personalization in Financial Services

The financial services sector faces unique challenges that make personalization not just a “nice-to-have” but a fundamental necessity:

Building Trust: Financial decisions are deeply personal and involve significant life events. Personalized communication that demonstrates understanding of the customer’s situation fosters trust and loyalty.
Combating Commoditization: With many options available, customers often perceive financial institutions as interchangeable. Personalization offers a crucial avenue for differentiation by creating unique and valuable experiences that competitors struggle to replicate.
Low Purchase Frequency: Unlike E-commerce, where customers make frequent purchases, individuals may only acquire a financial product (like a loan or a mortgage) every few years. This makes each interaction critical, and generic offers in between can lead to annoyance rather than engagement.
Evolving Customer Expectations: Customers are accustomed to the personalized experiences of tech giants and on-demand services. They expect the same level of tailored communication and seamless experiences from their financial providers.
Navigating Transactional Anxiety: Applying for financial instruments often comes with stress. Personalized guidance and support can alleviate this anxiety and build confidence.
Data Privacy and Security: Given the sensitive nature of financial data, personalized communication must be handled with utmost care and security, respecting customer privacy and adhering to regulations.

How Financial Services Brands Get Personalization Right

Here are some ways in which several financial institutions are leveraging personalization across various stages of the customer lifecycle:

CTOS: Focuses on timely remarketing by analyzing credit score expiration. Basic personalization, like adding the customer’s name in the email subject line and body, resulted in a 15% growth in sales. They also leverage on-site behavior, triggering push notifications based on visited pages. Their use of cart recovery emails with discounts achieves an impressive 50% open rate.

Watch the full video here:

Policybazaar: Segments customers into those who have provided ample data and those who have shown interest but haven’t purchased. The former employs hyper-personalization, aiming to understand every detail to pitch the right product. The latter focuses on predictive analytics to determine the best offer and channel while gauging the data’s confidence score. They recognize that the right offer at the right time can encourage customers to share more data.

Learn more about Policybazaar’s personalization strategy here:

Piramal Finance: Prioritizes deep personalization for “Bharat”. They aim to break the inertia of customers who believe they won’t qualify for loans by addressing each individual’s needs. They utilize campaign management modules and customer behavior-oriented information from various sources to achieve this.

Here’s how Piramal Finance gets it right:

IndusInd Bank (Easy Credit): By implementing a platform like MoEngage, they gained the ability to understand consumer behavior on their platforms, identify drop-off points, and nudge clients with appropriate offers at the right time, leading to a 20-25% jump in conversion rates. They also significantly reduced the time taken for campaign execution.

USAA: Delivers a personalized mobile banking experience based on “life moments,” not just static data. For a customer looking at car loans, they display car-related information; for someone potentially filing a claim, they provide relevant claims details. They also follow up on human interactions (e.g., phone calls) with personalized digital touchpoints, ensuring a seamless omnichannel experience.

Barclays: Utilizes personalized video to inform customers about their pre-approved loan amounts, leveraging customer data to proactively offer relevant financial solutions.

Huntington Bank: Employs a “Heads Up” tool that provides proactive and personalized insights, such as low balance alerts or notifications about potential duplicate charges, along with actionable options for the customer. Crucially, they also solicit feedback on the helpfulness of these messages to refine their personalization efforts further.

BBVA: Offers personalized financial health recommendations based on customer data and stated goals, providing advice on improving their financial standing before directly suggesting products. Their external-facing baby equipment cost calculator for even non-customers demonstrates a value-added approach, gathering prospect data while offering a helpful tool.

City Bank and Trust Bank: Highlight the importance of secure and compliant personalization. City Bank uses MoEngage for unified messaging with strong security protocols, while Trust Bank employs Pi tokenized sending to ensure sensitive data isn’t stored in the cloud during communication.

Zeta: Demonstrates the power of data-driven engagement, using MoEngage analytics to gain deep customer insights that improved UPI adoption and activation rates across their various business lines.

MoEngage: Enabling Personalization at Scale for Financial Services

Customer engagement platforms like MoEngage are crucial in enabling financial institutions to implement personalization effectively at scale. They offer a unified view of the customer by integrating data from various sources, provide tools for audience segmentation, campaign management across multiple channels (email, push, in-app, SMS, WhatsApp, etc.), and increasingly incorporate AI-powered features for content generation and audience building. Specifically for the financial sector, MoEngage offers features like secure data injection, PII-masking and encryption, and solutions for unifying transactional & promotional communications. Read more about MoEngage’s customer engagement capabilities or talk to an expert by clicking here.

Conclusion: Building Deeper Connections Through Understanding

Personalization in financial services is not just about increasing sales; it’s about building stronger, meaningful customer relationships. Institutions can deliver valuable experiences that foster trust, loyalty, and long-term engagement by understanding their needs, preferences, and financial journeys. Whether it’s a personalized email or a sophisticated AI-driven insight, prioritizing the customer’s needs and delivering value is the key to getting personalization right. As the digital landscape continues to evolve, financial institutions that embrace thoughtful and practical personalization will be the ones that thrive.

What is Customer Lifecycle: Definition and Stages

A customer lifecycle includes the various stages a customer goes through, from first learning about a business to using it till they stop being a customer. It covers a customer’s entire relationship with a business.

The customer lifecycle stages vary between businesses. However, for most digital businesses, such as apps or SaaS platforms, there are seven key stages, as shown below.

In this post, we’ll discuss the seven customer lifecycle stages and offer tips on engaging customers at each stage.

1. Discovery

This is the stage where a consumer discovers your brand or product for the first time.

Brand discovery can happen in various ways. Consumers may see an ad on social media, watch a video of someone talking about your brand, or something else.

This could even happen through an offline channel, even if you run a digital business. For instance, they may hear about your brand through an offline event or fair or through word of mouth from a friend.

Your goal at this stage should be to inform as many relevant consumers as possible about your brand and its offerings.

Here are some key strategies that will help you let more people discover your brand:

Run targeted social media and search ads to reach specific audiences who might be interested in what you have to offer.
Post relevant and useful content on social media and use hashtags to reach a wide audience.
Create great content for your website and blog, and invest in SEO to let people organically find and visit your website.
Run a buzz marketing campaign where multiple influencers talk about your brand and share branded content on social media.

2. Onboarding

Once consumers discover your brand and develop an interest in it, they’ll likely visit your website or app to learn more.

For a digital business, this is the stage where consumers either download their app or create a free account or profile on their platform.

Your goal at this stage should be to provide an exceptional experience to users so they engage with your app or platform and find it useful.

Here are some tips for you to deliver immersive experiences during onboarding:

Make the onboarding process as simple and quick as possible. Provide easy sign-up options, keep your sign-up form short, and ensure there are no hassles when creating an account.
Welcome new users, collect their preferences, and ask them to opt in to receive brand communications.
Provide educational materials to teach people how to use your app or platform to its full potential. The easier they find it to use your app, the more likely they are to stay on and become paying customers.
Decide whether you want to provide users full access to your platform for a limited time or offer limited access forever. This choice will depend on your type of business. For example, gaming apps allow forever free access, but users need to make in-game purchases to unlock additional features. A B2B SaaS company may limit access to advanced features to paid customers.

MyFitnessPal, a calorie-tracking and fitness app, uses an onboarding survey to collect user preferences and customize their in-app experiences.

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The app lets new users set their goals and quickly introduces them to the various features and functionalities to get them acquainted with the interface right from the start.

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Overall, the app provides a great onboarding experience and also prompts new users to either continue with the free trial or choose a paid plan.

3. Activation

Did you know that 53.6% of North American consumers visit a site or app 3+ times before buying?

Clearly, converting casual users and site visitors into customers takes time and effort.

That’s why once a user has been onboarded and started using your platform, your next goal should be to get them on a paid plan. This stage, where a free user turns into a paid customer, is called the Activation stage.

There are many activation prompts you can use, depending on your type of business. Here are some examples to get you started:

Offer free in-app currency and prompt users to buy more or find ways to earn more when it is exhausted.
Nudge users to try a paid, advanced feature that will improve their experience. Use feature tours to drive more engagement and conversions.
Send in-app or email reminders to encourage users to take a desired action and use special offers and discounts to incentivize them.
Announce new features and product updates to draw users’ attention to paid, unused features of your app or platform.

Remember, user activation does not always involve turning a free customer into a paid one. It could also be a user completing a certain action, such as successfully using the app for ten days or finishing the entire onboarding educational content.

For some businesses, customers would opt for a paid plan after the discovery stage itself. For such businesses, keeping users engaged and upselling would be activation goals.

Now that we’ve got that cleared, let’s look at a great example of an app that does user activation right.

BetterMe, a fitness app, uses a lucrative, time-limited offer to activate users. The countdown timer creates a sense of urgency, while the message “Special Gift For You” shows that the offer is exclusively for a particular user. Both these tactics help drive clicks and conversions.

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4. Repetition

The customer lifecycle involves all stages from when a consumer discovers a product till they decide to stop using it and churn. So, if you think your job is done once you’ve acquired a paid customer, you’re mistaken.

So, what’s the next stage in the customer lifecycle?

4. Repetition and retention

At this stage, your goal should be to retain existing customers and encourage repeat business.

Here are some tips to help you out.

If you have a subscription business model, use auto-renewals to get customers to stay longer. This ensures repeat business for your company unless a customer specifically chooses to end their subscription.
For gaming apps or apps that rely on frequent in-app purchases, time-limited offers and discounts work well to get users to keep buying.
If your platform has sophisticated features, educating users on how to get the most out of it boosts retention. Tutorials, walk-through videos, and a resource hub with essential product information can help customers get the most out of the platform and continue using it.

5. Habituation

While it’s great to get repeat business from new customers, it’s not enough. You should focus on long-term customer retention to boost loyalty and customer lifetime value.

What does this mean?

Consider this: you acquired a new customer for your gaming app, and they made a few in-app purchases. However, after a few weeks, they got bored and uninstalled the app.

You would probably not even recover the amount you spent on marketing to acquire the new customer, aka customer acquisition cost.

On the other hand, if you engage the customer enough to ensure they keep coming back to your app for years, even if they don’t make frequent purchases, you’ll get more value from them over their lifetime.

That’s the power of habituation—keeping a customer engaged for a long time and increasing their lifetime value.

Here are some ways you can get customers habituated to your app or platform.

Update your product regularly and introduce new and useful features.
Collect user feedback and ask them what new features or functionality they’d like to improve their overall experience.
Identify issues in user experience and keep improving your user interface to deliver a great customer experience.
Ensure customer engagement by consistently offering value and staying relevant.
Use gamification to keep users engaged and trying to reach higher levels or unlock new content or features.

Many habit-tracking apps, for instance, unlock additional features as users continue their streaks and stay on track with their goals. However, it’s not limited to such apps, and many types of businesses can replicate this strategy.

Duolingo, a language learning app, uses gamification and rewards to keep users engaged. It rewards users for daily streaks and regular use of the app, as shown below.

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This is a great way to keep users engaged and increase app use, which helps develop a habit and boosts retention.

6. Loyalty

After a user has become habituated to your app or platform, your next aim should be to build loyalty.

No, repeat use does not necessarily mean a user is loyal to your brand. They may easily switch to another if they get better value.

Loyalty is more about building strong customer relationships and connections than about getting repeat business. Of course, your regular customers are the prime candidates for your initiatives to build brand loyalty, but it requires work.

So, who is a loyal customer, and how can you build brand loyalty?

A loyal customer is someone who consistently chooses your brand over others and has a strong emotional connection with you. They are not easily swayed to switch to competitors by deals and offers.

Here are some tips to build loyalty:

Provide exceptional customer support and service experience and ensure prompt issue resolution.
Personalize customer experiences by providing individualized offers and recommendations.
Take feedback seriously. Ask your regular customers what improvements they’d want and implement those to let them know their feedback is valued.
Engage customers with gamified loyalty programs that reward them for various actions, such as making a purchase or following your brand on social media.
Build an online community of loyal customers on social media or platforms like Discord.

