Building an integrated customer engagement strategy

There is always talk of brands being almost blind to the opportunities that their customers pose through their habits. This is reinforced by increasing demand from customers for personalised and flexible modes of engagement.

The rapid rise of millennial purchasers has left brands constantly rethinking their marketing strategies. It is clear that the consumer base has become far more varied and unpredictable.

Thus brands need to find a way to integrate the customer experience into every step of their practices, whilst taking advantage of data driven marketing, or risk not fulfilling customer needs.

The need for the right digital customer engagement strategy is further emphasised in  our “Digital and Physical Integration: Luxury Retail’s Holy Grail” study which highlighted that consumers buying luxury goods both online and in store spend around 50 per cent more per year than in-store only customers.

The increasing influence of online shopping further shows that brands can no longer rely on single channel marketing to engage their customer base.

Digital engagement should be segmented, delivering targeted campaigns to customers who crave a personalised shopping experience. Integrating customer data from various touch points helps enrich the customer’s shopping experience.

Changing customer habits

Brands must be more aware of how they market their products and recognise that consumer habits are constantly changing. This is why data-driven marketing is imperative to a successful strategy, as it is at the heart of targeting the sweet spots that draw customers to buy goods.

One significant trend that brands are well aware of is the need to be able to deliver the omni-channel experience. The digital native or millennial audience has been a hot subject in the industry, more so because their habits are forcing companies to endorse a strong omni-channel approach to customer engagement.

Brands are aware that such an approach is vital in preventing channel blindness and keeping customers connected on all sides. However, to fuse these distinct channels together, brands need to leverage the use of specialised technologies more.

The way to address these issues whilst keeping on top of consumer habits is for brands to invest in an integrated marketing strategy. Doing this would open up the opportunity to unleash revenue generating potential and influence customer purchasing decisions.

The various digital tools available encourage brand loyalty as they offer features, such as market segmentation using metrics based on demographic, behavioural information and pre-determined KPIs, such as engagement index or spending levels which allow brands to gather a deeper understanding of shoppers.

With continued development of technology, brands will need to be able to create integrated multichannel strategies which are compatible with every device.

Marketing SaaS platforms

Some brands are going one step further to integrate the right customer engagement strategy into their business goals – with the adoption of marketing SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) platforms.

These support brands to develop creative campaigns and embed other features such as emails, SMS messages and push notifications into promotional campaigns.

Customised integration between the planning, implementing and monitoring process is what will help brands to differentiate themselves from their competitors, with the ability to promote a seamless shopping experience for customers.

Brands now have the tools, to personally engage with customers across multiple channels and empower consumers to easily switch from one to another.

Furthermore, by partnering up with experts with the digital capabilities to support brands’ engagement strategies, brands will be able to be one step ahead.