6 Clever Ways to Increase Customer Engagement in 2021

There’s a very important connection between online customers and Shopify stores, known as customer engagement. Highly engaged customers buy more, promote your brand, show more loyalty and bring your business major revenue.

Posted 2 years ago by Irina Lanina

Online shoppers are getting smarter and quicker because of rapid digital marketing and social media growth. And online brands need to keep up with those changes if they want to involve more customers in their online business. And in order to do that online business owners need to implement new and relevant customer engagement ideas all the time.

There are already tons of customer engagement examples that are working and growing online brands can look up to bigger brands and use different strategies: from creating engaging video content to implementing customer personalization systems. And in this article, I would like to talk about 6 clever ways you should use in 2021 to increase your store’s customer engagement.

1. Create Useful Content

The first and most important customer engagement strategy that you should pay attention to is creating useful and entertaining content to engage with your customers. This strategy brings major organic traffic to your online store’s website and social media pages. Let’s talk about online channels to share your content that is perfect for Shopify stores.

According to Wyzowl’s study, video traffic will represent 80% of all online traffic as every day there are half a billion people on social media watching videos. Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube are popular channels to place your videos on to engage with your customers and introduce your brand to new audiences.

Also, don’t lose an opportunity to make fun videos on TikTok as they get lots of attention. There are so many ideas, choose the ones that fit your brand the best.

There are also other ways to engage with different communities and attract desired audiences. You may share your knowledge about the products you sell and answer questions on forums like Quora and Reddit, this will grow your reputation in different groups of people and you may reach more of your potential customers.

2. Use the Power of Social Media

Social media platforms play a huge role in everyone’s life as they let us communicate with family, friends, celebrities, influencers and brands. It is used both by personal and business users worldwide making it much easier to promote your brand online even if you are on a budget. So how can you engage with your customers on social media?

Each platform gives you different opportunities to show off your brand. Choose platforms that fit your brand, for example, Instagram and Pinterest, share new products and updates, answer customers’ questions, talk about your brand, share reviews on your products and services.

Contact influencers that are related to your brand or whose audience would be interested in your products and make a collaboration. Social media will keep growing in the next few years so make sure you use this engagement channel.

3. Implement Rewards Programs and VIP Tiers

In 2021 rewards programs will be a very effective tool for customer engagement. Customers love getting rewards and points while they are shopping, it makes them feel valued by you and it makes them come back to your online store to shop more and spend their earned points.

Shopify’s App Store has a bunch of apps that help Shopify store owners build awesome reward programs.

One of the best apps is a marketing platform Growave, it lets your brand go viral by encouraging users to share your brand on social media and email, build strong customer relationships using your loyalty program, comments, and reviews, drive inspiration and increase conversion rates using customer reviews and user-generated content.

It’s the best investment in customer engagement as it’s a win-win strategy for both customers who get benefits and online stores which get loyal customers.

4. Use Smart Email Marketing

Email marketing is cheap and yet a very powerful customer engagement tool in eCommerce. Learning how to do it the right way may take your online business to the next level – it’s a great way to reach and engage with desired audiences in order to generate more traffic to your website.

Consider creating different email campaigns and sending personalized emails. This takes more time but you will receive at least 25% higher conversions and even higher traffic.

Whether it is a promotional letter to attract a newly targeted audience’s attention or just a friendly reminder to the customers that shopped with you before about your upcoming sale or new products, make sure it’s informative, entertaining, and not spammy.

5. Influencers

Collaborating with influencers and micro-influencers can rapidly boost up your business’s traffic in an awesome way. People love to hear from those who they like. Celebrities are of much importance in influencer marketing.

A person who has millions of likes and followers on their Facebook and Instagram accounts can increase the traffic of your website if they upload a message about your Shopify clothing store, for example.

Some bloggers are also influencers. You can pay them for writing positively about your store in order to generate more traffic but don’t invest more than your revenue. Always keep your budget in mind.

Also, you can give incentives to your customers who promote your brand. Your customers are the best influencers, and they can be great ambassadors for your brand. Rewarding them for influencing your brand can be beneficial not only for improving relationships but also for engaging them and building brand trust. 

6. Personalization

Personalization is important for customer engagement and that’s why digital marketers have been leveraging personalization in eCommerce for years.

In our regular lives remembering a person’s name and using it when you have a chance helps to make that person like you. It works the same way with personalization in eCommerce as customers want to be treated as individuals. Send out personalized emails, analyze previous shopping carts and choose the products that your particular customer would like, send a card and discount on their birthday.

Personalization is the key to win the person over and it is the future of eCommerce marketing.

Conclusion

In order to keep your online business growing and prospering in 2021 try leveraging a few of these engagement strategies, they will help you to encourage your customers to stay loyal, promote your brand and shop more along with you.

Keep trying new marketing tips to remain relevant and, of course, grow your sales this year.