XL Axiata, for instance, uses AI-based recommendations and personalized omnichannel experiences to boost app stickiness. It leveraged MoEngage to boost customer engagement and retention and achieved a 29.5% conversion rate from its rewards program.

Clearly, personalized marketing is a great way to boost brand loyalty and strengthen customer relationships.

7. Advocacy

By this stage, you have loyal customers who love using your platform and are loyal to your brand.

At this customer lifecycle stage, you should turn these loyal customers into brand advocates. This means that they not only regularly use your platform but also recommend it to others.

One of the best strategies for encouraging brand advocacy is running a referral program. The idea is to incentivize customers to refer your brand to their friends.

Follow these tips to get this right:

Offer double rewards to both the referrer and the new customer they bring in to ensure both have enough incentive to follow through.
Make referral incentives a part of your loyalty program if you don’t want to create a separate referral program.
If you don’t have a loyalty program, you can simply offer in-app referral incentives and provide each customer with a referral code or link.

Here’s an example of a simple referral incentive by TaskRabbit. The app offers $20 to both parties for a successful referral.

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Ready to Manage Customer Lifecycle for Your Business?

Now that you understand the various customer lifecycle stages of an online business, you’re better equipped to engage customers at each stage.

Follow the tips provided in this guide and experiment with various tactics to identify the ones that work best for you.

Also, use this guide to create targeted conversion funnels for your business, with specific tactics to engage users at each stage of the customer purchase journey.

Lastly, don’t forget to invest in a good customer engagement platform to get the best results from your marketing initiatives. All the best!

The Ultimate Guide to Digital Customer Engagement

Customer engagement is the latest magic wand for digital businesses. Companies have recognized the value of becoming “customer-obsessed” and are working actively to retain their existing customers while attracting new ones.

Studies say that brands that have mastered the art of customer engagement are 41% more likely to report “much higher” conversion rates than that of their previous year. This measures how well the business can do if you can build a solid relationship with your customers across online channels.

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In this article, we will discuss why digital customer engagement is important for your business and what strategies you should adopt to ensure your customer satisfaction rates shoot through the roof. We will also take a brief look at the types of tools that can assist you in improving your customer experience.

What Is Digital Customer Engagement?

Digital customer engagement involves the steps you take to connect with your customers digitally. You can use various internet tools and platforms to reach out to your customers to build loyalty and boost retention.

For example, you could send a personalized birthday wish and gift coupon for your loyal customers to redeem during their birthday month. This would build a sense of familiarity and warmth in their minds, and they would be more likely to stick with you longer.

Similarly, if a customer shows interest in your product on social media, you can send them a message with the product details and price in their inbox. This is all part of digital engagement efforts that can secure long-term relationships with your customers.

The more interest your customers show in your business, the better you will perform in a competitive landscape. This is why digital customer engagement is important to stay relevant and increase ROI.

Benefits of Digital Customer Engagement

In the current market, digital customer engagement is the lifeblood of your business. Engaging with customers is no longer a choice; it has become a necessity. High customer engagement leads to a better customer experience, which is a win-win situation for your company.

Here are a few benefits that digital customer engagement can bring you:

Drives Customer Loyalty and Retention

Customer loyalty matters more to your business than you think. In the last few years, customer acquisition costs have increased by nearly 60%, and today’s businesses lose an average of $29 for every new customer acquired.

It is more important than ever to retain your existing customers, and digital engagement is the way to do so. If you can provide a good experience to your customers, they will give you more business and also refer you to their friends and family.

Thus, you can increase customer retention rates and also find a loyal audience for your new products and services.

Builds Customer Relationship

If you implement engagement strategies regularly, your customers will be more likely to remember your brand and their experience with you. Consequently, they will be happy to return for more purchases.

For instance, if there’s a local restaurant that greets you warmly when you arrive and remembers your favorite orders, you will be more likely to go there often and also bring more people with you. Digital engagement tactics work the same way.

Boosts Sales and Revenue

This is a natural result of fostering customer loyalty. Engaging existing customers costs less than acquiring new ones. So, you will save money and also gain more conversions in the form of repeat purchases.

This way, you can boost your business’s sales and revenue and see more growth in a shorter time period.

Improves Brand Reputation

The digital space runs on positive brand value. The right engagement strategies ensure your brand gets more recognition online and can build a solid reputation with your customers’ help.

For instance, if you run a contest on a social media platform that drives more engagement, you are highly likely to run into the feed of potential customers. There, they can see your posts and offers and become intrigued to visit your website. This is a great way to build brand reputation and recognition without spending too many resources on it.

Strategies to Boost Digital Customer Engagement

A well-envisioned strategy for customer engagement in digital marketing can bring you traffic, conversions, brand value, and audience connections. The following strategies will help you build a solid digital engagement plan and give your business a push toward success:

Study Your Target Audience

Not every product is for everybody. When you’re looking to form a digital marketing strategy for maximum engagement, you must be aware of your target audience. Age, gender, geographical location, occupation, and many other factors matter when it comes to choosing your target audience.

Getting an idea of who would engage with you more can help you build engagement strategies that yield better results. Study metrics related to your audience and customize your marketing strategies accordingly.

Personalize Customer Experience

In this day and age, customers expect a personalized experience when they contact a business. If you can provide them with curated recommendations and customized content, they will feel valued and understood.

When you study your target audience, identify ways to tailor your interactions based on their needs and preferences. This will ensure that they give you positive reviews and recommend your services to their close ones.

Focus on Content Marketing

The digital space runs on content, be it blogs, videos, podcasts, or other media. Effective content marketing can boost customer engagement massively. If you can create content tailored to a specific audience, you can increase web traffic and loyalty.

This is another benefit of studying your target audience. You can then determine what they want from you and create a content strategy accordingly. Make sure your content marketing strategy is SEO-friendly, and you’re all set to go!

Leverage Social Media

Social media is where everyone is now, including people of a wide age range and even companies. This is a great space to engage your audience and build a brand reputation.

For instance, the reel culture is at an all-time high, with platforms like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok embracing it wholeheartedly. If your target audience is likely to be active on these platforms, you can connect with them on reels, ask them for collaborations, and engage them with contests or challenges.

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Collaborative marketing ensures that your content reaches your customers on the platform they enjoy, increasing the recall value.

Adopt an Omnichannel Strategy

An omnichannel strategy ensures that your customer experience and messaging do not differ across platforms. Whether you reach your customers through email, social media, your website, or chat, they should get a consistent response.

This is especially important in a digital environment, as customers are likely to contact you through multiple touchpoints. If you cannot efficiently engage with them through any of these mediums, that is a blow to your brand reputation.

Gather Feedback

The key to successful customer retention is to gather feedback and implement them in your next interaction. Make sure you add feedback channels like surveys and ratings to your digital touchpoints. This way, your customers can keep sharing their thoughts about your product/service and suggest improvements.

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If a brand implements customer feedback effectively, that is a massive green flag to customers. They feel heard and encouraged to engage more with you.

Improve Customer Service

Once you identify customer pain points through your feedback channels, it becomes easy to optimize your customer service workflows. Good customer service leads to more engagement and higher retention, so you should not take this lightly at all.

With higher customer satisfaction scores, your business will gain more popularity and higher engagement in digital platforms. Simply put, customer service and engagement are two wheels of the same bike and go along with each other in the same direction.

Use Chatbots and Self-Service

An omnichannel approach means your business has multiple touchpoints for customers. In such a scenario, it becomes difficult for companies to offer prompt customer service. To avoid that, you can automate certain customer service tasks.

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Using chatbots ensures customers get relevant replies immediately after they try to reach you. This way, simple queries can be resolved without human interference. The same goes for other self-service options like help pages and FAQs.

If you can direct customers to the right knowledge page, they can troubleshoot certain issues without active help. This makes them feel more in tune with your product and gives them a sense of accomplishment.

Determine and Track Engagement Metrics

Tracking engagement metrics helps you to follow an insights-led approach toward understanding and engaging customers.

Australia’s highest-reaching radio network, NOVA Entertainment, experienced a massive boost in listener loyalty with an insights-led approach to engagement. This led to a 17% increase in mobile app activity and a 5% increase in in-app listening.

Similarly, you can identify audience KPIs and take measures to optimize them for better engagement and profitability. Some major customer engagement KPIs to track are:

Churn rate
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Conversion rate
Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
Customer retention rate
Social media engagement

Update Marketing Strategies Regularly

No marketing strategy can guarantee you permanent engagement. With changing times, you need to keep updating your approach to stay in touch with your customers. Use data-driven insights to find low-performing areas and optimize them for better engagement.

You can also read through customer feedback to see what they want and use it to improve your services.

All this can be done through efficient customer engagement tools for automated solutions.

Types of Digital Customer Engagement Tools

There are different types of digital customer engagement tools that you can avail of online. Depending on your business needs, size, and customer base, you can use one or more of the following tools:

1. CRM Solutions

A customer relationship management (CRM) tool is a digital engagement solution that helps businesses analyze and manage customer data and interactions. CRM solutions allow you to track data throughout the customer lifecycle and use insights to improve customer experience.

The goal of a CRM solution is to drive sales, retention, and engagement by providing customer-facing information like purchase history, preference, buying behavior, pain points, etc. Some examples of CRM software are MoEngage, Salesforce, Zapier, ClickUp, etc.

2. Engagement Tools for Social Media

Social media engagement tools can help you promote your products or pages, interact with customers directly, and monitor conversations around your brand on a social platform.

This helps you respond to topics in real time and build stronger connections with your customers.

3. Content Management Systems (CMS)

A content management system (CMS) like WordPress enables you to create, edit, and manage website content without any coding knowledge. With these tools, you can share blogs, post updates, change website layout, and publish content to engage your customers.

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4. Video Chat and Chatbots

Along with textual chat, video chat has also become a prevalent customer engagement method. It lets you connect with customers on a personal level and address their queries without hesitation.

For example, if you run a jewelry store, you can offer video chat services to customers to show them intricate designs. You can also automate this function with a video commerce platform that provides guidance and recommendations in real-time.

A mix of real-time video chat with a human agent and automated video commerce help can do wonders for your digital customer engagement strategy.

5. Email Marketing Systems

Few tools are as effective as good old email marketing systems. They are an excellent medium to keep customers informed about your brand and boost engagement. This software allows you to send personalized emails, promotional offers, updates about your products and services, and loyalty program rewards.

Wrapping Up

Customer engagement is the holy grail for any online business. Customers bring value, reputation, and revenue to your business. It is your job to keep them happy and provide a personalized experience that they’ll treasure.

If you can crack the right digital engagement strategy with an efficient engagement platform for your business, you will see a significant improvement in customer satisfaction. This will ensure your business remains sustainable and profitable in the long run.

6 Powerful Customer Engagement Strategies to Drive Growth in 2024

Is customer engagement moving away from being insights-led? Or is data still central to an effective customer engagement strategy? With customers raising questions about privacy, how can organizations deliver a personalized user engagement strategy?

These are some important questions we’ll address in this advanced guide. You’ll also learn how to increase customer engagement strategies with a robust customer engagement plan.

What is a Customer Engagement Plan?

A customer engagement plan is a strategy to help brands deliver a continuous positive experience that leaves customers coming back for more. The plan outlines key actions you’ll take and the resources required to set it in motion and increase customer engagement.

6 Winning Customer Engagement Strategies to Drive Growth in 2024

What does customer engagement look like in real life? It goes beyond brands interacting with the customer support team via emails and phones. Organic customer engagement leverages creative ways to make the customer feel connected to the brand.

Here are six winning strategies on how to increase customer engagement:

Strategy 1: Treat Every Customer as a VIP = Loyalty-Driven Engagement

Would you believe that a dog services, products, and experiences company is worth $1 billion in market value? How did BarkBox achieve this remarkable feat? Simple. By treating their customers like VIPs.

