12 Ways to Increase Customer Engagement

Customer engagement is more than just a marketing trend; it can dramatically improve your bottom line & increase your profits. Research shows that up to two-thirds of a brand’s profits rely on effective consumer engagement. You can launch your own engagement strategy from messaging to giveaways to give your ecommerce store a boost. Here are 12 ways to get started.

1. Show Off Your Brand’s Personality

Show off your brand personality with a consistent, cohesive strategy to build more relationships & engagement with customers. Fun, tongue-in-cheek ecommerce stores can use memes and GIFs to spice up their brand. Or use employee videos & stories to bring a personal touch to your store.
Create a template for your ecommerce store to help you stay focused & on-brand with phrases, best practices, and examples of your favorite content. Once you have your brand personality nailed down, remember to incorporate your personality in everything from:
– Online ads
– Social media posts
– Email marketing (How will you address customers? How will you sign-off?)
You can also survey your customers to find out what they think about your brand personality, what they like, what they dislike, and then you can make some changes to align with your target audience.

2. Produce Problem-Solving Content

Get customers excited about coming to your ecommerce store by producing problem-solving content that sparks engagement. Entice clicks, comments, and social sharing with video tutorials, how-to blog posts, and rich infographics related to your product or services.
Ecommerce stores with a tight niche are at a unique advantage to stand-out from the competition. BeardBrand’s blog post on How to Grow a Beard: The Essential Guide earns thousands of clicks a month. The post takes a deep-dive into everything you need to know about growing a fantastic beard & links out to helpful video tutorials for even more knowledge bombs. With a sprinkling of product links, BeardBrand created winning content that’s helpful & entices their audience to buy their products.
https://www.beardbrand.com/blogs/urbanbeardsman/how-grow-beard

3. Grab the Right Apps

Ecommerce apps can also help automate and increase your customer engagement efforts. According to the 2020 Mobile Shopping Apps Report, the right apps can increase the engagement from the install-to-purchase rate by 40% year-over-year.
Fortunately, there are plenty of apps to choose from to help with your ecommerce engagement. Start with Engage that captures your customers’ shopping activity, configure rules like price drops and low stock alerts, and set up automatic email triggers with customized templates with personalized messages.

4. Start a Community

Start your own community & help your customers bond through a common topic or theme. Take some inspiration from InstaPot that created a highly engaged Facebook group with nearly 3 million members. The retail brand posts recipes and tips, like seasonal dishes and novelty ideas. Community members are also free to ask questions about how to best cook with their Instapot or care for it. A mix of photos & graphics helps keep the content interesting & easy to share.

5. Analyze Your Customer Emails

Skimping on email marketing is leaving money on the table & customers in the dark. According to OptinMonster, email marketing has a median ROI of 122%. However, it’s not enough to send out some emails and hope for the best. Use your favorite analytic tools to see how your emails performed & what leads to convert for higher engagement.
Try spying on your competition by signing up for their email lists to get an idea of what they’re doing well & what they’re not. You might get ideas for content you never considered, like abandoned cart emails that entice customers to pick up where they left off. Check out this abandoned cart email from Grove:
https://www.shopify.com/blog/abandoned-cart-emails

6. Establish a Rewards Program

A rewards or loyalty program for your ecommerce store keeps customers engaged & loyal to your brand. Vouchers & coupons are always popular choices for repeat customers, or you can get creative with some of the following ideas:
– Birthday surprise gift or discount
– Invitations to sneak peeks on products
– Early bird shopping opportunities
– VIP access to premium products and services
– Custom products
You also don’t need to stick with just one type of reward. Keep your loyal members guessing by mixing up your rewards & offerings with exciting opportunities.

7. Leverage Chat Bots

Chatbots are more than just helpful features; they increase engagement & repeat visitors. According to emarketer, more than 60% of consumers would return to a website offering live chat.
Live chat is a quick way to give customers the answers they need or make product recommendations. Try these other strategies to use chatbots & encourage more engagement with your audience:
– Make cross-sell recommendations with similar products
– Offer helpful resources like demo videos or blog posts
– Discuss gift guide recommendations
– Ask customers what they would like to see that you don’t already have in your shop

8. Create a Challenge

Challenges bring a competitive spirit to your ecommerce store & keep your audience engaged with a common goal. NYX Professional Makeup gave its TikTok followers a challenge to show off their workout routine for putting on eyebrow makeup. It racked up 705 million of views with the hashtag #BrowFitness in just two days.
https://www.tiktok.com/tag/BrowFitness?name=BrowFitness&is_commerce=1&u_code=d7jg6ced8l5dhm&utm_campaign=client_share&app=musically&utm_medium=ios&user_id=6724653082075251718&tt_from=copy&utm_source=copy&source=h5_m
Align your own ecommerce challenge with the products or services you sell to make the most of your promotion. Or partner with a charity to raise money for a good cause while increasing brand awareness at the same time.

9. Host a Giveaway

Giveaways can help promote your business & increase customer engagement at the same time. Pair your giveaway with an app like Social Boost Giveaways Contest that requires specific entry methods, including:
– Refer-a-friend
– Share on Facebook
– Retweet
– Sign-up for a newsletter
– Like a YouTube video
When customers enter & engage in your giveaway, more people notice your promotion & get involved in the fun. Just make sure the giveaway is exciting enough to share. A valuable product, a free month of service, or a limited time product giveaway are all ways to keep your audience coming back to your ecommerce store.

10. Send Feedback Surveys

Feedback surveys offer valuable insights directly from your customers. You can entice more engagement in the survey by offering a coupon code or free offer in exchange for their thoughts. Or enter respondents’ names into a giveaway for a chance to win a valuable prize.
If you’re not sure where to get started, here are some questions to ask in a feedback survey:
– How did you hear about us?
– Do you think our product/service is worth the cost?
– Could you describe your buyer’s experience?
– Did we meet, exceed, or fall short of your expectations? Why?
– How can we improve our ecommerce store?
– How likely are you to refer a friend to our ecommerce store?
– What would you change about your experience?
After the results are in, follow-up with your customers & let them know what changes you implemented based on the survey’s valuable feedback. The effort will show you take their feedback seriously & care about their customer experience.

11. Increase Your Instagram Presence

Ecommerce stores with an active Instagram presence are more likely to attract shoppers looking to buy. Did you know 70% of shoppers use Instagram for product discovery, and over 130 million users click on a shopping post at least once per month?
Running an Instagram channel often feels like a full-time job, but there are some tools that can help. Planoly quickly plans & schedules your content for Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter with the ability to turn any social platform into a storefront. Or try Daily Auto Post to automatically post products at multiple times on your behalf. Instead of doing it all manually, this ecommerce app imports your products, photos, description, and link.

12. Add User-Generated Content

Busy ecommerce store owners don’t have to produce all their own content on their own. Instead, try soliciting user-generated content to help spread the word about your ecommerce store. Consumers are also 2.4 times more likely to view user-generated content as authentic compared to brand produced content.
User-generated content can be as simple as sharing a photo of a customer using your product. This adorable post from Warby Parker shows off one of its littlest customers with the caption, “Let the awwww’s commence” to entice its audience to engage.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt67zD2AW2S/?utm_source=ig_embed
With the right focus & strategy in place, you can give your ecommerce store a boost of engagement & improve sales at the same time. Ready to try it for yourself? Make sure you’re ready for the influx of sales with CustomCat’s white-labeling & fulfillment services. We’ll take care of producing & fulfilling your orders so you can focus on building up your customer engagement.