CX Marketing strategies have changed a lot lately, notably due to the pandemic. Customer journeys have evolved into hybrid journeys, and customers themselves have changed. Today, brands are faced with a paradigm shift: customers want to be taken into consideration, they want transparency, authenticity, fewer but more relevant outreach… They no longer take everything brands say...
CX Marketing strategies have changed a lot lately, notably due to the pandemic. Customer journeys have evolved into hybrid journeys, and customers themselves have changed.
Today, brands are faced with a paradigm shift: customers want to be taken into consideration, they want transparency, authenticity, fewer but more relevant outreach… They no longer take everything brands say at face value.
1. Publishing Customer Reviews is part of a good CX Marketing Strategy
Customers no longer trust what brands say, but they trust other customers. Word-of-mouth has always been a driving force behind customer behavior, and it is now stronger than ever.
If brands want customers to perceive them as authentic, they need to introduce some form of word-of-mouth. The best way to do this is to publish customer reviews of products and services. However, there are a few rules to follow when publishing online reviews.
Here are our best practices:
- Collect insightful feedback based on the customer’s experience via customized surveys sent at the right time (i.e., for a product review, wait a few days to leave the customer time to actually use it).
- Publish ALL reviews. It’s tempting to only publish raving reviews. However, if you only publish good reviews, you’ll lose customer trust. Customers want transparency, so publish all reviews, good AND bad.
- Answer all reviews. This shows that you care about your customers. They will also feel reassured and buy from you with peace of mind, knowing that someone will be there to help if they have a problem.
Why you should implement this strategy? Publishing online reviews has become the norm. Brands that aren’t collecting and publishing reviews in one way or another are missing out on a great way to reassure their customers and boost conversion rates.
Online reviews are written social proof. Brands can take this one step further and many have already embraced the User Generated Content trend.
2. Leverage User-Generated-Content
User-generated-content is a popular term. To put it simply, it refers to any form of content created and published by individual consumers about products or services that they have used. This content is not made by brands. It can take on any shape or form: social media posts, pictures, reviews, videos, etc.
In terms of customer UGC, videos are one of the best ways for brands to display their products in an authentic way.
The brand isn’t presenting their product, but an actual customer is, as they try out the product in real life, at home. Publishing videos on a product page significantly increases conversion rate, as customers can see how the product is actually used and if it meets their needs.
Furthermore, in terms of brand image, it shows that the brand isn’t afraid of showcasing its products.
Video is one of the most popular formats on social media. Customers love it when brands display this kind of honest and authentic content, and it also builds trust.
Why you should implement this trend. Displaying videos on your product pages has been proven to increase conversion rates and ROI, while also improving your brand image and creating brand ambassadors.
User-generated videos are made by regular people who love your brand. However, you can also leverage influencers as well.
3. The Rise of Influencer Marketing
One of the most important strategies in marketing today is influencer marketing.
As mentioned earlier, word-of-mouth is an essential part of today’s marketing mix, and the rise of social media has led to the emergence of influencers.
As you already know, an influencer is someone who has credibility in a certain topic – fashion, DIY, culture, etc. – and an audience, a community of dedicated fans who follow his or her posts on social media networks and blogs.
The biggest influencers are well known in the media and have become brands themselves. Partnering up with them provides great exposure, but it is very costly, meaning that ROI isn’t guaranteed… Which is why reaching out to micro and nano influencers is a smart move.
Showing your products to a small but dedicated audience and working with influencers that are trusted by their followers, will make you seem more authentic. But working with micro and nano influencers doesn’t mean restricting your marketing to a very small audience, quite the opposite!
By presenting your products to multiple niche communities, you may get less exposure, but your engagement rate will be far higher, meaning better results for you as a brand in terms of image and conversions.
Why you should implement this trend. Influencer marketing shows no signs of slowing and is one of the best ways for brands to appear authentic and reach hyper qualified audiences. If you want to stay on top of the competition, develop your brand image and boost revenue, then jump on board now.
4. CX Marketing Live Monitoring
Having a great and authentic marketing strategy is essential. However, you need to make sure that you’ve got the fundamentals covered!
For example, if you are a retailer with lots of stores, make sure that all your basic services are satisfactory. Waiting times for check-out, merchandising, quality of products, quality of the reception by sales assistants, responsive management, etc.
If one of your services is lacking in quality, it won’t be as efficient as it could be, no matter how good your marketing strategy is.
Continuously monitoring the customer experience is a must to keep up with today’s customers.
However, measuring key indicators like the NPS and the CSAT is not enough. Indicators are great tools to find out more about the customer experience at a specific point of time, but they don’t help to understand why your customers are giving you good or bad reviews.
By collecting insightful feedback, analyzing it and turning it into operational action plans, your teams will be able to act immediately if there’s a problem.
What’s more, you’ll be able to improve your customer journey, be it physical, digital or hybrid. A Voice of the Customer platform may be the best way to achieve this, depending on your organization.
Why you should implement this trend. CX Live monitoring is essential, especially today, as customer experience has become one of the key differentiating factors in most markets. Keeping your customer happy is not always enough, you should also strive to make their life easier and to “wow” them.
5. Hyper-Personalized Marketing
By continuously monitoring your customers experience, you can also enrich your CRM, and get to know your customers even better. Once you have enough data in your CRM, you can launch hyper-personalized marketing campaigns.
What’s the purpose?
Launching hyper-personalized marketing campaigns enables you to target exactly what the customer wants and needs. The customer receives offers that meet their actual needs, and the brand’s conversion rate is optimized. It’s a win-win situation!
This type of hyper-personalized campaign is made possible by using artificial intelligence, taking into account multiple criteria and everything the brand knows about its customers.
Why you should implement this trend. Hyper-personalization is a trend that has been developing for many years. Today, with the rise of AI, it has become a key part of most marketing strategies, and a crucial lever to boost conversion rates and ROI.
Should you implement these 5 trends into your marketing and CX strategy right now? Well, that depends on where you’re up to in terms of customer knowledge.
If you already have a state-of-the-art Voice of the Customer platform and program, chances are you’ve already implemented most of the CX trends we’ve discussed. But are you as advanced in your marketing as you are in CX?
Conversely, if your marketing is top notch, is your CX good enough to optimize every point of contact in your customer journey?
By implementing these 5 key trends in your marketing and customer experience strategy, you generate value from and for your customers, which is a great way of staying ahead of the competition and generating more revenue and ROI.
The SKEEPERS solutions have been specifically designed for that purpose. These trends are complementary, and so are the solutions we offer.
Want to know more? Contact us!