It’s time to connect, maintain, and build customer relationships – the Zephyr Digital Design way!
In March, when most people stayed under lockdown at home, businesses everywhere braced for some lean times. Now here we are in September, and some industries have rebounded more quickly than others. If your customers still aren’t able to spend as much as they would typically, it can be frustrating to find the next steps in your marketing strategy. It’s important not to annoy your customers by pushing them with hard sells, but you also need to stay relevant so that when they can spend more freely, you’ll be one of the first businesses they support.
Here are our top three tips for building up your relationships through your digital marketing strategy.
1. Get Active on Social Media
If you haven’t been using social media as part of your digital marketing strategy yet, it’s a great way to interact with your customers and get to know them (and what they think of your brand). A good place to start is with some of the more well-known channels like Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. You may want to search for competitor companies that offer similar products and services to see what kinds of content they’re sharing. It’s good to follow the 80/20 rule here: 80 percent of the time, don’t publish content promoting yourself. Instead, post content that is fun and easy to interact with. Think creating a silly poll, or participating in long-standing traditions like Throwback Thursday, Follow Friday, or Whatever Wednesday.
2. Your Customers Will Give You Feedback — It’s Time to Listen
When and how your customers respond to your posts on social media will tell you a lot—not only their opinion of you, but what they’re experiencing in other areas of their lives. Do they enjoy humorous content that you’re posting? Or do they tend to react more to heartfelt messages?
You can also ask for feedback directly via a Facebook poll. Ask them what they need from you right now, and give them options that are possible for you to offer. You can also take a more informal, fun survey by posing a question with two answer options and asking them to comment with their answer. Emojis are a fun way to do this—assign an emoji to each answer choice, and ask people to comment with them.
3. Avoid the “When This is All Over…” Trap
In the early days of the pandemic, it might have made sense for people—businesses and customers alike—to hold off on making big decisions, changes, or purchases until after the pandemic was over. Unfortunately, we still don’t know when that will be. Instead of focusing your business efforts on what you plan to do when the world finally goes back to normal, make small changes now to meet the needs of your business. This is the time to get creative. Ask yourself if you can come up with a new product or service to help your customers with their current needs.
For instance, you may offer weekly Zoom meetings to answer questions about your area of expertise in a group setting for a fee. A lot of your customers may want to hire you for your services, but simply can’t at the moment. By sharing some knowledge with them, you can help them keep their current problems from getting out of hand. When they can afford to address it, your company will be the one they think of calling. Remember, it’s infinitely better to offer something instead of nothing to your customers.
People are interacting with content everywhere – so why not yours? If you’re unsure of where to start or what content to post, please contact us today. Each business is unique, and we’d be happy to help you find the best marketing strategy to create, maintain and grow your customer and business relationships.
