Are your engagement strategies keeping pace with today’s customer expectations and marketing trends? During our recent Constant Contact APAC Marketing Lab, we invited industry leaders to explore the future of customer engagement, uncovering the most impactful strategies for building lasting connections.
Find out how these top five important customer engagement strategies can help innovative companies to not only compete, but thrive.
1. The Power of Omnichannel Engagement
At our APAC Marketing Lab, omnichannel engagement emerged as a key differentiator for businesses aiming to build deeper relationships with customers. Unlike multichannel strategies, which involve operating on several platforms, omnichannel engagement ensures that all channels work together seamlessly.
This allows businesses to provide a cohesive, integrated customer experience, regardless of whether the interaction occurs online, via email, SMS, social media, or in-store. For example, brands such as Ideal Introductions have seen significant improvements by integrating their email and SMS campaigns. By using Vision6 for SMS, they’ve been able to drive over $15K additional monthly revenue and increased engagement tenfold.
Renée Chaplin, VP – APAC, Constant Contact, emphasised that “consumers expect consistency. They want to move from one channel to another without friction, and they expect businesses to recognise them as the same individual, no matter where they engage.”
In fact, companies with strong omnichannel strategies retain 89% of their customers, while those with weak strategies retain only 33%. This highlights how important it is to create a unified brand experience across every touchpoint.
Recommendations
To implement an effective omnichannel strategy, businesses should:
- Ensure their email, SMS, and social media campaigns are aligned in tone and messaging.
- Use data to personalise interactions across channels.
- Invest in platforms that offer centralised control for managing multiple channels seamlessly.
2. Personalisation: The Key to Building Loyalty
Personalisation has quickly moved from a “nice-to-have” to an essential part of customer engagement strategies. As customers are bombarded with messages from multiple brands, personalisation becomes the key to cutting through the noise and building long-term loyalty.
80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when brands offer personalised experiences, according to Epsilon.
Linda Prescott, Managing Director and CEO of Ideal Introductions, explained that personalisation helps businesses build emotional connections with their customers. “We’re a personal matchmaking agency and we meet everyone personally. SMS is a quick way to let people know that you’re thinking about them.”
Bonnie McCoy, General Manager of Customology, echoed this sentiment, sharing how her team uses data to deliver tailored messaging to customers at scale. “You can’t compete if you’re not doing the basics of personalisation. But the next step for brands is making sure that their customer journey outside of the in-store journey matches their brand values. So personalising all of the communication so that they’re not only relevant to your brand messaging but also to the buying cycle,” she said.
As an example, Bonnie highlighted tyre brand Bridgestone Australia’s personalised benefits program, which keeps customers engaged over the long tyre purchasing cycle. By checking in regularly, Bridgestone not only maximises the value of each customer’s investment but also stays top-of-mind when it’s time for them to buy new tyres.
Recommendations
To improve personalisation efforts, businesses can:
- Segment their audience based on customer behaviour, interests and preferences.
- Use customer data from CRM systems to personalise emails and SMS messages.
- Implement tools that support advanced segmentation and tailored messaging.
3. AI and Automation: The Future of Marketing Efficiency
As businesses scale, managing customer engagement becomes increasingly complex. That’s where AI and automation come into play, offering an efficient solution to streamline customer interactions without sacrificing personalisation.
According to Forrester, 50% of businesses will use AI to serve customers in 2024. By automating repetitive tasks, such as scheduling emails and sending SMS alerts, companies can focus on high-value activities like strategy development and customer relationship management.
Nicola Votier, CMO of Poolwerx, discussed how her team is focused on improving their tech stack across national, regional and local campaigns, to enhance their digital, customer-first strategy. AI does play a role, especially in terms of reputation management and reviews.
“As a franchise business, we’re looking for consistency across our brand, consistency across our in-store experience, consistency in our residential and commercial services,” she explained.
With over 500 territories spanning retail stores and mobile vans, Poolwerx operates one of the largest franchise networks in the world—making the pursuit of brand alignment a significant challenge.