Here are a few lessons in customer engagement to learn from this innovative brand:

Collaborate with the customer: BarkBox provides personalized customer experiences in the form of “themed” boxes for the customer’s pet—not a novel concept. The true magic lies in the brand’s promise, “Scout’s Honor,” where it promises to work with the customer if the puppy is unhappy with the dog treats and toys:

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This is an example of how you can take personalization to the next level by partnering with the customer to listen to their feedback and needs. It makes the customer feel special and heard.

Appreciate customer feedback: It is one thing to put up a question on your brand’s social media handle and another to respond to every query promptly. If you want to boost interactivity, be prepared to engage consistently and meaningfully with every post.
Talk in the customer’s language: The best way to connect with your customers is to speak their language and add a little humor if your brand personality allows it. The idea is to converse with customers and showcase the brand in a playful light (if possible):

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The takeaway: Treating your customers like VIPs sets the stage for meaningful relationships. This can mean talking to customers one-on-one, responding to and embracing their feedback, and offering personalization that centers around the customer’s immediate needs. All this effort will not go to waste. Reportedly, 82% of customers will willingly open up to a brand and share personal data in exchange for a better customer experience.

Strategy 2: Be Where Your Customers Are = Omnichannel Engagement

A true superpower for brands is meeting customers anytime, anywhere, considering customers are platform and media-fluent today like never before. The proof is in the pudding—46% of organizations are experiencing an increased customer lifetime value due to the depth of omnichannel customer engagement. Needless to say, going omnichannel is not an effort in vain.

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But how do you become omnichannel as a brand? Here are three strategies worth embracing:

Customer-centricity: Prioritize customer needs in leadership, strategy, and operations to deliver a cohesive customer experience and become agile—both core components of an omnichannel presence. Effective strategies include consistently listening to customers, interpreting insights, and acting on customer feedback in real-time.
Use AI and machine learning: Omnichannel customer engagement is complex and layered. It uses data from teams to get a unified view of the customer. However, data silos prevent organizations from getting an accurate picture of the customer. Using strategic AI tools can bridge this informational gap and ensure 360-degree customer understanding.
Don’t simply coordinate campaigns; connect with customers: An omnichannel customer engagement strategy means analyzing data to understand your customer’s preferred channels like email, direct mail, and loyalty programs. If you want your business to grow, deepen your customer understanding and personalize smarter—exactly what Blibli did to build a unified omnichannel customer engagement strategy.

Use-case: How Blibli Drove a Seamless Omnichannel Commerce Journey for Its Anniversary Sale

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The Challenge: Blibli was struggling to innovate its customer engagement process and create a seamless shopping ecosystem, be it offline or online.

The Solution: The brand leveraged MoEngage to:

Analyze customer behavior, understand their interests and pain points, and create segments to engage customers better
A/B test the communication to each segment and choose the best version,
enabling meaningful conversations
Deliver a seamless, contextual, and trustworthy customer experience, driving loyalty in the process

The Results:

Reduced customer drop-offs leveraging customer journey orchestration, smart recommendations via cart abandonment campaigns, etc.
Improved campaign performance, owing to consistent A/B testing of customers’ communication preferences and buyer affinities
Advanced segmentation capabilities led to the creation of effective customer cohorts who were sent personalized messages for better engagement
Improved retention and repeat purchases with push notifications and email

The takeaway: More and more customers are calling brands to be omnichannel. Among the most effective methods for increasing omnichannel engagement is tying your omnichannel strategies to customer lifecycle marketing. Otherwise, you risk delivering fragmented experiences. So, to build trust and gain a competitive advantage, keep customers at the center of your omnichannel customer engagement strategy.

Strategy 3: Build a Tribe Around Your Brand = Community-Driven Engagement

Building a tribe seems like a radical strategy, but trust us when we say it works. Around 91% of customers are more likely to leave a review because they belong to a community.

The idea is to build an interest-based community where like-minded customers can voice their opinions and interests within an intimate space. One brand that prioritizes community-centric interactions is Nike:

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Here’s how Nike drives community-driven engagement by cultivating a tribe of customers who share a passion for sports, fitness, and the brand’s values:

Nike Run Club (NRC): Nike has created a global community of runners through the Nike Run Club app. Customers can track their runs, join virtual running challenges, and connect with other runners.
Nike Training Club (NTC): Similar to NRC, Nike’s Training Club app provides customers with workout routines, training plans, and different challenges. Customers can connect with friends, join group workouts, and share their progress on social media. The brand offers valuable content and resources within the app to keep the customers engaged:

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NikePlus Member Exclusives: Nike also offers exclusive products, early access to new releases, and special events to members of its Nike Membership program. This incentivizes customers to engage with the brand and become part of the Nike community.

The takeaway: Building a tribe of customers around the brand is a customer engagement strategy Nike nails to the T. As a result of its customer-first and community-driven efforts, the brand’s community is deeply engaged and passionate about its products (and values).

Strategy 4: Resolve Customer Issues Proactively = Retention-Focused Engagement

The best way to build an emotional connection with a customer is to ease the customer’s pain with prompt customer service. Customers want help at their fingertips. Unsurprisingly, 42% of customers want to use self-service checkout kiosks:

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In technical terms, we call this proactive customer engagement. Here’s how you can retain customers with exceptional customer service:

Engage with customers before issues arise or things escalate. At this point, measure KPIs such as number of customer complaints and escalations and first contact resolution rates.
Curate customer interactions based on real-time needs and journey stages. KPIs to measure include Customer satisfaction (CSAT), Net Promoter Score (NPS), etc.
Use proactive communication to show customers they are valued and increase loyalty. Effective KPIs at this stage include upsells, cross-sells, customer reviews, etc.
Predict customer needs based on their journey and assist their buying experience, from onboarding to retention. Important KPIs for this stage include product adoption, churn rate, referrals, and so on.

Gartner’s latest survey claims these are the priorities for customer service leaders in 2024:

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The takeaway: Younger customers, particularly Gen Z, will “give up if they can’t resolve an issue on their own,” as per the Gartner report. Around 38% of millennials and Gen Z customers expressed a “self-service or no-service” mindset. Integrating a self-service strategy within your customer engagement plans is key. Moreover, brands must use AI technology, such as GenAI chatbots, to assist representatives and scale customer service support.

Strategy 5: Personalize Customer Interactions = Relationship-Driven Engagement

No doubt, improving your customer experience leads to higher engagement and reduced drop-offs. But how do you enhance the quality of your customer interactions? Personalize your communication but make it more targeted. A spray-and-pray method will no longer cut it.

Use-case: How Domino’s Pizza Experienced a 20% Uplift in Revenue with a Personalized Loyalty Management Program

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The Challenge: The brand wanted to deliver a cohesive customer experience across its app, website, and in-store platforms, drive engagement, and boost market share.

The Solution: The brand created a personalized customer experience strategy, which involved:

Clocking when the drop-offs were about to happen and re-engage customers with meaningful, personalized nudges and alerts
Setting up 6-7 automated journeys as a part of the ‘Cheesy Rewards’ loyalty program
Building custom customer segments
Driving personalized content campaigns

The Results:

Automated multiple customer journeys for millions of customers
End-to-end management of the Loyalty Program at one click
20% uplift in revenue from increased engagement via the loyalty program

Let’s look at a few tips on how to personalize your customer engagement strategy:

Invest in a customer engagement platform to maintain contextual and accurate customer profiles, segment audiences accurately, and execute personalized marketing campaigns
Use AI tools to automate personalization at scale; however, maintain responsible data privacy and security and train the team to use these tools effectively
Offer custom deals, rewards, and discounts based on the customer’s interests and shopping habits
Elevate your personalization strategy by using predictive analytics and offering future recommendations to customers
Keep improving data quality and drive transparency on how your brand is using customer data
Give customers more control over how they want their information to be used

The takeaway: Knowing what your customers want now is not enough; brands must also preempt their needs in the future. Amazon’s Anticipatory Shipping Program is an excellent example of this. In this forward-thinking program, the brand predicts customer orders and ships products to fulfillment centers near those customers. This accelerates delivery times and improves customer experience.

Strategy 6: Use User-Generated Content = Advocacy-Driven Engagement

If your customers are advocating for your brand’s products, congratulations. You’ve hit gold.

However, user-generated content is much more than asking customers to put up online reviews of your product/service. It’s about using every opportunity available to communicate one-on-one with customers. One brand that consistently sees an uptick in customer advocacy is Starbucks:

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Starbucks has earned a reputation for its attentive approach to customer feedback. A standout example is its highly successful “My Starbucks Idea” program, which underscores the brand’s commitment to listening—and responding—to its customers’ suggestions:

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Another excellent example of a UGC-driven customer engagement strategy is Red Bull’s #PutACanOnIt campaign. It all started when a member of the public posted a photo of a Red Bull can on a Mini Cooper:

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Inspired by this, Red Bull encouraged others to replicate the idea using the hashtag #PutACanOnIt. The campaign gathered 10,000+ original and creative photos and videos, resulting in free advertising for the brand! The best part? It was 99% user-driven and 100% organic:

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The takeaway: Customers trust the word of other customers. Period. In other words, UGC has emerged as a gold standard for brand promotions. And why not? Authentic and unpaid reviews command instant trust as opposed to sponsored ads. However, to make the most of this type of customer engagement, complement it with your community-building efforts to ensure it doesn’t look purely transactional or, worse, ad-hoc.

Improve Customer Engagement with Personalized, Omnichannel, and 1:1 Interactions

Today, customers are hyper-connected virtually. They use a multitude of devices, channels, and platforms to interact with the brand at their convenience and pace.

In this reality, your brand’s quality of experience should be a prime differentiator—relying solely on price is an archaic approach. In fact, 73% of customers confess to customer experience being an important factor in their purchasing decision.

But where do you begin? A customer-first experience starts with crafting the perfect customer purchase journey. To create an accurate journey, you’ll need to understand your customers’ wants, how they move along the buying lifecycle, and anticipate their next move.

This is where a customer engagement platform can scale your customer engagement efforts. Invest in the right platform to put your customers first—all with an orchestrated customer journey that transforms transactions into deeply meaningful customer relationships.

11 Customer Engagement Metrics to Measure in 2024

With new brands popping up every day, the competition for consumers’ attention is more intense than ever before.

In today’s saturated digital marketplace, authentic audience engagement is the best way for brands to stand out and make a lasting impression. That’s why tracking customer engagement metrics is vital for brands who want to build a loyal customer base.

But which customer engagement metrics should you track and why?

Read this detailed guide to find the answers and learn how to boost customer engagement for your business. But first, let’s discuss the benefits of tracking customer engagement metrics.

Why Should You Track Customer Engagement Metrics?

Here are the benefits of tracking customer engagement metrics for your business.

Understand Customer Behavior

Tracking customer engagement metrics helps you see how customers interact with your business.

How customers engage with your content, for example, shows you what type of content resonates best with them. Similarly, tracking website engagement metrics helps you understand which pages site visitors find most engaging.

You can use these insights to create more useful and targeted content for your audience.

Identify Trends to Fuel Your Strategy

Understanding what customers like or dislike can also help improve your marketing and customer engagement strategy.

It allows you to focus your efforts on what works and stop doing what doesn’t. This not only makes your marketing efforts more targeted but also saves time and money you’d have otherwise spent on customer engagement tactics that don’t work.

Avoid Churn and Boost Customer Retention

Analyzing customer churn and retention rates helps you identify potential issues that stop customers from doing business with you. You can then proactively work toward resolving these issues and improving customer retention.

Churn analysis also helps you identify at-risk customers so you can engage them and win them back before they churn.

Enhance Customer Experience and Satisfaction

Tracking customer engagement metrics helps you identify issues quickly. If customers stop engaging with your business, you can immediately look for reasons and fix the issues.

For example, when you send a survey to measure customer satisfaction levels, add an open-ended form field where customers can provide their reasons. If someone is not satisfied with your brand, they can use that to tell you why.

This will help you understand what you’re doing wrong and correct it, improving customer experience with your brand.

Top Customer Engagement Metrics You Should Track

Here are some of the top customer engagement metrics you should track.

1. Conversion Rate

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This is perhaps the most important of all customer engagement metrics. It tells you the share of leads who took a desired action (conversion) of those who entered your funnel.

