6 Ways to Increase Client Engagement

As a business owner, one of your top priorities is to bring in new clients to your company every chance you get. After all, gaining new clients is important for your business to thrive. The more people who are interested in the products or services you offer, the more sales you can make.

No matter how important you think getting new clients is, you should not neglect to maintain your relationship with the clients you already have. Taking care of their support will allow you to have clients who will be loyal to your brand for a long time. And one way to nurture your clients' support is by taking advantage of and increasing their engagement.

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What is Client Engagement?

Before delving into how you can increase client engagement, you should first know the basics of this concept. Simply speaking, client engagement refers to the different ways you interact with your clients, whether online or offline. The interactions that happen between your brand and your clients should ideally cause them to have a positive reaction toward your brand. The more they interact with your brand, the more likely they are to remember it and come back for more in the future. In fact, statistics have shown that 82% of consumers will choose to buy from a company that they emotionally connect with.

There are many benefits that you can get from increasing client engagement. For one, it helps solidify relationships between your brand and your clients. If they feel like you are always there for them, addressing their concerns and needs, they will be more likely to remain loyal to your brand.

Another benefit of increasing client engagement is that it helps you understand your clients better. The more interactions you have with them, the more information you can gather about their likes and dislikes, their expectations, and so on. This way, you can adjust your products or services accordingly to better suit their needs.

Finally, increasing client engagement can also help you increase sales. If your clients are always interacting with your brand, they are more likely to purchase your products or services. They will also be more likely to refer your brand to their friends and family, which can help you gain even more clients in the future.

Now that you know the benefits of increasing client engagement, it's time to learn about the different ways you can do so.

Benefits of Investing in Client Engagement

There are many benefits that you can get from increasing client engagement. Each one can help you reach your business goals easier.

Brand Loyalty 

For one, it helps solidify relationships between your brand and your clients. If they feel like you are always there for them, addressing their concerns and needs, they will be more likely to remain loyal to your brand.

Learn About Your Clients

Another benefit of increasing client engagement is that it helps you understand your clients better. The more interactions you have with them, the more information you can gather about their likes and dislikes, their expectations, and so on. This way, you can adjust your products or services accordingly to better suit their needs.

Increased Sales

Finally, increasing client engagement can also help you increase sales. If your clients are always interacting with your brand, they are more likely to purchase your products or services. They will also be more likely to refer your brand to their friends and family, which can help you gain even more clients in the future.

Now that you know the benefits of increasing client engagement, it's time to learn about the different ways you can do so.

How to Increase Client Engagement

There are many different ways you can increase client engagement. Here are six of the most effective ones:

1. Create Great Client Experiences

Investing in client experiences is the first step to increasing client engagement. It is such an effective strategy that different companies that took their time to improve their client experiences have reported an 84% increase in their revenue.

This result makes a lot of sense. As a consumer, you might have had a bad experience when dealing with a business. Whether it was waiting too long for a service representative, going through a complicated purchase process, or reading a tone-deaf Tweet, it takes one bad client experience for you to be turned off with a brand.

That is why you should make sure that every client who encounters your brand, either online or offline, gets a good experience. This means that you should determine all the ways you interact with your clients.

Once you have a list of the different ways you interact with your clients, do a thorough analysis of each channel. Some of the channels you should analyze are your website, your social media platforms, your customer service hotline, and even your brick-and-mortar store (if you have one).  By doing so, you should find some room for improvement and make the necessary changes.

If you want to make the process of providing great client experiences easier, you can create an Automated Customer Experience (ACX). This will allow you to resolve the issues your clients are facing without hiring humans for the task.

2. Build a Relatable Brand Image

Aside from creating great experiences for your clients, you should build a personality for your brand that they will want to engage with. This is what we call a relatable brand image.

Some brands make the mistake of thinking that their target market wants them to be professional all the time. While this might work for some brands, it will not work for all. In fact, studies have shown that people are more likely to engage with brands that show some personality.

However, your strong brand personality won't be effective in engaging clients if they don't even know you exist. This is where brand awareness becomes relevant.

For clients to notice your brand image and personality, you should first make them aware of your company's existence. They should also be aware of any special, relevant, and useful products or services that you can offer. You should also strive to establish a connection with your clients to open opportunities for engagement.

3. Use Conversational Marketing 

Entering the digital world means that you should be ready to engage with and help your clients whenever they need it. This is important because, nowadays, individuals shop online whenever they feel like it or need something urgent. The traditional concept of operating hours is not relevant anymore.

