A business is nothing without its customers, but will they come to your doorstep if you don’t engage with them? Here’s the right way to educate and inform your customers of your products and services.
With cutthroat competition in the modern-day business world, superior customer service is the only way to stay ahead. Customer service has two parts, the first being before the sale, where you market your products and brand, and the second being after the sale, where you provide after-sales customer services like refunds, free shipping, and complaints. This blog focuses on the second part – building customer engagement with your brand – using tried-and-tested ways to engage with customers.
Create a website blog
A website without a blog is like a person without a face. You get the first impression of a business, but you can’t tell what it’s all about. A blog helps customers who want to know more about you. You can have a blog up and running in no time, but the more challenging bit is getting traction.
The first rule of running a blog is to post content regularly. But not just any content – it should add value for your audience. For instance, if you run a plumbing business, you could post DIY articles on how to fix minor pipe leakages in the kitchen. That shows you share your customers’ pain and want to lend a hand.
People will always read experts’ opinions on any subject matter. As a business owner who is an expert in your field, your content should exude confidence and authority. That’s the quickest way for your audience to trust you and your services. And of course, what’s an article without SEO and keywords? Sprinkle in the most searched keywords in your articles to increase your online visibility on Google.
Create an FAQ and Knowledge Base on your website
There’s nothing worse than a confused customer who can’t find answers on your website. It’s normal for anyone to have questions before they buy your service. Do you provide a guarantee for your services? What’s your refund policy? And what kind of after-sales service do you offer? These are some questions your customers might be curious about.
Having an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section on your website is a must, especially if you’re selling an IT product like a VPN service or SaaS solution. Make a list of questions your customers are most likely to ask you. But it’s better to have a consumer’s perspective on what’s missing. Ask your existing customers to send you feedback on which questions to add in the FAQ section.
Apart from that, your website’s support page should have a Knowledge Base section. Knowledge Base is where you get all technical, and it’s where customers can find detailed answers to more complex questions. For example, if you are a VPN service provider, you can post a detailed guide under the question “how to set up my VPN manually via OpenVPN.” You can also post troubleshooting guides in the Knowledge Base.
Offer video tutorials
Do you know what’s better than a written how-to guide? A video tutorial! Ask yourself, would you read a long blog on how to install Windows 11 on your PC or would you just see someone else do it on YouTube? Of course, 9 times out of 10, you would prefer the latter.
It’s a hassle to read through walls of text and multiple website pages to figure out how to set up a piece of software on your computer? A video guide is undoubtedly more effective, less time-consuming, and provides a first-hand experience of how to solve a particular problem.
The trick is to keep it short and sweet. People just want to get the job done in as little time as possible. No one wants to hear a ramble – make sure you’re to the point but also engaging at the same time. If you have a reasonable budget, consider investing in high-end cameras, lighting, and a professional video editor who manages your video marketing from A to Z. If you’re a small company, however, you can always shoot videos on your iPhone.
But where would these videos go? Three places – your website, socials, and YouTube all come under the umbrella of online marketing. Your YouTube audience would dig up your socials, and your visitors on social media would land on your website. Ultimately, your website is where the sales happen.
Social media has enormous marketing power. You can reach out to hundreds of thousands of people in a few clicks, expending very little energy to educate and inform your customers all in one go. All social media avenues work in tandem.
How so? If you are posting articles on your blog, you should link them on your business’s Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter pages, so it gets more traction. In that way, anyone who follows you on social media has easy access to your website. Similarly, if you’re posting tutorials on YouTube, make sure you say something like “follow us on Instagram and Facebook or reach out to us on our website.” at the end of the video.
It might take some time for you to build an organic following. You could always sign up for paid social media promotions on Instagram or Facebook if you want to speed up the process. Just make sure you use creative Instagram post templates on your socials. Apart from that, paid campaigns help you target a particular segment of the audience – one that’s most likely to buy from you. That’s because social media platforms keep track of users’ search interests and, thus, show them relevant promotional ads.
A final piece of advice
The above avenues are excellent ways to educate and inform your customers. But you would need other tools like newsletters and email campaigns to convey information about changes in your refund policy, terms and conditions, and services. For instance, newsletters help your customers know the latest updates of your business and, therefore, increase engagement. In a similar vein, email campaigns make the consumer’s interaction with your business personalized.