Conversions need not necessarily refer to a customer buying something but can be anything from subscribing to your newsletter to downloading an ebook. The definition of conversion will differ from one campaign to another.

The formula, however, remains the same:

A low conversion rate shows that people didn’t engage with your marketing content enough to take the next steps. By regularly tracking this metric, you can optimize your content or campaigns till you start seeing better results.

2. Customer Retention Rate

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This metric measures the share of customers your company is able to retain out of your total customers within a period.

The more customers use your products or consume your content, the more engaged they are. Such customers are easier to retain than inactive customers who haven’t interacted with your business in a while.

Let’s say you started the year with 100 customers and acquired 20 new customers during the year. You also lost 40 customers, so at the end of the year, your total customers are 80.
Your customer retention rate will be: (80-20/100)*100 = 60%.

A high customer retention rate shows high customer engagement, as they want to continue doing business with your company.

3. Customer Churn Rate

If customers don’t find your product or service useful and stop engaging with your brand, they eventually leave.

Customer churn rate calculates the share of customers who left your business during a period out of the total number of customers at the beginning of the period.

Here’s the formula:

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A high churn rate shows low customer engagement and several other potential issues. The reasons why customers churn could be varied, from a lack of understanding of the product to not finding it useful.

By regularly tracking your churn rate, you can identify these issues and take measures to correct them and reduce customer churn.

4. Average Session Duration

If you want to see how site visitors are engaging with content on your website, then this is one of the best customer engagement metrics to track.

It refers to the average time site visitors spend on your website during one visit.

Let’s say an individual visits your website and checks several pages. The session duration would comprise the entire time spent on the website, not just a single page.

A high average session duration tells you that site visitors are engaging with your website content and finding it relevant. The opposite is also true, in which case, you need to take corrective measures to engage your site visitors better. You can easily track this metric with tools like Google Analytics.

5. Pages per Session

This is another customer engagement metric you should track to assess the extent to which site visitors are engaging with your website content.

The more pages someone visits, the more engaged they are with your website. However, make sure you track this metric along with the average session duration to get the bigger picture.

If site visitors are jumping from page to page without spending much time on any, then that’s not a good sign. It could simply be that they’re finding your site navigation difficult.

6. Bounce Rate

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If a site visitor leaves your website after checking out a single page, it’s counted as a bounce. Bounce rate measures the share of one-page visits of the total number of visits. Here’s the formula:

If you use internal links effectively and have great site navigation, visitors should ideally check out other pages and not just one. A high bounce rate, therefore, shows low customer engagement on your website.

7. Social Media Engagement Metrics

Measuring customer engagement for your social media content is vital to assessing its relevance and value to your audience. However, there are different social media content formats and numerous engagement metrics you can track.

Here are some common ones:

Likes: The more likes your content gets, the more people are engaging with your content.
Shares: This is a better measure of engagement than likes because people like numerous posts but only share the ones they really like and relate with. A high number of shares shows that your content is resonating well with your audience.
Comments: A high number of comments is also a sign of audience engagement and works in your favor as far as social media algorithms are concerned.
Views: This metric tracks the number of people who saw your social media content. It is typically used to track audience engagement for videos.
Impressions: Unlike the other metrics listed here, this one is typically used to assess the engagement that social media ads get. It refers to the number of times your ad or content was shown to users.

You can also calculate each post’s engagement rate. Add the total number of likes, comments, and shares on a post and divide it by your total number of followers to get the percentage.

8. Email Engagement Metrics

If you use email marketing, then measuring the engagement your emails get is crucial.
Low engagement could signify that your subscribers do not find your emails relevant or valuable. In this case, you may need to change your email strategy and content to get better results.

Some common email engagement metrics you can track include:

Open rate: This measures the percentage of recipients who opened your emails of the total who received them. Engaging and relevant subject lines lead to higher open rates.
Click-through rate: CTR calculates the percentage of email recipients who clicked on a link in your emails. A high CTR shows that your email and CTA copy are engaging.
Conversion rate: It’s one thing to click on a CTA link and another to take the desired action. The conversion rate tracks the latter. It’s the percentage of recipients who took action by clicking on your email CTA.
Unsubscribe rate: It is the percentage of recipients who chose not to receive any more emails from you. A high unsubscribe rate is a red flag and a clear sign of low email engagement.
Return on investment: As with the ROI of any other campaign, this measures the percentage of profits gained compared to what you spent.
Bounce rate: Sometimes, emails you send are not delivered to the recipients and bounce back. This metric calculates the percentage of bounced emails over the total number of emails sent.
Engagement rate: This measures total engagements (opens, clicks, etc.) as a percentage of the number of emails delivered.

9. Customer Satisfaction Store

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As the name suggests, CSAT measures how satisfied customers are with your product or service.

To calculate this, you need to send feedback collection surveys to customers, asking them to rate you based on their satisfaction level. The rating scale looks like the one shown in the image below, which also covers the formula for calculating CSAT:

Here, the number of satisfied customers is the number of customers in the green zone, i.e., those who rated 4 or 5.

10. Net Promoter Score (NPS)

NPS is used to measure how likely customers are to recommend your brand to others. It’s an indicator of both customer engagement and loyalty.

To collect data for calculating this, you need to send surveys to customers, asking them to rate your business. Here’s an example of an NPS survey:

Source: From Gmail

Based on the ratings collected from various customers, you can calculate the score, as shown in the image below:

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It’s the difference between the percentage of Promoters (those who rated 9 or 10) and Detractors (who rated 0-6). The passives are not counted in this.

A high positive score shows that most of your customers are engaged and would love to recommend your brand to others.

11. Customer Lifetime Value

Customer lifetime value is the measure of all the revenue you will earn from a single customer throughout their relationship with your company.

Here’s the formula to calculate it:

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This metric helps you identify your most valuable and engaged customers, who you can keep engaged and loyal through various marketing efforts.

5 Best Practices for Customer Engagement

Simply tracking customer engagement metrics is not a guarantee for success. You also need to follow these best practices to engage and retain customers and grow your business.

1. Connect with Customers by Sharing Your Brand Story

One of the most effective ways of connecting with your customers is to tell them your brand story.

How did your brand come into being? What does it stand for, and why does it matter?

Brands with a great origin story that clearly communicates their brand values to customers develop strong customer relationships.

Check out this video, in which Netflix tells the story of how the brand came into being and revolutionized the way people watched movies and TV shows.

Source: YouTube

Stories like these not only engage the audience but also build lasting connections that foster brand loyalty and retention.

2. Prioritize Personalization in All Customer Interactions

Personalization helps you connect with each customer on an individual level, making them feel special. When you personalize interactions, you humanize your brand and appear as one that cares for its customers.

In today’s connected digital world, personalization has evolved to be more than just using a customer’s name. Customers expect you to remember your past interactions and offer custom solutions, irrespective of the communication channel.

That’s where using a good customer relationship management software solution can help you. A CRM collects and integrates all customer data so that anyone in your company who interacts with a customer has all their information on their fingertips.

Make your brand stand out in the noise by offering carefully curated, personalized experiences to customers across all touchpoints.

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A good example that shows the impact of personalization is how WeatherBug, a weather application, used MoEngage to send personalized messages to inactive customers. The personalized re-engagement campaign got a 27% win-back rate, helping the app retain more customers.

That’s the power of personalization.

3. Take Customer Feedback Seriously

If you want to retain your customers and keep them engaged with your brand, you need to take their feedback seriously. This involves not only proactively seeking feedback but also taking action on it.

Is there a common issue that most customers complain about regarding your product or service? Work on those areas of improvement, and make sure you let them know what changes you’ve made based on their feedback.

This will make them feel seen and heard and show that you care about their input.

Salesforce has taken this best practice to the next level by creating a dedicated platform to seek customer suggestions. IdeaExchange is a platform where its customers share product ideas or features they’d like to see:

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Any idea that gets enough votes is reviewed by the product development team and implemented if feasible.

4. Focus on Providing Value, Not Promotions

When communicating with customers or creating content for your audience, focus on providing value first and promoting your brand second. The key to authentic customer engagement lies in offering value to them.

Why should they read your email or visit your blog? What’s in it for them?
If you adopt a customer-centric approach to business, you will automatically boost customer engagement.

Today’s customers are smart and can spot a promotion from a mile away. To truly connect with them, you need to create relevant and useful content and marketing offers.

5. Engage in Two-Way Conversations

Irrespective of the communication channel you use, make sure you give your customers a chance to interact with you.

If you’re sending emails, for example, send them from an email address that customers can reply to, in case they have any concerns. Leave the communication channel open.

Similarly, if you’re posting content on social media, don’t make it one-sided. Reply to audience comments and start conversations to engage with your customers.

This will give your brand a human face and let people know that they’re engaging with a person rather than a faceless brand.

See how Owlcrate, a small book subscription business, engages in social media conversations with its audience:

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Such personal and authentic interactions have helped it build a loyal and engaged audience base.

Ready to Boost Your Customer Engagement in 2024?

There you have it—some of the most important customer engagement metrics you should track and best practices to boost customer engagement.

Remember, authenticity is key to customer engagement in today’s era. Focus on building genuine customer relationships and engage in authentic conversations to build a loyal and engaged customer base.

Need help engaging with your customers? Check out this consumer trends report to understand the changing consumer preferences and serve them better.

Customer Engagement: A Comprehensive Guide for 2024

Whether your customers connect with your brand or not determines your organization’s success. In the current hyper-competitive marketplace, ensuring customer engagement is crucial.

To fully realize its potential amidst evolving customer needs, businesses need a deeper understanding of how to use it to steer business continuity. Whether you are in the industry as a startup or a full-fledged business with steady revenue, mastering customer engagement often requires a comprehensive guide.

This article focuses on equipping you with a clear understanding of customer engagement, its importance, key marketing strategies, and top metrics to facilitate tracking and effective adaption.

What is Customer Engagement?

Customer engagement refers to the interactions and relationships your business cultivates with its customers and clients. It encompasses various touchpoints and delivery channels, both online and offline, where customers connect with a brand.

This crucial measure of the interaction quality does not stop at generating sales. Customer engagement is ultimately about understanding customers’ needs and preferences, providing value, and fostering loyalty.

Considering that the customer engagement solutions market is already USD 23.5bn, adapting it to your business’s foundations is integral to surviving in the competitive environment. As technology constantly progresses in every industry, customers have no shortage of options. Businesses must travel the extra mile beyond transactions and foster connections to retain customers and drive growth.

How is it Different from Customer Satisfaction and Experience?

Consumer engagement is often confused or grouped with other aspects, such as customer satisfaction or customer experience.

While the confusion is understandable, it is vital to have a clear grasp of customer engagement to apply strategies and measure goals effectively. Here’s a quick table to clarify the difference between these three terms:

All three of these elements are deeply connected to every business goal but measure different aspects of the customer relationship. With this clarity in mind, let’s understand a little more about where consumer engagement surfaces in the digital landscape.

Where Do You See Customer Engagement in 2024?

Amidst a massive surge in digital evolution, customer engagement is now bubbling onto the surface of each business’s activities. Customer engagement surfaces on these main platforms and in the types:

Social Media: Likes, comments, shares, or brand-related hashtags.
Email/Mobile Apps: Open rates, click-through rates, in-app purchases, and notification responses.
Reviews: Customer feedback on company review platforms like G2 and Capterra, and product reviews on Amazon and Trustpilot.
Chatbots: Chatbog logs reflect query volume, resolution success rate, and user satisfaction ratings.
Feedback Forms: Survey responses, star ratings, and open-ended comments.
Published Content: Blog comments, video views/likes/shares, discussion participation.
Website: Page views, time on page, bounce rate, conversion rates.

Why is Customer Engagement Important in 2024?

Businesses that can drive high levels of customer engagement enjoy many benefits and are able to successfully grow and evolve despite the fierce competition. Here is why customer engagement is important in 2024:

Empowers Business Insights with Accuracy and Detail

Customer engagement provides us with valuable information about customer preferences, problems, and habits derived from every interaction, be it a social media post, a website click, or an opened email.

