6 Tips to Re-engage Your Audience

In order to address a leak in your sales funnel, you need to have a clear understanding of each step of your customer journey. Identifying key touchpoints is essential for re-engaging previous customers and engaging cold (new) traffic to quickly rectify a decline in traffic.

So, what are some ways to get a better grip on what’s happening with your customers? Read on for tips on how to effectively engage, re-engage and target your customer base.

How to Boost Engagement

Once you understand the process of engagement and you’ve built up a following, you can then focus on what it takes to re-engage your existing audience at different points in the customer journey. Because engagement generally takes place at the top and middle of your sales funnel, whether your customers are repeat visitors or new means that similar activities will have similar results - for instance, discounts, promotions and contests would probably all attract both cold and warm traffic.

Engagement is all about quality, of course, and making ourselves stand out in crowded newsfeeds – it can certainly be challenging even at the best of times. So here are some general tips you will want to keep in mind for both customer engagement and re-engagement.

1. Understand Your Platforms Deeply

If you want to get a grasp on why your audience is doing what they’re doing, it’s important that you understand the channel that they’re hanging out on and why they’re there. Once you have a firm understanding of what they’re doing in these areas, you will be able to engage better.

Using unique, quirky questions on polls and surveys is a great way to get them talking, and quizzes linked with email newsletters can work wonders for collecting data for both engagement and re-engagement. Just be sure to change up the questions on polls, surveys and quizzes if you’re working specifically towards re-engagement, as the last thing you want to do is bore your audience.

For instance, if you run a Facebook group based on an interest or service, you have a group of full of people who have already taken a specific course or have used a particular product. Running a poll to see what they’re using the group for or even how many people prefer to follow on Twitter instead can give you insight into what they’re using social media for.

The idea here is not only to find out more about them but to get a sense of how and when they’re engaging (in real-time) as much as possible. Tracking when and how they are answering questions on quizzes and polls can give you just as much information as the answers themselves.  

2. Micro-Moments Matter

Micro-moments are becoming increasingly front-and-center and are a key part of the customer journey in the digital landscape today. Essentially micro-moments are the touchpoints that define each phase of the online purchasing decision-making process. The reason this differs from the standard buyer’s journey is that people are making decisions more quickly and in ways that are not location-based.

The challenge for businesses is capturing them in the moment that they’re making a super-fast decision about a service or product, without really knowing what is motivating customers buying decisions. One way to acknowledge this is by optimizing content to address customer needs based on queries.

One way to keep track of user behavior is by paying attention to bounce rates, which may essentially equate to “window shopping” as would-be customers compare prices and products with your competitors. You’ll also want to pay specific attention to mobile-based metrics to get a solid understanding of the sheer volume of micro-moment actions are happening over a given time frame.

3. Use Customer Data Tracking Strategies

This might seem like an obvious point, but really what re-engagement comes down to is paying attention to your customers in the first round. When you are able to sign them into your email newsletters or engage them in loyalty programs at the outset, you will be more in-tune with their desires and needs, thereby allowing you to fine-tune your re-engagement strategies.

Remember that this goes far beyond sales and actually has a lot to do with what value they perceive from the experience of engaging with your business. So, a simple “points card” may not mean much to them, but an opportunity to receive an experiential reward without spending a huge sum of money might just do the trick.

4. Consistency and Value

Engagement is all about brand awareness and brand loyalty, and in order to retain customers, you need to get them to trust you. To this end, stick with a consistent story and marketing plan. Ensure that your advertising materials are sending a message that resonates, and try to engage in complementary activities and offer incentives that your audience genuinely values.

Consistency counts too – be regular about offering up information that is truly useful to them. Deliver blogs and other on a regular basis and ensure that you’re sharing everything on your most valuable channels.

Don’t forget that the value that you deliver in an informational context must also be one step ahead of your competitors. So, if you’re telling people how to write a better blog, you’re going to want to include a free tool that you’ve designed, or link them to other resources, instead of just giving them a list of tips, for instance.

5. Focus on Segmentation

Have you ever wondered where to start when it comes to setting digital marketing targets that actually work? This should take place during the planning phase of a campaign.

First off, you’re going to want to target based on different audience segments. The main things you will want to look at are demographics – certain ones will likely have an impact on your overall strategy.

You’ll also want to look at the most valuable segments of customers, most likely the ones that are keen to keep returning and spending money. You also may want to group customer in accordance to channels – for instance, which ones are most likely to make a purchase via a mobile app.

You want to be specific but still realistic about your goals and have them be focused on measurable performance indicators that fall in line with your overall business and promotional activities. Your goals should go beyond profit, but not be so lofty that they are unrealistic.

Your goals should also be time-related, with realistically accessible points set out in accordance with other marketing activities.

6. Re-Target to Re-Engage

If you are already getting plenty of traffic, you’ll want to look at digital marketing retargeting (or remarketing), which can happen in various ways. Usually, it consists of getting display ads to previous customers or visitors.

Here are a few pointers on retargeting:

• You can put a retargeting pixel into the signature of an email and then follow them based on the segment of your audience that opened them. This way you ensure that you’re following people that are genuinely interested in your product.
• Focus on specific webpage visits. Locating the point of interest of various audiences can help you understand what they want and deliver relevant information to them.
• Offer a variety of ads. Having a consistent look but a few different formats or sizes of ads can help to improve the chances that you’ll catch their attention.

Whatever strategy you are using to retarget and re-engage, don’t overdo it – the last thing you want to do is come off as pushy or overly zealous and turn customers off. 

The Bottom Line

No matter where in the customer journey your current engagement and targeting activities are falling, you need to ensure that you’re sharing high quality, engaging pieces in order to improve conversion rates. Try for a variety of content and track your metrics carefully.

Always remember that, when it comes to social and content, you’re having a conversation that goes two ways. It doesn’t really matter if you’re customers are repeat customers or not – you always need to address their needs as carefully as possible to keep them coming back.