Replay: Fireside Chat with Poolwerx’s CMO
Recommendations
To leverage AI and automation effectively, businesses should:
- Use automation tools to manage repetitive tasks, such as follow-up emails and reminders, without safeguards in place to ensure brand consistency.
- Leverage AI-driven content generation such as AI Content Assistant to save time while maintaining personalisation. Instead of spending hours brainstorming, users can simply input a prompt, choose a tone of voice, and receive compelling content options in seconds.
- Continuously analyse customer behaviour and refine automated workflows to improve engagement.
4. Data-Driven Marketing: Transforming Data into Actionable Insights
Collecting data is just the beginning. To excel in customer engagement, businesses must convert the raw data into actionable insights that fuel effective content and marketing strategies.
APAC Marketing Lab guest speaker, Jaydon Munn, serves as Marketing Manager at GIVIT, an innovative not-for-profit that inspires generosity to meet real need in the community. Jaydon noted that data segmentation plays a vital role in cultivating repeat donations.
By expressing gratitude for past contributions and including the specific donation amount in the message, supporters are reminded of their generosity and feel truly appreciated by GIVIT. This approach significantly increases the likelihood of future donations.
Bonnie McCoy of Customology, also spoke to the importance of A/B testing and control group testing to measure success against KPIs relevant to the business’s goals.
She also highlighted that KPIs will vary for each stakeholder in the business, depending on whether they measure campaign revenue, impact on bookings, or foot traffic.
With data-based decision-making rapidly becoming the modus operandi in today’s business world, many organisations struggle with managing and making sense of their customer data.
This is where robust analytics and reporting comes in, so businesses can not only track their campaign performance but also gain insights into customer behaviour.
Alongside quantitative studies, Consumer Futurist Amanda Stevens suggests forming a customer advisory board to gain valuable feedback. “Find eight or ten customers, a diverse cross section of your customer base, and make them advisors. Meet with them once a month as a sounding board,” she said. Here are some key questions to consider asking your advisory board:
- What features would you like to see in our loyalty program?
- How often would you prefer to hear from us?
- What offers would you find appealing?
- When is the best time for us to send you a text message?
Replay: Keynote by CX Futurist Amanda Stevens
For a limited time (until November 27, 2024), register here to watch Amanda’s CX Keynote on-demand.
Recommendations
To optimise data-driven marketing, businesses should:
- Regularly clean and update customer data to ensure accuracy.
- Use segmentation tools to create targeted campaigns based on past customer behaviour.
- Leverage reporting features to analyse campaign performance through dashboards and make data-driven decisions at a glance.
5. The Resurgence of SMS in Digital Marketing
While email remains a powerful marketing tool, SMS is making a strong comeback, particularly in industries that demand real-time customer engagement. With open rates of 98%, and 95% of messages read within three minutes, SMS offers an immediacy that few other channels can match.
Andrew Craig, CEO of Chatti, shared insights on how SMS is being used along the customer journey to create excitement.
“Transactional SMS is so important. Before the sale, it’s getting the customer excited about their purchase or perhaps it’s a restaurant booking. After the sale, it’s thanking the customer for their business or checking that they received their parcel,” he said.
Whether it’s a promotional message or an urgent update, SMS can drive higher response rates and strengthen the customer relationship.
For service businesses facing no-shows, a simple SMS the day before can confirm attendance or offer to reschedule, ultimately helping to reduce lost revenue and improve customer retention.
Practical Takeaway
To maximise the potential of SMS marketing trends, businesses should:
- Use SMS for time-sensitive messages, such as appointment reminders or flash sales.
- Combine SMS with email campaigns to create a comprehensive customer engagement strategy.
- Personalise SMS messages to make them more relevant to the recipient.
Replay: Embracing the Next Wave Panel Discussion
What’s Next: Shaping the Future of Customer Engagement and Marketing Trends
The future of customer engagement lies in creating personalised, omnichannel experiences powered by data, AI, and automation.
By staying ahead of these marketing trends and leveraging the right tools, businesses can build deeper relationships with their customers and stay competitive in an evolving market.
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Plus, as a thank you for being a valued reader, check out the top takeaways from our Email Deliverability Masterclass at Marketing Lab, with best practices shared by email expert Jon Marburger.
