5 Steps To Boost Your Engagement As A Small Business

As a small business, it can be hard to boost your engagement...

1. Meet your customers where they are

One of the number one rules for boosting your engagement is to follow your customers’ preferences. Your customers are busy people, they have other priorities besides your business. That means they want to interact with you in a way that is convenient for them.

As a small business owner, that means making it as easy as possible for your customers to receive and respond to your messages and content. That could be via Facebook, Twitter, email, text message or a leaflet they receive in the post, or something completely different.

There’s a huge range of different communication channels you can use to engage your customers, the important thing is that it’s the right one for them. If you’re not sure how your customers prefer to communicate, it’s worthwhile testing out a few different channels or even conducting a quick survey. In this instance, the customer knows best!

2. Think about multi-channel engagement

Marketing has changed a lot in the past decades and it’s not enough just to have one marketing channel anymore. There’s a whole host of new ways to communicate and interact with your customers and that means you need to get a little bit creative.

Once upon a time, it might have been enough to run a print advertisement for your business and watch the sales come in but now there is a huge diversity in the ways people receive information and services. 

This means that you need to be adaptable and embrace a range of different methods to help boost your engagement. For example, even if you have a physical storefront, you could also benefit from using email marketing, Instagram, and local advertisements to increase your brand awareness. 

Whatever channels or platforms you’re using, make sure you are driving your customers towards a clear goal. Make it simple and make it targeted: pick up the phone; visit our store; go to our website. Try to keep a cohesive look too, the aim is for customers to instantly recognise your brand whenever they see it.

3. Create high-quality content

When you’re using multiple platforms to boost your engagement, you also need to think about the types of content you are putting out. Are you adding value for your customers and followers? What are you offering them to make them stay and find out more about your business?

High quality content looks very different depending on your industry. If you’re a lifestyle brand, for instance, you may be looking to produce inspirational content. This goes for online and in-store experiences. On the other hand, if you are offering professional services, your content is more likely to lean towards informational articles, explainers and how-to videos. 

The important thing to remember is that all the content you produce should be adding value to your brand, be that telling a story, solving a problem or building a community.

4. Focus on relationships not sales

Now more than ever, the way businesses interact with customers and clients is about the experience. Every form of correspondence you have with your customers should be working on building a relationship with them. 

If you’re looking to boost your engagement, try to start a conversation with your customers and target audience. One simple way to do this is to encourage user-generated content. You could get your customers to share photos of them using your products or try running more polls and competitions on your social media. By sharing content from your customers, you can help them to feel a part of your brand story.

5. Listen to feedback

Your customers want to feel like they matter to you so it’s really important that you take the time to listen to feedback and respond to comments and complaints.

On social media, this involves replying to direct messages, comments and tagged posts in a timely manner. Ideally, you should be checking your social channels every day and responding to any communication with personalised messages. Not only does this make sure that you’re around to put out any fires before they start, but you’ll also be working on building relationships too.

By actively engaging with your audience and starting a conversation, you can build a more personal connection with them and increase the sense of trust and loyalty they feel towards your brand. Even small gestures can make an enormous difference to how customers feel and every small interaction adds up to more engagement.

Boosting your engagement as a small business doesn’t have to be difficult, but it does take patience, planning and a personal touch. For more help and advice on generating engagement, contact us for a digital marketing consultation.

At Start Up Marketeer, we put small businesses first. We’re passionate about providing jargon-free advice that anyone can understand and actionable tips that can make a real difference. Head to our website for more details on what we do and don’t forget to check back here for more blogs on small business marketing soon!

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