What is customer engagement?

Customer engagement is the process of forming and growing a relationship between a company and its customers.

It involves actively interacting with customers through various channels in order to strengthen the relationship and create brand loyalty.

Customer engagement goes beyond transactions, as it can include everything from browsing behavior to interactions in social or mobile channels. .

How do engaged customers benefit a business?

There are three key ways an engaged customer will benefit your business:

  • Revenue: Engaged customers are likely to produce higher Average Order Values with each purchase
  • Loyalty: They will be more likely to return to make repeat purchases and less likely to be tempted away by competitors
  • Advocacy: Engaged customers are more likely to recommend your brand to family and friends, helping you to tap into new audiences.

Nine tips for driving customer engagement

From customer service to social content, creating experiences that keep customers coming back is key to any business that wants to remain competitive.

Here are nine tips that will get you started in creating a successful customer engagement strategy:

  1. Create customer personas and understand what drives them by researching your customers’ buying habits, interests, and motivations.
  2. Develop a loyalty program that rewards customers for their purchases or usage.
  3. Be vocal about your company’s mission, purpose and values.
  4. Create personalized content that’s relevant to your customers’ individual likes and interests.
  5. Engage your customers with a cross-channel or omnichannel marketing strategy that targets them with relevant content, in the right channel, at the right time.
  6. Consider using push notifications to keep customers informed of new products or services.
  7. Offer discounts or promotions to reward loyalty and encourage repeat business.
  8. Leverage customer feedback to identify areas of improvement in customer service and product development.
  9. Track key metrics such as customer satisfaction scores or purchase frequency over time to measure the success of your strategy.

Three examples of brands that have mastered customer engagement

Discover how these market leaders use simple strategies to drive their customer engagement:

  1. Nike has implemented strategies to keep customers engaged by offering personalized recommendations, access to exclusive products, and the ability to track their fitness journey through the Nike+ app. Customers also have the option to join their membership program, which allows them to earn rewards points for purchases and access additional, limited-access deals.
  2. Sephora’s loyalty program, Beauty Insider, takes customer engagement beyond simple product discounts. They give their customers access to something they can’t get anywhere else. Beauty Insider allows customers to accrue points for any purchases made online or in-store, with the option to redeem them for unique experiences, including makeovers, meet-and-greets and more.
  3. Spotify uses data from users’ listening habits to create customized playlists tailored to their unique tastes. Additionally, they offer discount coupons for premium subscriptions for students as well as promotional discounts during certain holidays or events.

Customer engagement with Emarsys

Emarsys helps leading brands like PUMA, Pizza Hut and Nike to connect their sales, product and customer data to engage customers by creating better customer experiences, growing engagement, and driving lifetime value.