Engagement Marketing in five easy steps (Guest Blog)
How any business can create repeat business and bring in new customers at the same time.
When you think of marketing in general, and promoting your own business in particular, it’s probably terms like ‘advertising’ that spring to mind. You might think that this means that you HAVE to spend a lot of money in order to get your name out there and bring in new customers.
However, in today’s economy, good marketing is about an approach rather than the budget that you have available. That approach is Engagement Marketing, and it’s something that is actually easier for small businesses to do than big businesses.
Engagement Marketing means connecting with your customers to keep them coming back to you, and spreading the word about your work.
The Engagement Marketing Cycle – From Engagement Marketing (Gail Goodman, 2012)
Here’s how it happens (in a nutshell):
1. You WOW your customers with great service, and whatever extra little something that makes your business special. This should be something that is worth them telling others about, like the fantastic way your pack your products or answer the phone.
2. You ENTICE them to stay in touch with you, by joining your mailing list and connecting with you on social media. You have to actually invite them to connect with you. Just hoping that they’ll think of doing so is not a good strategy as it doesn’t really work.
3. ENGAGE – talk to them, listen to them, start discussions, ask questions, host events, share your tips. Those people will remember you and keep coming back as they feel that they know, like and trust you more and more.
4. Engagement drives SOCIAL VISIBILITY, and your customers’ friends and contacts (who are your next best prospects) get to hear about you and the great things that you do. This happens because a lot of the engagement activities you do are on public forums, like social media, and it spills over onto the friends of your fans and followers.
5. Rinse and repeat! Keep doing it. Pick the bits that work the best and focus on them, run it over and over again so it keeps working for you. Every now and then you can try something new as well.
Will it work for you?
The great thing about this approach is that anyone can use it. Any business, of any size, can employ Engagement Marketing techniques, but small businesses are naturally better at it.
Small businesses generally find engaging with their customers much easier than big companies, because they are closer to their customers and already know what they care about and will respond to.
So what now?
Start at the top and work out what your WOW! factor is. Everything will flow from there.
If you want to know more about Engagement Marketing there are some great articles on our blog over at https://blog.constantcontact.co.uk
About the Author
Tamsin Fox-Davies has made it her mission to help small business people achieve their dreams and create successful and sustainable organisations. As a Constant Contact’s small business evangelist, she shares her valuable insight in a variety of ways from in-person training, to speaking at events and creating useful resources including blogs, articles, and newsletters.