So, when one of your clients wants to buy something from your business in the middle of the night, you should be available to assist them should something wrong happen. However, this cannot be done manually. You cannot spend all day long waiting for someone to reach out to you for help. Of course, you also need to rest and sleep after a few hours of work.

This is where conversational marketing comes in. It is a type of marketing that uses chatbots to automatically engage with clients and provide them with the assistance they need.

Aside from being available 24/7, chatbots can help you save time and resources because you don't have to train someone to provide an excellent client experience. Also, they can help you get valuable insights about your clients through the conversations they have with the chatbot.

4. Harness the Power of Social Media

Social media is one of the most powerful tools that you can use to increase client engagement. This is because it allows you to interact with them directly. You can use social media, especially LinkedIn, to let your clients know about the latest products, services, and promos that you have. You can also use it to get feedback from them regarding your offerings and their overall experience with your brand. To enhance your professional networking efforts, you can automate LinkedIn to efficiently connect end engage with industry leaders.

Furthermore, social media is a great way to show your brand's personality. As we've mentioned earlier, people are more likely to engage with brands that show some personality. You can use social media to show your brand's human side and connect with your clients on a more personal level.

You can also use social media for customer service. It is one of the easiest ways for your clients to reach you, so there is a huge possibility that they will contact you using your social media channels if they have any concerns or questions regarding your products or services. Make sure that you are providing them with an exceptional experience when they do so. To make this more possible to handle, you can also work with a third party that offers social media services.

5. Reward Engagement

People are more likely to do something if they know that they will get something in return. This is why you should reward engagement whenever possible.

You can do this by giving away freebies or sending exclusive promos or discounts to clients who interact with your brand. You can also enter them in raffles or contests whenever they perform certain actions, which gives them a chance to win larger prizes.

This will not only make them feel appreciated, but it will also encourage them to engage with your brand more in the future. As a result, you will be able to increase brand awareness and reach and make more sales for your company.

6. Use Social Causes

Most clients want to feel good whenever they support a brand. Aside from doing this by providing them with high-quality products and services, you should consider involving them in your social responsibility.

You can do this by creating an initiative that benefits your community. It can be a regular volunteer opportunity that allows your staff to help the community or a donation drive that benefits the members of your immediate community. Then, involve your clients by informing them how their support of your brand allows you to help your community. Make sure to post it on your social media accounts so your clients can react freely and engage with your posts.

Monitor Your Client Engagement

Once you've created your strategy to increase client engagement, you should wait for a while before assessing its results. It can be tricky to determine how well your client engagement strategy is working but here are some factors you can look at:

Social Interactions

The easiest way to see an increase in your client engagement is through your social interactions. If you see that your social media pages are receiving more likes and comments, you are most likely doing something right. Utilizing quality stock images can also help boost engagement, as visuals tend to draw more attention than text alone. You can also look at your account's Insights section to see how well your posts are doing.

Client Reviews

You will receive more positive client reviews if your audience is more engaged with your brand. So, if you receive an influx of feedback from your clients, you can say that your client engagement strategy is working.

Client Surveys

You can also assume an increase in client engagement if more people are answering the client satisfaction surveys you're giving out. This means that you are reaching more clients and that they care enough about your brand to tell you what you need to continue or improve on.

Referrals

Another way to assess your client engagement strategy is to look at the number of referrals you're getting. This is possible because engaged customers who are happy with what you offer are more likely to recommend your brand to their friends and family. So, remember to ask your new clients how they heard about you, and offer referral rewards to the existing clients who helped you gain new business.

Create an Engagement Strategy That Suits Your Brand

There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to client engagement. What works for other companies might not work as well for yours. That's why you should take the time to create an engagement strategy that is suited for your brand.

To do this, start by determining what your goals are and who your target clients are. From there, you can start brainstorming ideas on how you can increase your client engagement. Just make sure that whatever strategy you come up with is aligned with your brand identity and will not cause any damage to your reputation. Most importantly, take your clients’ feedback using targeted surveys at every possible touch point to make sure your products and services are customer-centric. 

Now that you know all about client engagement and how to increase it, it's time to put what you've learned into action. Just remember to take things slow and be patient. After all, client engagement and managing online reviews about your brand is a long-term process that requires time and effort to achieve. But, once you've seen the results of your hard work, it will all be worth it in the end.