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As the world becomes more connected following the mainstream adoption of the online ecosystem, more brands than ever before are struggling to connect with their customers. Changing economic conditions, a changing consumer viewpoint, and evolving technology have driven a gap between brands and their target audience.
The multifaceted and thriving digital landscape has allowed businesses and brands to have a wealth of information and consumer data at their disposal, allowing them to create more personalized online experiences and cater to the digital marketplace.
However, at the same time these technologies have brought more attention to the importance of customer preference, the same systems have simultaneously created a disconnect between brands and consumers.
Related: 8 Effective Ways to Connect with Your Customers
The path to separation
The strategies that helped marketers reach their audience no longer work as effectively as they once did. Approximately 30% of marketers receive moderate to no returns on their online and digital marketing investments.
Even with unlimited access to consumer information, various researches show that 68.6% of companies have little understanding of how their customers think and how to meet these evolving needs.
Although technology is at the core of the outage crisis, other key factors, including hybrid and remote work models, have also led to a sense of less engagement between teams and customers.
In the 2022 State of Remote Work report, nearly 52% of employees who started working remotely due to the pandemic feel less connected to their co-workers. Efforts to return employees to the office over recent years have been met with hostility, with the majority of workers now favoring increased independence and flexibility in their daily working lives.
The disconnect between brands and customers, as well as brands and technology, has led to a stagnant growth of online representation – diminishing business performance.
While many other challenges can present themselves to business owners and entrepreneurs, reconnecting with customers in a digital-centric world has caused far greater problems than many could have imagined.
Reunification of the brand and the consumer
Managing multiple customer retention strategies across different platforms requires not only knowing how to manage all of them, but also a large team of seasoned professionals who know how to efficiently implement these strategies without fail.
While this does not seem impossible, it seems beyond the reach of small businesses and startups, leveraging key strategies that ensure continuous brand development and message delivery can become an effective tool through which marketers can narrow the gap between brands and customers.
Related: Harness the power of data to boost your sales – and your connections with customers
Meet customers wherever they are
An effective growth strategy begins by building awareness of where customers are and refocusing on overall customer contact through these channels.
Brands often look at customers through the point of view of management, hoping to communicate a marketing message from every possible angle. Unfortunately, these strategies create an additional breach between the two, making it difficult for brands to see increased messaging engagement.
Inundating consumers with targeted ads, emails, blog posts, and online content has only added to digital fatigue. Start by focusing on a growth strategy that seeks to enrich the customer journey online, and use these channels to foster more meaningful communications.
Have a data driven approach
Ironically, data can be a key component of a growth marketing strategy that can help bring the brand back into the customer’s peripheral view.
Using data ensures that companies have a clear understanding of where to find their target audience, and how to communicate their brand message effectively. Consider where customers often start their online journey, track their online activity, and what their preferences are in terms of social media platforms and other digital channels.
A report by BrightEdge Research found that 68% of online interaction begins through search engines. Using these metrics in conjunction with customer activity really starts to build a clear picture of how the data can create a more proactive marketing approach, without having to overwhelm audiences.
Evolve beyond CRM technologies
Instead of managing customers through outdated CRM technologies, try instead focusing on how to structure a platform that can provide marketers with better flexibility and scalability. Building a centralized and consistent customer experience requires companies to migrate their data away from siled databases.
However, evolving beyond the ordinary requires significant financial input, particularly in the case of using cloud-based shared data platforms.
Building more fluid connections between marketing and sales techniques and customer feedback ensures that brands can deliver higher-quality messaging, but at the same time improve overall customer engagement.
More consumers than ever before value things like speed, convenience, knowledgeable assistance, and on-demand customer service after a report found that 80% of American consumers now consider these important elements part of their positive customer experience journey.
Adopting ways to break down the various silos within a business, and integrating these efforts into one advanced platform gives companies a technological advantage over their competitors.
Related: These are the biggest takeaways from 2022. What’s in store for 2023 for customer experience?
Improve purchasing channels
Now more than ever, it is important for brands to step up to the plate and create purchasing channels that meet the needs of their target audience and help improve the overall online experience by improving back-end sales systems such as fast, secure and reliable checkout features on e-commerce platforms.
Not only do online stores need to be more customer-oriented in terms of checking out purchases and reducing the possibility of cart abandonment, but there needs to be significant efforts directed towards creating mobile-friendly experiences.
An increasing number of internet users are reporting the use of shopping apps on smartphones and/or tablets, with research showing that 69.4% of online consumers now prefer these methods in contrast to regular websites.
Taking the time to properly incorporate these features into your digital marketing strategy may seem a bit far fetched during the early stages of business development. However, these are the consumer trends that are reshaping the way brands can communicate with their audiences and fuel the growth of their digital impression.
It’s time to stay in touch
Building a marketing growth strategy that ensures effective delivery of brand messages requires companies to be more flexible and adaptable in a rapidly changing digital ecosystem.
With consumers constantly evolving and trends changing quickly, uniting with loyal customers means brands need to better understand where to find their customers online, but also how to create an online experience without overwhelming them at the same time.
Finding a balance means that companies and marketing teams need to be more open to trying new approaches, but at the same time, developing unique strategies for their customers, brand and online presence.