Businesses can uncover much more accurate and in-depth insights from this data when paired with AI-powered tools and advanced analytics. This will allow them to create hyper-personalized experiences that truly connect with each customer.

Doubles Down on Customer Loyalty and Retention

Engaged customers care about and are invested in your brand. This emotional connection is a potent tool for increasing customer lifetime value, decreasing churn and driving repeat business in this era of evolving needs and abundant options.

While this loyalty presents unique advantages, such as minimized effects of occasional errors, it also drives cost reduction by boosting retention.

Drives Brand Advocacy, Awareness, and Recommendation

In a world where user-generated content has the potential to surge leads and followers, engaged customers are a reliable source of marketing. When these positive and honest experiences are shared with their networks, these customers go beyond conventional brand advocacy to become potential brand ambassadors.

Social media platforms and online communities amplify this effect. The reach of these testimonials through the digital space extends to over 60% of the world’s population. Effective customer engagement can undoubtedly create a ripple effect that boosts brand awareness and attracts new customers.

Additionally, customer engagement marketing strategies also lead to positive online reviews and recommendations. Customers are more likely to trust a brand through recommendation—word-of-mouth marketing is one of the most effective customer acquisition methods.

Boosts Reception to Upselling and Cross-Selling

On shopping websites, customers might feel pressured by suggestions to buy more expensive items (upselling) or extra things that go with their purchase (cross-selling) if they are not well-engaged with your brand. However, engaged customers are more receptive to upselling and cross-selling as they would be more likely to trust your suggestions.

This is primarily a combination of customer loyalty, your brand’s credibility, and the knowledge that those products will offer genuine value to the customer’s needs.

These factors highlight the importance of customer engagement, which drives business growth, website traffic, and brand imaging from a new customer’s first interaction to a loyal customer’s repeat purchase.

Key Strategies to Drive Customer Engagement

The phenomenal potential of customer engagement is unquestionable, making the need to adopt effective strategies equally vital. Here are five key strategies that are sure to drive your customer engagement levels to a soaring high.

The Power of Community and Social Media

Customers appreciate a live brand persona intent on delivering quality content and consistent communication. Additionally, customers feel more valued when they are part of a community. Businesses can incorporate these elements perfectly through an active social media presence.

Social media platforms, with several interactive elements such as commenting and sharing, are a great way to establish a direct line to customers, just like the popular bike manufacturer Royal Enfield did. In fact, Royal Enfield’s social media activity boosted customer engagement by almost 50%.

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Here are three practices that best drive customer engagement through social media:

Regular, Engaging Content: Consistent updates, themed posts, user-generated content challenges, and behind-the-scenes glimpses keep your audience tuned in.
Interactive Elements: Polls, Q&As, live video chats, and contests encourage participation and make your audience feel valued.
Community Group: Platforms such as Facebook allow businesses to create community pages to foster discussions, share exclusive content, and provide a platform for customers to connect with each other and the brand. MoEngage’s Hashgrowth Community (this website) is an ideal example, built to offer resources and cultivate a community of thought leaders.
Rewards & Recognition: Acknowledge your community’s contributions with special discounts, exclusive content, or even shout-outs.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Smarter Engagement

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Another key strategy is using AI in customer engagement. Through AI algorithms and adaptive programming, businesses can automate their responses to cater to each customer’s queries and requests.

While this showcases that your brand is ready to cater to your customers at any time, it also reduces overheads through automation without sacrificing the quality of your service. Here are two uses of AI for smarter customer engagement:

Chatbots: Using intelligent bots to handle routine queries frees your team for more complex interactions. They offer 24/7 availability and can guide customers through processes, queries, and service requests. Bank of America’s AI assistant Erica is an excellent example of a chatbot that helps customers manage their finances.
Automation: AI also streamlines automated communications such as triggered emails, personalized recommendations, and abandoned cart reminders to increase conversions. OTT giant Netflix makes excellent use of this to tailor streaming suggestions with AI-driven automation. For instance, AI Engine Sherpa goes a step beyond facilitating AI in campaign creation, journey optimization, and much more.

Hyper-Personalization

Personalization involves tailoring your interactions with each customer based on their unique preferences and needs. It informs customers that their needs are understood and fosters a stronger connection with them. Apart from personalized browsing behavior, here’s how personalization can be adopted as a strategy to drive customer engagement:

Customizable Products: Personalization can be extended to giving your customer the freedom of choice. Through customizable products, customers understand that what they want, you are ready to provide. Coffeehouse giant Starbucks is a great example with their “Starbucks x You” program where they allow their customers to select exactly what they would like in their coffee:

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Email Communications: Segmented and personalized email campaigns can be adapted to cater to specific interests, ensuring that each message resonates with the recipient. LinkedIn job alert emails are an excellent example of this, as they curate a list of jobs that you may have shown interest in or have qualifications for. This makes for a very engaging experience for every customer.

Audiomack, a popular music streaming platform, aimed to improve customer engagement by tailoring messages to each listener’s experience. They collaborated with MoEngage to deliver hyper-personalized listening experiences to its audience with:

Personalized onboarding messages: The right guidance at the right time gets new users started
Targeted push notifications: One-time messages to get users listening
Engaging in-app & email messages: Tailored communication keeps customers happy
Recommended music for each customer: Discoveries lead to loyalty

These efforts improved its conversion rate by 18%!

Unify Your Messaging With Omnichannel Communication

Omnichannel communication refers to the practice of providing a consistent and unified customer experience across all touchpoints. This means creating a seamless journey for customers, regardless of whether they interact with your brand through your website, mobile app, social media, email, phone, or even physical stores.

Omnichannel communication is a strategy centered around standardization that drives a customer’s perception of your brand as professional and reliable. It is especially effective because it offers a convenient, personalized, and satisfying customer experience. Customers can interact with your brand on their preferred channel and trust that the quality of resolution will not change.

For instance, Zappos, the online retail giant, adopted the omnichannel communication method in its customer support services to deliver 24/7 support across Twitter, text, call, and more. This strategy was so effective that Zappos was able to build massive customer loyalty. In fact, 75% of its business comes from returning customers.

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Create a Two-Way Insight Channel with Data Analytics

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Analyzing customer data is like peeking into your audience’s minds. Examining website traffic, social media engagement, and purchase behavior can reveal hidden patterns, preferences, and pain points.

Data analytics tools turn raw data into actionable insights. From product development to marketing campaigns, they inform your decisions. Here are two key data analysis methods to help you understand and drive customer engagement levels:

Customer Journey Mapping: This involves mapping customer data from the time they learn about your brand to the interactions they have after making a purchase to visualize the customer journey.
Cohort Analysis: By grouping customers based on common traits like acquisition date and purchase history, you can analyze customer behavior over time. This sheds light on which marketing campaigns are most effective for specific customer segments.
Predictive Analytics: One of the smartest applications of analytics in customer engagement is to anticipate customer needs, enabling you to proactively offer solutions or relevant products. Amazon’s product suggestions are a classic example of how predictive analytics drives additional purchases:

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Measuring Customer Engagement

The true power of deploying an effective customer engagement program can be derived only when you are able to monitor their performance. This means having metrics in place and adapting them to your goal according to your consumers’ changing needs.

Here are seven customer engagement metrics that allow you to do just that:

1. Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

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CSAT measures customer satisfaction with a specific product, service, or interaction. It’s often obtained through surveys with questions measured on a scale (e.g., 1-5), and the average score indicates overall satisfaction.

A high CSAT is linked to the quality of your product or service. Satisfied customers are more likely to repurchase from your business and share more insightful feedback in case of improvements.

CSAT scores can be linked with data analytic tools to service future sales, capacity, and resource planning. They also show a clear linkage between performance and customer engagement.

2. Net Promoter Score (NPS)

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NPS gauges customer loyalty and their willingness to recommend a brand. It asks one question: “On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?” Based on responses, customers are categorized as Promoters (9-10), Passives (7-8), and Detractors (0-6). NPS is calculated as the percentage of Promoters minus the percentage of Detractors.

A high NPS indicates strong brand advocacy. This means that a significant portion of your customers are enthusiastic about your brand and are likely to recommend your products or services to others.

3. Daily/Monthly Active Users (DAU/MAU)

DAU/MAU are strong indicators of active customer engagement. If this metric is high and growing, it suggests a healthy customer base that is actively interacting with your product or service.

This can translate to increased product usage, feature adoption, and, ultimately, higher customer lifetime value (CLTV). By monitoring DAU/MAU, you can identify trends, user segments, and patterns in engagement. This facilitates action to address any decline in engagement.

4. Churn Rate

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As opposed to other metrics that focus on positive aspects, churn rate indicates the percentage of customers who stop using a product or service within a given period.

This would mean businesses with a high churn rate signal low satisfaction levels and poor consumer engagement or product value. Monitoring churn and understanding the reasons behind it is crucial for customer retention.

5. Repeat Purchase Rate

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This metric measures the percentage of customers who make multiple purchases over time.

The repeat purchase rate is a metric used to build customer loyalty. It indicates that your products or services resonate with your target audience. Increasing repeat purchases can significantly increase revenue at lower marketing expenses.

6. Time on Site

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Time on Site (TOS), also known as average engagement time, measures the average amount of time a visitor spends on your website during a single session. It’s calculated from the moment they land on your site to the moment they leave.

TOS is a vital support metric that can not only indicate customer engagement levels but, when paired with other business insights and metrics, can also reveal the reasons behind the high engagement. This is perfect for deeper insight into engagement, such as content relevance and value, positive user experience (UX), and potential interest in your offerings.

7. Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV)

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This metric is one that directly translates to longevity in growth, brand imaging, and revenue. Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) is the estimate of the total revenue a customer will generate throughout their relationship with a company.

While this is a single metric, the calculation considers factors like average purchase value, purchase frequency, and the lifespan from the first interaction to the last. Understanding CLTV helps businesses allocate resources effectively and focus on high-value customers. As a metric, it is a powerful reference for businesses that focus on building client engagement.

Conclusion

Customer engagement is undoubtedly a crucial aspect of success. In 2024, with customers seeking convenience and technology facilitating it, businesses must deliver products and services but also derive the highest engagement levels from fostering strong relationships with each consumer.

With the key strategies and metrics we’ve covered, kickstart your customer engagement journey today!

10 Brilliant Customer Engagement Examples and Why They Are Effective

Customer engagement is an organization’s often persistent approach to building relationships with customers, which can result in a positive spike in brand awareness, loyalty, and retention. It can also be considered a measure of a business’s success in forming connections with its customers across online and offline mediums.

Higher customer engagement metrics indicate that your consumer base is more invested in you, meaning you enjoy more profit and recurring business.

As such, more and more companies have started realizing the importance of tracking and analyzing key customer metrics. For instance, you can look at download patterns, social media responses, email open rates, product adoption, active/non-active users, and much more to identify effective engagement channels and work towards growing them.

This blog will look at 10 customer engagement examples and their benefits for your business.

Why Do We Need Customer Engagement?

Research shows that existing customers spend 67% more on a brand compared to new customers. So, once you gain a customer, it is more profitable to retain them than finding replacements; and customer engagement is the way to do it!

Effective customer engagement strategies create a positive user experience, aiming at maximizing retention, customer satisfaction, and revenue. Here are some of its other benefits:

Improves customer relationships
Boosts customer retention
Promotes upselling and cross-selling
Streamlines sales pipelines
Drives up sales and brand value
Increases customer interest and responses

A good customer engagement score is anywhere between 71 to 100. Higher scores mean more customer loyalty and lower churn. To achieve better scores, you need to collect engagement data, identify business-critical metrics, and analyze them over time to assign a score.

An all-in-one customer engagement platform can help you do all this and more. MoEngage is a 360° customer engagement suite that helps to manage your customer-centric strategies through data-driven insights. You can use it to boost engagement delivery rates, analyze campaign performance, and improve conversions.

