Top 6 Ways to Keep Your Customers at The Heart Of Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Your customers are what keep your business alive. They are the heart of your business and should be the heart of your digital marketing strategy, too. If you put them in the center of your focus and work to meet their needs, you’ll find your digital marketing strategy to be more successful than if you didn’t. According to Neil Patel, understanding your customers is the only marketing strategy you need. He’s not wrong! Understanding your customers is truly the best way you can keep them at the forefront of what you do. But how do you go about understanding them? What can you do to keep them top of mind?

Here are the top 7 ways you can keep your customers at the heart of your strategy.

1. Personalization

Whether you’re sending emails or writing a blog, address your customers personally. That added personalization makes your customers feel heard – and it also make them feel like you care.digital marketing, digital marketing strategy, customer service, marketing, marketing strategy, customers According to Think With Google, 61% of people expect brands to take their preferences into account and offer personalized experiences. From greeting your customers by their first name to designing offers and specials that meet their needs and interests, personalization is essential in your digital marketing strategy.

2. Ask For Feedback

All feedback is good feedback – yes, even the negative reviews and 1-star ratings. This feedback, whether positive or negative, can help you determine what your customers need and want and what they don’t feel they’re getting from you. Do you see a trend in the feedback you’ve received so far? If so, then taking that feedback into consideration will only help you grow as a company. In your digital marketing strategy, ask your customers to review your products or service to help you help them. If you do ask for feedback on a social media post, you want to make sure you have someone closely monitoring those comments and engaging with the people who respond.

3. Conduct a Customer Analysis

Identifying important consumer segments is a great way to better understand who you are marketing to. What’s the target demographic? For example, what’s their age, gender, education, income, occupation, hobbies, and values? In order to be successful with keeping your customers at the heart of your strategy, you need to look at them as being more than just a number. Start to think about who they are as people, and work towards building a relationship that keeps them loyal to your brand.

4. Create Buyer Personas

digital marketing, digital marketing strategy, customer service, marketing, marketing strategy, customersAfter you’ve conducted a customer analysis, you can work on creating their buyer personas. While identifying your target demographic is a key step, it’s not enough to really understand and know who your customers truly are. A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer, whereas a target audience is a particular group of consumers likely to use your product or service. By creating a buyer persona, you’re able to dig a little deeper into the things you may already know. As a result, you’re in a better position to attract high-value visitors, new customers, and leads that are more likely to benefit from your business – and who you are more likely to retain over time.

One step to doing this is to research what social media sites your customers are more likely to land on. It’s important to know how people are finding and consuming your content so you know where to focus your time and attention on. Research what influencers they might follow, where they hang out online, the strategies that are best suited for them. Once you know your buyer persona’s needs, you can create a marketing strategy that speaks to them.

5. Meet Your Customers Where They Are

digital marketing, digital marketing strategy, customer service, marketing, marketing strategy, customersA great customer experience is one that’s easy and one that doesn’t require a lot of effort on their part. Your customers want to be able to reach you whenever, and however, they want – especially in today’s digital world. And it’s your job to make that possible for them.  In order to proactively meet customers where they are, you need to understand where they’re at in the buyer journey. If you understand their goals and what stage of the buyer journey, they’re in, you can meet them there. The stages look like this:

  • Awareness Stage: Your customer is experiencing a problem they need to solve. They begin doing research to start looking for a solution to their problem.
  • Consideration Stage: Your customer has given a name to the problem and knows what the problem is. Now, they’re determined to find a solution. Most of the time, your customer will try to find their solutions online.
  • Decision Stage: Your customer has decided they need to make a purchase after doing research. Now, the only question is what exactly are they buying – and who are they buying from?

You want to meet them wherever they are in that journey. Let them know at the very beginning that you have a solution to the problem they’re trying to solve and be there. Whether it be on search engine results, websites, blog articles, or social media platforms, wherever your customers are, you should be too.

6. Be Empathetic

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You might be a business, but you’re human too – and your brand should showcase that human side. Not only that, but your customers are humans. While analyzing data is important, remember not to get too caught up in the numbers. Being empathetic and showing you case about your audience’s needs will really make a difference in your marketing strategy. According to Merriam-Webster, “empathy is the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner”. In short, empathy is the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes without having to necessarily experience the feelings yourself. There are a few ways you can show empathy to your customers.

  • Take a Trip Through the Funnel: Literally walk in their shoes as your customer. Take a trip down the path they may take when finding a solution to their problem. What did you feel by doing so? What triggered your emotions? Were you frustrated or happy with the outcome? Doing this will help you see the buyer journey from a different perspective and help you understand your customers better.
  • Listen Closely: You can understand a lot just by listening. Here is where you can try to lean on the Golden Rule – treat others the way you want to be treated. We al want to be heard, understand, and cared for, do we not? Take time to listen to their desires, frustrations and needs.
  • Help Instead of Sell: Of course, a priority of yours as a business is to make money. However, don’t get caught up in that as a first priority – because it’s not. Trying to push a sale too heavy without taking the time to get to know your customer will do nothing more than push them away. Instead, try focusing your marketing on helping your audience and showing them how you have solutions to their problems.

While analyzing data can help you learn quite a bit about your audience, being truly customer-centric takes empathy.

Want help with your digital marketing strategy this year? Get in touch with our team at VitalStorm. We can help you with all your marketing needs, including social media, SEO, PPC, website, and more. Call us today at 877-311-5695 or visit more of our marketing tips here.