The engagement stage in the inbound marketing methodology is a critical part of the user’s journey. This stage follows the acquisition stage – where the lead finds out about your business and enters their information in exchange for downloadable content such as an infographic.
As the name suggests, the engagement stage is where you “engage” the most with your customer. You will have to keep the lead “entertained”, communicate the value of your product or service while informing the customer how your product solves their problem.
Small business owners and even some digital marketers tend to overlook the importance of the “engagement stage”. Once they gained the lead information, they expected a sale to occur right away. Simply put immediately after you receive a lead, most of the time the lead is just not ready to purchase yet.
In this article, we discuss some tools and techniques that can be used in the engagement stage.
Tools Needed for Engagement Stage
The “engagement” stage requires a lot of work using email and content marketing. Without a solid foundation in either of these channels, you can expect to have a rough time keeping leads around long enough to see them finally convert into sales.
Website or Blog
If you were able to acquire a digital lead, I would assume you already have a website. But on the off chance that you were able to capture leads using offline methods, you should make a website for your business.
For those who already have a website, you need to keep the lead coming back to your site. The best way to keep the lead engaged and wanting to come back to your website is to offer fresh content by way of blog articles.
Having a blog on your site is a must-have to survive in today’s digital space. Blogs are great for SEO and allow you to communicate with your audience on a personal level to educate them on how your product helps solve their problem.
Customer Relationship Management System (CRM)
A customer relationship management system is much needed for a successful “engagement stage” strategy.
The “CRM” is used to keep track of the data information submitted from leads, for example, name, address, where did the lead come from (lead source), etc. This data should never be purged. Even if the lead is no longer interested in your product or service. You never know down the line whether the lead will become interested in your company again.
Essentially, the information in this system should be used to make the customer experience better. You can log down notes about the lead if you have a sales call, send them a happy birthday email on their birthday but more importantly keep track of their interests and cater messages to entice them to purchase.
Having a CRM system is very much necessary when implementing email marketing which is part of a successful engagement stage strategy.
Email Marketing Tool
Email marketing is going to be the most dominant tool to use to keep your lead engaged. Using email marketing is the preferred method of contacting a lead because it is not as intrusive compared to the modern-day equivalent, SMS messaging.
The user still has a choice to open or not open your email, to click on a call to action or not. There is still a sense of freedom. Your success is determined by offering a relevant, enticing subject line, great looking email template with engaging content, and a great offer for a call to action.
Another good thing about email marketing is that it can be automated based on the actions users take on your website. If a lead visits your website to read a blog or views a product page, you can send different messages based on the interest level in these two different scenarios.
Strategy Ideas for Engagement Stage
Blogs About Your Product to Entice Further Education
Blogging is a powerful tool used to keep customers engaged with your brand and products. A properly optimized blog will keep your readers trapped on your website and looking for the next opportunity to read more of your content.
For those starting a company blog, it might be a daunting task. Like what do I write about? The answer is pretty easy. Write about the problem that your product solves.
How do people find solutions to their problems in today’s modern world? They google it. That means it’s important for your product to be very relevant and is a good solution to their problems.
One thing you don’t want to do is create a blog piece that talks only about your product. Customers do not care about your product or your brand. They care about their problems being solved. It’s basic psychology, the preservation of self.
For blog topics, I recommend googling some of the questions a customer may write into the search engines to solve the issue at hand.
For example, if you are an automotive repair company that specializes in fast oil changes, I might look to create a blog post titled “How to change the oil in your car in less than 20 minutes?
Your ideal customer might not have any experience in changing the oil in their car but they are looking to learn how to do it. In the article itself, solve your customer’s problem! Teach them how to change the oil in their car quickly. At the end of the article, you may want to include a call to action to call your shop to schedule an oil change.
If you update your blog frequently with relevant content that solves the problem of your lead, they will create a connection with your brand associating it as a source that will solve their problems. You will become the number source for their research and they’ll be more likely to purchase your products.
Automated Emails to Help Users Learn About a Product
Once your blog is established, another good resource to look into for engaging your potential customers is using automated emails. If you create the perfect automated email workflow, your conversion rates will skyrocket with minimal amounts of effort.
Automated emails are becoming more useful as technology begins to improve. Gone are the days of crafting individual email blasts to be sent to a particular list. That is a colossal waste of time especially if the message isn’t customized for that audience. People love personalized email messages.
These emails work great especially when your website is fully integrated with your email service provider. My suggestion is when you create sign-up forms on the site, make sure you have a field that’ll capture the product the customer is interested in. This allows you to cater the content specifically to them.
If you have a sign-up form on a product page, that is even better! The name of the game is to target customers with the message they want to hear. Don’t be lazy and assume that a general email flow will generate results.
Targeted messages are where those blog articles will come in handy. If you create fresh and relevant content, you will keep your customers engaged with your brand and keep your product on the top of their minds. Create emails to include these handy pieces of content, and you will retain a decent share of your existing audience.
Product Videos or Testimonials That Demonstrate the Product in Action
Video marketing is very much underused by small businesses. It is widely assumed that video marketing requires an expensive digital camera and world-class editing. Those tools are great to have if available, but not a requirement.
The barriers to entry to adding video marketing to your business to engage customers aren’t as bad as you would think. All you need is default editing software (iMovie, Windows Movie Maker) and a modern iPhone.
The reason you want to use video marketing is that it allows the customer to see the product being used in action.
If you have two companies with a similar product and one company has a product video while the other doesn’t, you can guarantee the company that took the extra mile in making the video will have many more conversions than the company without. The more information you give the customer to make an informed decision the better.
If you create multiple videos breaking down your product, that is a great way to spread the content out over some time to keep users engaged. For example, have one video that serves as a basic overview of your product and then another video that goes into great detail about one particular feature of that product.
These videos can be linked-to an email or you can entice users to subscribe to your YouTube channel to ensure they will receive new video content when it comes out.
Conclusion
The engagement stage is one of the most overlooked steps in the marketing cycle by small business owners. However, it is very important. To achieve success in this stage, you need to have solid customer relationship management, and email marketing tool, and a website with a blog. Content is key for success in this stage. Creating fresh and relevant content that solves the customer’s problem is a great way to keep them engaged and ultimately purchase your product.