If you’re still wondering why you need to take measures in improving your brand engagement, we have 10 examples of customer engagement strategies and how they worked wonders for popular brands.

10 Customer Engagement Examples and Why They Work

The following use cases will give you an idea of how the right customer engagement ideas can help your brand make a noticeable difference in effective marketing.

1. Welcome Screens

When we say welcome screens, we consider everything from welcome emails to UI screens that aim at ensuring a warm and personalized customer onboarding.

A welcome email is the first interaction a user expects after coming into contact with a new brand. They have a 50% open rate, making them 86% more effective than newsletters.

You can send welcome emails for anything, such as:

Onboarding kick-off
Purchase confirmation
Successful subscription
Registration for a product, and so on

These emails serve as your company’s first impression, and if done right, they make the user feel at home with your brand. Depending on your offerings, you can curate the content of this email however you like.

For example, an eCommerce company may send a gift coupon and an eLearning website may send links to their knowledge base. Petco is a great example of an effective welcome email. Their email is clear, concise, and has a strong CTA. It also has a personalized touch that appeals to your emotion towards your pet.

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Other examples of welcome messaging are the welcome screens on the website. These appear during onboarding and are aimed at collecting user preferences and goals. They help in curating personal experiences for customers based on what they want to see. Userpilot has a great welcome setup for new customers.

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Welcome screens help:

Boost retention
Create strong first impression
Increase brand recognition
Improve customer satisfaction rates

2. Social Media

Social media has become a great marketing and customer service channel, as over five billion people around the world use social media. You can engage your customers on multiple social media plaforms, such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.

Social media metrics (likes, comments, reshares, clicks) can be tracked easily and give a clear indication of customers’ sentiments towards your content.

The key to social media engagement is to remain active and respond to customer inquiries within 24 hours. Lack of responses can increase the churn rate by up to 15%. That said, engaging customers on social media effectively leads to:

More website visits
Higher word-of-mouth sales
Increased brand awareness and loyalty
Quicker resolution of customer complaints

GoPro’s #HomePro challenge is a great example of social media engagement, where GoPro invited customers on Facebook to share their personal moments captured with the GoPro camera. They had daily winners and prizes to motivate people and build awareness about their brand.

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These activities, coupled with social media listening tools enable brands to identify opportunities to reach their customers and gather responses to improve services.

3. Omnichannel Engagement Strategy

Omnichannel engagement is a customer service strategy in which companies interact with their customers through multiple channels, such as online, offline, in-app, email, phone, social media, etc. It is a crucial customer engagement hack, as 74% of customers have used more than one channel to connect with brands and complete a transaction.

For example, you come across a company ad on Instagram, click their website link and initiate a chat on the web page. Then, before buying a product, you use their listed WhatsApp number to gain more information. Later, you come to the website and complete your purchase.

The biggest example of omnichannel service is Amazon. The eCommerce giant engages customers through their website, mobile app, Alexa device, or chat support. You can track your orders on Alexa, place new orders, and even get personalized recommendations based on your search/activity history. This way, they maintain a consistent brand messaging and never let users feel disconnected.

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4. Personalized Targeting

Personalization makes customer engagement strategies all the more effective. When you reach out with custom messages or services, your customers feel valued. This leads to more purchases and higher loyalty, generating as much as 40% more value through a personalized approach.

This is especially true for video and music apps, such as Netflix and Spotify. Netflix’s personal recommendations are based on your watch history and often contain offerings that will appeal to specific customers.

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Similarly, Spotify has an advanced personalization feature, with customized mixes, playlists, and emails titled “Only You.” Each mix even has the tagline “Made for ” to make the experience more personal.

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You can better hone your personalization tactics by identifying user segments, studying their online behavior, and analyzing the data for proper insights. Apple Music uses machine learning to recommend tracks for their user segments. Such tactics help provide customers with what they need, so that they feel more connected with your brand.

5. Feedback Collection

Customer feedback is a direct data source when it comes to measuring customer satisfaction and identifying their pain points. You can gather data on your product’s ease of use, recurring issues, service lapses, and much more.

A popular survey method is to find out how likely a customer is to recommend your product or brand. This feedback is valuable in understanding which areas you need to improve. When a customer sees their issue addressed, they feel more inclined to stay with your brand.

Since most customers do not like to offer feedback on their own, you must have an active survey plan. The Indian beauty brand Nykaa, for example, has an automated rating system in place each time you reach out to their customer support through the phone or app. This integrated feedback loop has more chances of getting a response than sending follow-up emails. It also increases the time spent on your platform.

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6. Gamification

Gamification is a new and fun way to engage with your customers through gaming elements, such as coins, badges, leaderboards, points, etc. Studies reveal that gamification can increase customer engagement by 48%. When you add game elements to a non-game environment, it encourages users to spend more time on your platform and make progress through the levels.

Duolingo, the language app, has used gamification to increase their user base to more than 300 million. It has a colorful and appealing interface with animated characters for better engagement, and also provides attractive rewards in the form of badges or coins for completing courses.

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UX game elements serve as progress motivators to users who want to maintain their streak and come back every day. This ensures you get more traffic, purchases, and referrals.

7. Loyalty Programs

Efficient loyalty programs build trust in your customers. And trust is a major factor in their remaining loyal to you. Studies say 95% of customers are more likely to remain loyal to a brand that they trust. So, your loyalty programs must target this sentiment.

Mastercard CMO, Raja Rajamannar, believes that brands should be loyal to their customers, not the other way around. And his brand completely embraces this thought by focusing on the creation of relevant experiences for each customer.

They have programs like digital wallets and centralized payments that enables customers to manage payments in an easy way, thus boosting customer satisfaction.

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You can optimize your loyalty programs by:

Offering rewards like stars and redeemable points
Ensuring unexpected rewards for birthdays and other milestones
Providing exclusive benefits or services to existing customers
Holding special promotional offers for old customers

Customer loyalty programs encourage users to stick with a brand and incentivizes them to keep interacting with the company and buy from them to reap these benefits.

8. In-app Messages

In-app messages are notifications sent within the app screen to customers to foster engagement and create a seamless experience. These messages can be announcement bars, tools, offer notifications, asking for ratings, etc.

Jira uses in-app messaging to collect feedback from users, especially about their newly released changes. They collect real-time information to improve their UI and services, based on what customers want.

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9. Crisis Management Strategies

A crisis management strategy is the collective body of decisions and choices that a company makes to respond to a crisis. Your responses during a crisis impact your customer base heavily and may lead to massive churn or strengthened loyalty.

A popular example of this is Cadbury. When worms were discovered in Cadbury products in India, 2003, Cadbury withdrew its advertisement campaigns and focused on fixing this issue by introducing imported packaging machinery that was 10-15% more expensive. However, they did not increase product prices and gradually increased their advertising with popular celebrities to win back customer trust.

Similarly, Samsung suffered massive reputational hit in 2016 when their Note 7 phones were reported to catch fire or explore due to faulty batteries. Samsung took full responsibility, identified a manufacturing defect, and recalled all faulty sets with full refund.

They also collaborated with authorities to enforce customer safety guidelines. Their transparency and awareness helped the brand deal with this massive crisis and bounce back as a leading electronics brand.

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10. Customer Support Interactions

We have often heard people rejecting a brand saying their customer support is not good. To ensure this doesn’t happen with your company, you must ensure measures are taken to boost customer satisfaction.

Some crucial steps to be taken are:

Reducing complaint resolution time
Offering multichannel support, like phone, chat, social media, email, etc.
Automating basic customer service responses
Ensuring you are reachable round the clock in some form
Offering personalized interactions
Training support teams to handle customer queries effectively

Studies show that 78% of customers are willing to do business with a brand after the brand makes a mistake if their customer service is excellent. An example of that is JetBlue airlines, which is known for their prompt and personalized customer service.

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They provided free coffee to a customer and went viral on Twitter. This just shows that if you can make your customers feel important, they will do your marketing and ensure your brand gets the recognition it deserves.

Customize Your Engagement Strategy

While there are many ways to go about your engagement strategy, the key is to customize it based on your business and customers. There are simple ways to do that:

Identify your target audience and their needs, preferences, and buying behavior
Conduct thorough market research by analyzing own, competitors’, and consumers’ data
Track business-specific KPIs to spot patterns
Implement learning systems to analyze the data and use the insights for performance improvement
Keep modifying your engagement campaigns based on results

Final Thoughts

Engaging with customers not only increases brand value and recognition but also leads to more purchases, new customers, and higher ROI. As a brand, your goal is to ensure your customers cannot stay away from you. And to do that, you must build a personal connection with them.

The engagement marketing examples mentioned above can work magic for you, depending on your specific needs and preferences. You can create a customer engagement strategy that reflects your company’s goals and values, and love for your customers.

So whether it is through thoughtful loyalty programs or effective feedback channels, the key is to reach your customers where and when they will appreciate most. But first, make sure you understand your business priorities, identify pain points, and then build a strong customer engagement stack to set you apart from the ordinary.

Top 15 Customer Engagement Trends to Watch Out for in 2024

What would you do for a better customer experience?

It is reported that 86% of customers are willing to pay more (often as high as 140%) if they receive a better customer experience. Luxury and extravagant purchases regularly command an average premium of 13% simply because consumers believe they get an exclusive and unique customer experience.

But today, everybody is looking for exclusive, tailor-made customer experiences that align with their personality, lifestyle, and choices. In an increasingly exclusivity-seeking world, it is evident that brands need to forge an emotional connection to get their attention and build customer loyalty. This can only be made possible with impactful customer engagement.

What is Customer Engagement?

Customer engagement involves effectively interacting with your customers throughout their purchase journey so that they choose to associate with you by buying your product and/or endorsing your services. The better the engagement is done, the more likely it is that the customer will turn into a repeat buyer. In fact, 59% of customers say they trust the brands they interact with. Another study found that 82% of customers with a high emotional engagement towards a brand will always buy from it.

Now that we have established enough evidence that customer engagement is critical to greater customer loyalty, retention, and, ultimately, the top line, here are the latest trends for 2024 in customer engagement.

Top 15 Customer Engagement Trends to Watch Out For in 2024

1. Omnichannel Customer Engagement

Omnichannel engagement refers to integrated interactions where you engage customers across multiple channels such as email, content, social media, SMS, etc. It ensures that a unified message is sent across channels with a seamless connection. The result: a seamless impression is made on the customer.

An example of omnichannel marketing is that of Nike. They connect their physical stores, mobile app, and online platforms. This way customers can explore items on the website or app and then pick products from the physical stores, making for a seamless customer experience. The mobile app goes a mile ahead by enabling customers to check inventory and scan barcodes making the store visit worth it.

Customer engagement platforms such as MoEngage enable brands to position themselves with unified messaging across different channels such as social, email, and live chat and offer a connected experience.

2. Personalization through Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) tools have made their way into every brand’s marketing strategy today. AI opens up many possibilities for marketers in many ways. One of the strongest ways to leverage AI is by personalizing existing data on the target groups.

Thanks to personalization, customers feel like their needs are heard and can be addressed. In fact, a grim statistic suggests that 66% of consumers will quit a brand if their customer experience isn’t personalized. There is no point in sending an email about backaches to a customer who only suffers from headaches. This is where personalization can step in.

For example, Amazon has started using a machine learning tool called Amazon Personalize that can recommend products to customers based on their buying patterns and preferences. This has resulted in fewer abandoned carts on the platform.

Adobe Target is an example of a useful tool for personalization. It can analyze customer data available on each customer to deliver personalized results for brands, such as one-click mobile optimization and single-page optimization.

Another tool brands can explore for personalization is Monetate. This tool helps segment audiences and, accordingly, deliver communications.

3. The Rise of Chatbots

Chatbots refer to algorithm-based answering machines that can be placed on a website or app. These chatbots can answer questions from customers and direct them to relevant solutions.

Chatbots lower (if not replace) the need for human intervention to solve customer queries, resolve queries quicker, and are online 24/7/365.

Some software companies that are helping brands with chatbot implementation include ChatBot and Intercom. These tools can learn from the information available on your website and use the information to answer customer queries.

4. Voice Assistants as Customer Engagement Tools

Voice assistants are similar to chatbots. The main difference is that voice assistant communications take place through audio, while a chatbot speaks through text. Think “Alexa” and “Siri”! Voice assistants can develop a contextual understanding of a customer’s needs and answer their questions accordingly in a near-human manner.

Mercedes-Benz has built its own voice assistant that is now being integrated into its cars. These assistants can help with navigation, voice control, on-board apps, and so on.

5. Video Marketing for Customer Engagement

66% of consumers find short-form videos to be the most engaging type of content. Further, 91% consumers want to see more online video content from brands. Such is the impact of video marketing over text or audio. Video marketing can truly unlock the potential of brand messaging about products or any new developments given the scope it offers.

Google Android’s “Friends Furever” was the most shared video ad of 2015. The video caught the attention of users because it wastopical and witty along with being warm-hearted.

Another noteworthy example is that of Reebok’s 25,915 days #HonorYourDays campaign. The video did not have any spoken words but sent across a powerful message about making the most of every day given to us.

6. Gamification to Drive Engagement

Gamification in marketing is borrowing elements from games to make customers have more fun while engaging with the brand. Gamification could involve scoring points, leveling up, or streaks which encourages customers to re-engage with the brand, leading to customer loyalty over the long-term.

Gamification emotionally rewards customers for engaging with a brand. A great example of gamification is that of popular language-learning platform Duolingo. They have gamified the app such that learning a language feels like leveling up in a game.

7. Social Media platforms

Marketers are no strangers to social media marketing for boosting engagement. In 2023, an estimated 4.9 billion people use social media across the world. Clearly, this channel cannot be ignored.

Starbucks stands as one of the most creative brands when it comes to creating great social media campaigns. In 2017, the brand launched a “Unicorn Frappuccino” campaign. It was one of the top most trends on social media at the time of the launch. It created a great way for customers to share their own Starbucks-related content on social media. Here, a stir of the drink would result in changing colors much like a mythical experience resulting in great engagement.

Among the many tools for social media management, some worth mentioning are Buffer, which allows you to schedule your social media posts, and Hootsuite, which provides a full-service social media management platform.

8. Loyalty Programs

It can be much cheaper for a business to retain an existing customer than acquire a new one. In fact, a study says that acquiring a new customer can cost 5-25x more than retaining an existing customer. This business principle informs customer loyalty programs run by many companies. A loyalty marketing program rewards repeat business, which turn, helps improve the bottom line.

Several customer loyalty program tools can automate every aspect of it. Examples include Gitbit and LoyalZoo.

9. Customer Data for Personalization

Customer data can tell you all you need to know about customer behavior. Without data driven insights, brands can barely devise well-targeted marketing strategies. Today, you can leverage social media, web tracking, predictive analytics, transactional data, subscriptions, and surveys.

You can use tools such as MoEngage for a deeper understanding of customer needs and customer preferences to provide a personalized customer experience. Brands must take care of local and global data collection regulations now to ensure that they are compliant.

10. Seamless Customer Experiences

A seamless customer experience includes quick service, hassle-free shopping experience, and responsive customer support, among many other elements.

Many tools are leveraging AI/ML to help deliver seamless customer experiences. For example, Adobe Experience Manager helps deliver relevant content to customers depending on their needs.

11. Augmented Reality

Augmented reality (AR) can best be explained with an example. Imagine you are using your camera that is pointed at your desk. The camera automatically tells you that your desk is four feet tall. This is the power of AR. AR can boost the shopping experience of customers manifold by offering a near real-world experience.

56% of shoppers surveyed by NielsenIQ said that AR gives them more confidence about the quality of a product, and 61% said they prefer to shop with retailers that offer AR experiences. Brands can leverage AR to give virtual trials and product information creatively.

IKEA leverages AR to help shoppers try and visualize products in their own living or office space before buying. AR tools like the IKEA Place app superimpose to-scale models of furniture in real-life rooms.

12. Customer Feedback

48% of consumers expect a response to social media queries and complaints within 24 hours. 40% of them are likely to share negative reviews on social media. So, are you listening and planning to make sure you meet customer expectations? Simply taking customer feedback into account can lead to greater customer satisfaction, higher brand loyalty and a better customer experience.

Udemy needs to market itself to several different segments of the population. For this purpose, the brand tailors its marketing efforts for each target group. Udemy conducted surveys that informed their marketing efforts.

13. The Impact of Voice Search Optimization

Voice search is increasingly gaining popularity as voice detection technology improves. The channel is relatively new but effective at allowing brands to be discoverable. Think “Alexa! Find me a red sweater for Christmas NOW!”

Content can be optimized for voice search the same way it is for text-based searches. The key is to ensure that it is as readable as possible and easily discoverable by search engines.

Honeywell is already leveraging voice search for warehousing and inventory management with Honeywell Voice, a voice-enabled search service offering accuracy, efficiency, and safety for fulfillment center employees.

14. The Importance of Environmental Sustainability

Consumers are becoming increasingly environmentally conscious. ~46% of consumers surveyed across 23 study countries purchased at least one sustainable good or service in April 2023. Following this customer preference trend, more brands are taking steps to position themselves as being good for the environment by cleaning up their supply chains and lowering their carbon footprint.

Companies that take intentional steps to be more environmentally friendly stand a better chance to win with their customers by aligning with their values. Further, it’s a win-win for brands and customers as well as planet Earth.

An example is that of appliance and technology company Bosch, which reached climate-neutral status as of 2020 with net-zero carbon emissions.

15. Customer Journey Mapping

Customer journey mapping refers to analyzing the journey a typical customer goes through before making the purchase decision. The journey’s stages may consist of becoming aware of the brand, product, and how to make a purchase.

Mapping the customer journey can help brands make their marketing efforts more effective by leveraging various touchpoints. Tools like Smackly and Lucidchart are popular among brands.

Emerging trends for 2024 in customer engagement

Real-time personalization: More marketers prefer real-time personalization to raise customer LTV. Filling up the “personalization gap” by offering real-time personalization can boost engagement and revenue for brands. This will also build long-term customer loyalty.

Transition to cookie-less future: First-party and zero-party data are key to unlocking the next wave of growth. Although it is a major opportunity for brands, 81% percent of brands still depend on third-party data. Only 60% brands are prepared for when third-party data is not available. Long way to go?

Security vs. customer experience: Brands are gearing up to develop no-compromise customer experiences that balance safety, privacy, and personalization at scale.

‘Tis the Season of Holiday Marketing Strategies

It’s that time of the year again when Holiday Marketing becomes the buzzword for marketers everywhere. It’s a race against time for brands hoping to capture customer attention before planning their big holiday spends.

In the 2022 holiday season, consumers spent a whopping $1.14 trillion online globally. In fact, holiday sales represent an average of 20% or even 30% of annual retail sales across most industries in the US.

These numbers surely cannot be overlooked. It is well-known that creating a marketing strategy requires stepping into the customer’s shoes. It’s not just about what or how they buy, but also about when they are most likely to buy. This is where time-driven marketing strategies such as moment-marketing and holiday-marketing work wonders.

Some brands win big at holiday marketing, while others fail to get noticed. But one thing is clear: the holiday season can be the most valuable time of the year for businesses looking to grow and expand their reach.

In this short guide, we take you through everything you need to know about holiday marketing so that you can capitalize on consumer preferences during these upcoming holidays.

What is Holiday Marketing?

Holiday marketing, also known as seasonal marketing, refers to marketing campaigns designed to market a brand, product, or service by associating it with a festival or holiday.

It is effective not only because consumers make more purchases around the holiday season but also because they may associate certain brands with a particular holiday holiday. This helps enhance brand recall and loyalty.

For example, Coca-Cola’s marketing around the Christmas holidaysis so effective that people tend to buy more Coke during this period. It’s like Christmas being connected to Coca-Cola ads!

Similarly for the Indian festival of Durja Pooja 2023, Coca-Cola released an ad immersing the drink into the very heart of the festivities, making it an evitable part of the celebrations.

This is why a well-planned holiday marketing campaign can elevate the brand to the next level.

When does the Holiday Season Start Worldwide?

Holiday seasons across the world are obviously varied based on beliefs, religion, and values. But the holiday season generally starts around the second half of the year across the globe.

The holiday season is when the majority of the people start to plan vacations for an extended period of time (sometimes, the holidays may even be public holidays or national holidays).

For example, in most western countries such as the United States, Canada, and Europe, the last week of December (from Christmas to New Year’s) is the major holiday season. Halloween and Thanksgiving, that start much earlier, are also major holidays in regions where these are celebrated.

Similarly, in most Middle Eastern and some Southeast Asian countries such as Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Indonesia, Malaysia, among others, Ramadan marks the holiday season. In India, the holiday season starts towards around October, from Dusshera onwards. In China, it is the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year).

While these may be the major holidays in each region, there are several holidays people observe throughout the year, such as Valentine’s Day, Women’s Day, Mother’s Day, and June – the pride month, among others.

Customize your Marketing according to the Holiday

Needless to say, your marketing needs to have a connection with the holiday. If you’re marketing during the Christmas holidays, your campaign must reference all things related to Christmas. Picture your product wearing a Santa hat or a lot of snow on your website. These references make it easy to connect your brand with the holiday in the consumer’s mind.
Additionally, don’t forget to tailor your message according to the target audience as well. If your audience is primarily GenZ, you can show the holiday to be a time of fun. In contrast, if your audience is older, then you can depict the holiday as a time for tradition and family.

For example, Erste Group Bank in 2021 focused their message on family and relationships by making their ad about connecting with each other during the holiday season.

Make Your Offerings and Collections Holiday-themed

There cannot be a better time to add a holiday flavor to your products and services and create opportunities to cross-sell and/or up-sell.. Consider bundling your products as “gift bundles.” You may also offer more gifting options in the form of gift cards. Further, you can consider launching a holiday-themed limited-edition range. This also helps grab eyeballs and create a feeling of FOMO – the fear of missing out.

For instance, during Halloween, Kraft Heinz rolled out Blood Ketchup to encourage people to use the ketchup creatively in Halloween-themed recipes.. Example? Think of French fries as vampire fangs.

Holiday-theming is not just limited to your offerings. Your website can also reflect the mood of the holiday. For example, having a Indian festival of lights, Diwali-themed landing page that offers an interactive experience with fire- crackers and diyas (lamps).

Boost Email Marketing Aligned with the Holiday Season

Consider email marketing campaigns to boost sales—these can include:

- Announcing a holiday sale in advance
- Sending exclusive offers to loyal customers
- Simple greeting emails to wish customers
- Reminders on deals that expire soon

While customers may be flooded with promotional emails during and before holiday seasons, what may help you stand out is attractive templates and a strong message associated with the holiday.

Further, though you may be marketing for the holiday season, having a more long-term view is good. The marketing that you do today, can also serve you tomorrow. For example, you can use your holiday season marketing to build up your mailing list. This mailing list can be used to apprise your potential customers of various offers throughout the year and beyond.

Run Offers and Discounts

The best time to run discounts and offers is when people really have the intention to buy—which happens to be pretty high during holiday seasons. That bundled with some additional complementary services like gift wrapping, free-delivery, and additional surprise gifts, can go a long way in retaining customers.

Be Prepared For the Rush With Some Extra Support

Holiday seasons can be overwhelming for busineses—especially in terms of managing website/app traffic and order fulfilment (payment and delivery). Therefore, optimize your website and app, ensure simpler flows, and offer 24/7 chat support if required. Also, check if your brand can really fulfill the high demand and accordingly, set return and shipping policies during the period. It’s better not to overpromise and underdeliver.

Having said that, also remember that the holiday season also applies to you and your employees. Don’t make the same mistake that Kmart in the US made ten years ago in 2013. Their decision to open their stores a day early for Thanksgiving and open throughout Black Friday led to severe criticism from consumers, many of whom chose to boycott the American retail giant. Consumers protested against the unfair treatment of the employees who had to forego their holiday time to be at work, instead of at home with their families.

Leverage Multiple Channels

Use the right marketing channels to reach your target customers. In times of holidays, staying active on social media can pay off. Some eye-catching posts and witty connections to the festival can capitalize on engagement opportunities.

It can also help to stay on multiple channels to cater to various target groups. That said, not every marketing channel is appropriate for you. For example, most brands will try connecting with their audiences through paid ads such as Facebook or Google ads. This may increase the cost of marketing very significantly during the holiday season. To bypass this, think of alternative channels to use which may be equally effective.

What to Avoid while planning a Holiday Marketing Strategy?

While designing your marketing campaign, some things need to be avoided.

Don’t forget to connect with your existing network during the holidays. A simple WhatsApp message wishing them happy holidays can work wonders. Further, avoid repeating the same campaign that year after year since people are likely to remember. Also, be sure to be sensitive to consumers’s beliefs and faiths before crafting holiday-related messages.

Do Not Miss: Stellar Examples of Holiday Marketing Strategies

Taco Bell & Starbucks, US:

Holidays can be expensive. In the US, with Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year coming back-to-back, Taco Bell focused their messaging around saying “I love you” with food and making it less stressful for shoppers by selling small-ticket e-gift cards.

Starbucks also ran a successful Christmas marketing campaign in 2015, the #redcupcontest, and encouraged fans to post their unique designs on social media to win prizes. This has now become an annual holiday tradition!

Benefit Cosmetics, Middle East:

In the holy month of Ramadan, Benefit Cosmetics’ Middle East division tied up with nine regional influencers to create video content that speaks to the values of Ramadan. The month-long campaign aimed at creating a brand moment without linking it to products.

BMW, China:

BMW launched a video during CNY 2021 called “Bà Mā Wǒ” (爸妈我). The witty title used three Chinese characters (father, mother, and me) to signify the family, with the first character of each word a play on “B”, “M” and “W,” respectively. A video series showed families from various regions of China and played brilliantly on the theme of reunion.

Cadbury, India:

Few brands have established brand connections during the festival of lights as well as Cadbury. In 2022, Cadbury Celebrations rolled out the #ShopsForShopless campaign. This campaign aimed to support small vendors and hawkers with technology-based solutions like QR codes to boost their festive sales. This was supported by a touching film, seeking to empower millions of local businesses and brightening up their Diwali.

To sum up, there are several ways to market during the holiday season. But here are a few things to remember:

Holidays are important windows of opportunity for marketers, as they account for a sizeable portion of sales.
Several strategies have stood the test of time—these include customizing marketing strategies and products around specific holidays, running promotions, being ready for the rush, and utilizing the right channels.
Marketers may want to avoid overpromising customers, repeating previous campaigns, and being insensitive to cultural beliefs.
Remember that the brand that you create during the holidays stays throughout the year. Focusing on timeless marketing do’s and don’ts to have the highest likelihood of creating an impact.

Holiday marketing, if done right, can be like hitting several targets with a single aim. You can take advantage of the holiday shopping rush, build brand recall and loyalty, and make new connections to whom you can market in the future.

Jawaan: A Study in Customer Loyalty

Rs 700 cr and counting!

It’s just been a week since SRK’s Jawaan was released, and the movie has already raked in over Rs 700 cr in the domestic and global markets. It is the third biggest-grosser Bollywood has seen so far this year.

Jawaan was one of the most-awaited and highly anticipated movies for a long time by both SRK fans the world over and movie critics alike. And, of course, the movie delivered and how! If Jawaan was a Customer Loyalty program by brand SRK, then all his fans subscribed to it, and then some more.

Every aspect of the movie, whether the making, plot, music, or marketing efforts, reinforced and restored loyalty among hardcore SRK fans. The movie and the story behind its making give good insights into what businesses can do to foster customer loyalty over the long term.

As per data from Fortune Business Insights, the global loyalty management industry was worth USD 5.29 bn in 2022 and is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 23.7% to USD 28.65 bn by 2030. Customer loyalty can reap rich dividends, helping you grow your business at a far higher rate. A loyal customer is likely to spend 33% more than other customers. On the other hand, a bad loyalty program can lead to heavy customer churn. Reports suggest that 4 out of 5 customers will likely give up on a brand after just one bad experience.

So, let’s look at what makes the movie Jawaan an interesting case study of Customer Loyalty.

Customer Loyalty Starts with a Good Product

Jawaan, as a movie, is a banging product. There’s no doubt about it. Audiences, post-COVID, had developed a taste for good Masala entertainer movies, thanks to the influx of South-Indian films on OTT platforms. Those who had not been exposed to the South-Indian style of movie-making were blown away and hankered for more such movies. This was seen in the successes of movies such as Master, KGF, Pushpa, and RRR. These movies competed head-on with big-budget Bollywood movies and became massive successes, ruling the Bollywood, South Indian, and even global box offices with equal ease.

The makers of Jawaan recognized the audience’s pulse and the box office potential of a good Masala entertainer. They dove right into the frenzy, captured the momentum, and came up on top with a banger of a movie that delivered on all fronts. Sleek action, romance, thumping background score, good performances, and, of course, SRK. The movie is SRK’s first foray into an out-and-out massy action avatar, and fans got to watch their idol playing a larger-than-life character after a very long time.

*Source: Salesforce

Lesson:

Much of the success for Jawaan has come via word-of-mouth publicity, which is a sign of a good, reliable product. Brand owners and product owners should work on creating a product that speaks for itself. Marketing efforts aside, a product will always attract customers and long-term loyalty when it is done right. Make your value proposition clear and stick to it so your customer can rely on you to solve their needs. Your product could be one-of-a-kind, or it could compete with other similar products in the marketplace. What will set you apart is the value your product brings consistently, over and over again.

Personalization Boosts Customer Loyalty

The makers of Jawaan left no stone unturned in ensuring that the movie reaches as many viewers as possible, domestically and internationally. The movie was released across 5500 screens in India and 4500 screens internationally, including in US, UK, Australia, Germany, France, Spain, the Middle East, and Singapore.

The movie, while incorporating many of the elements of a blockbuster movie, also managed to avoid some of the pitfalls. Here, data and insights played a crucial role.

How do we know that? Because Jawaan is not a remake.

Bollywood had fallen into the cozy habit of remaking popular and wildly successful blockbusters, particularly those from South India, in Hindi. This worked wonders before, as was seen in the success of films such as Singham, Ghajini, Drishyam, Bhool Bhulaiyya, and Kabir Singh. But the proliferation of OTT platforms post-Covid brought Hindi audiences closer to the South like never before. Data showed that the audience wanted to watch movies with original storylines, irrespective of the language they were in.

Jawaan is an original screenplay, written keeping the Hindi audience in mind but made with all the sensibilities of a South-Indian blockbuster. A perfect marriage of the North and the South of India, if you will. To further personalize this experience, the movie was released worldwide in three languages – Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu. To make it relatable to each geography and language belt in India, the makers customized the movie and production so there was something for everyone. Songs from the movie were also translated into all three Indian languages mentioned above. One song, in particular, was also translated into Arabic (perhaps for the first time) to cater to SRK’s fan base in the Middle East.

Data also showed Hindi-speaking audiences were equally receptive to South Indian stars headlining major movie roles. Jawaan had the perfect ratio of South to Bollywood superstars essaying the main characters. This makes it more relatable and personal for the audience watching the movie in their preferred language.

*Source: G2

Lesson:

Data is key to crafting a personalized customer experience. It is the biggest clue to what your customer is thinking. It will give you insights into customer behavior and preferences among cohorts of customers, making it easier for you to reach them. Personalization helps in creating higher brand recall.

In a survey of 8,000 consumers worldwide by Accenture, 83% were willing to share data about themselves if it meant a more personalized experience. This even though 69% of those surveyed said that privacy was a critical factor for them.

Examples of good personalization could include services such as product recommendations, upsells, on-time delivery, and intuitive services such as reminders and offers on special occasions. However, brands need to be mindful of where they get their data from. Personalization efforts based on data gleaned from other sources could be a big turn-off for customers. For instance, product recommendations based on purchases made with other retailers.

Discounts and Offers

Jawaan offers two SRKs for the price of one!

For a true-blue fan of the movies and the superstar, this is a big draw. For the price of one ticket, you get two very distinct value propositions (Father and Son SRK), giving the audience a unique experience. Neither character resembles the other except in their physicalities, making this an incredibly memorable movie-going experience.

Moreover, with a stellar cast and crew spanning some of the biggest names in Indian cinema, with superior film-making by director Atlee, the audience gets more than its money’s worth.

Besides, by releasing the movies across 5500 screens nationwide, tickets were available at all price ranges. The most expensive ticket was priced at Rs 2400 (Delhi), while the lowest was Rs 60 (Kolkatta). This improved the movie’s reach manifold, as it did its business.

Lesson:

Discounts, offered occasionally, can go a long way in retaining customers. It is reported that price is the most important factor that keeps a customer loyal to their favorite brands. Brands should leverage discounts to foment goodwill among customers incentivizing them to stay with the brand.

However, discounts and offers are reasonable as long as they are not a punch to the business’ gut. Avoid falling into a discount trap. Offer discounts where feasible instead of going for an all-out 365-days-a-year discount model, which may not be sustainable over the long term.

Customer Loyalty: Coherence is Key

The past decade in action movies in India and globally has been dominated by a plethora of superhero movies, their origin stories, multi-verses, and once in a while, the Nolan-verse, where the storylines kept getting more and more convoluted to include technologically-fueled, time-bending, brain-melting plots that were hard to keep up with. Just like this sentence is.

While this was a novelty at first, audiences have now become tired of the mental workout they have to indulge in to follow a storyline.

Jawaan, on the other hand, follows a simple plot line. This is also one of the sharpest criticisms the movie has received. This is the story of a common man/ Messiah/ vigilante wanting to change the socio-economic-political fabric of the country. He achieves this by enforcing overly simplified solutions to some of our most hardened socio-economic issues. This has been done to death and is also hard to digest.

But, its fantastical storyline aside, the movie’s plot is simple to follow and understand. Despite being an action movie about the Armed Forces, the movie refrains from indulging in technical know-how of weaponry and combat. It simply lets the imagery tell the story. This opens the movie to a broader, perhaps technophobe and naive audience.

*Source: Leadpages

Lesson:

Keep it simple. Don’t overcomplicate your product or your customer loyalty program. Registration or usage instructions should be simple enough for the customer to do independently without reaching for the customer care number. No matter how complicated the design of a product may be, the customer interface should be easy to navigate. As per the blog UXCam, 91% of customers who experience bad UX leave without even complaining.

Seamless Integration of Customer Loyalty with Experience

Jawaan is an outstanding piece of film-making that offers the audience a wide array of experiences. This movie with any A-list actor in the lead would have worked.

But the presence of brand SRK gives Jawaan that extra upliftment without overshadowing the film the way most superstar action movies tend to do. SRK’s stardom flies just below Atlee’s style of filmmaking, supporting the director’s vision and not weighing it down with its star power. This way, when the audience watches the brand SRK unfold onscreen, it doesn’t take away from the overall movie experience. Because first and foremost, the audience is here to watch a good, solid entertainer.

*Source: SmallBizGenius

Lesson:

A good customer loyalty program will never detract from the overall customer experience. It seamlessly integrates into it, whether online or in a physical store. For your customers, progression to a customer loyalty program must almost feel natural, like they have earned (or sometimes spent) their way to the top. A drastic, sudden change in customer experience, either good or bad, will be immediately noticeable. This could distort their experience, which could have a long-term positive or negative effect.

For instance, a sudden improvement in customer experience after a massive purchase could create loyalty which may be short-lived. On the other hand, a slow progression toward a customer loyalty program will yield long-term customer loyalty and higher revenues.

So while Jawaan continues to rake in more and more business, maybe it’s time to take a step back and understand your customers better. Take a deep look at what’s working and what isn’t and why. Customer loyalty, like most good things, must be earned.

Because for Bollywood, SRK is King, but for you, your Customer is.

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