Given everything that has happened over the last few months, it’s more important than ever to use all of the digital tools at our disposal to reach our audience. As more and more things move online from meetings to events to social gatherings, we thought we’d do a round up of all the tools that can be used to connect with your audience digitally.
Social Listening
One of the most important steps in connecting with your audience is getting to know them and then keeping up to date with what’s changing with them. One easy way to do this is through social listening which enables you to get to know your customers by collecting data from different platforms. There are lots of different tools and platforms out there to help you do social listening tasks and some do have free options that you can trial too. You can do your own research to find out more about your audience online but this can be very time consuming and you might not collate the data as quick as you would like! Tools such as Hootsuite, TweetReach and IFTT can help you zoom in on the information that you need. You can find out things like who your most influential followers are, track where your organisation is mentioned online and even flag up keywords being used across channels that are useful and relevant to you. This research will help you to find out more information on your customers such as their demographics, hobbies and interests, consuming patterns, online habits and pain points.
Use automation
Find a good CRM and use it’s automation tools to connect with your customers. You will find that many of these platforms will allow you to set up workflows and triggers that will push certain emails or messages to customers when they carry out certain actions.This means you can set up pathways and funnels for people to go down that will keep you in touch with interested customers. You will be able to send them useful information and CTA’s that should keep them interested in you and your organisation. There are lots of automation tools out there and you might even be able to get some of these functions from your suppliers in your industry.Make sure to ask before you look at more general CRM's as they can be quite expensive!
Use analytics
Using tools to track your analytics through your website is a great way of finding out what content is resonating with people who are visiting your site. You’ll be able to see how much time has been spent on your site and on each page with tools like Google Analytics (GA).The advanced analytics on GA allows you to see a variety of information about your website that will allow you to collate data to get a better sense of how you can build more of a connection with your audience depending on what types of content and/or services they’re interested in from your site. All you need to do is add the tracking code from your account to your website and you'll begood to watch those analytics come in!
Look for a great customer service tool
Customers are moving to more online methods of communication to connect with businesses. Engaging with customers reflects well on your brand so you should give your customers as many opportunities to speak to you as possible, whether that be on your social media pages, contact forms or even live messaging within your mobile app or website.Customer service tools also streamline your processes to make connecting with your customers that bit easier. Check out Nivo as an example. Nivo is integrated into our mobile and web apps so that our credit union customers can chat to their members whenever and wherever they are. This is what consumers are now valuing as part of their own customer experience and want that opportunity to interact on any platform.
Survey your customers
Sending your customer’s a survey may seem basic but you’d be surprised at the useful information and also new ideas that can come from speaking to them. After all, you are there to serve them so you should listen to what they want to ensure you maintain a strong relationship with them. Surveys are also an ideal way to connect as people can do them in their own time and not feel pressured into giving answers on the spot. It gives them time to think and to provide you with more value. You will find online tools like Survey Monkey helpful in building your own online questionnaires as their builder is user friendly and they also have free options, so you don’t always have to be shelling out to find out more about your customer!
Stay in the palm of their hand
Nowadays being digital means you have a number of different options to reach your customer. A great way that you can do this is by literally being in the palm of their hands via your own mobile app. Mobile apps are a great way to make sure your customer can interact with you in any point in the day and hugely expands your product and service offering. Consider this as part of your digital strategy going forward and you won't look back.
There are so many digital tools to use to connect with your customer and we've only mentioned a few but we hope some of these have sparked some ideas for you and hopefully you can find some new ways to reach your entire audience! Remember, sometimes slow and steady wins the race so make sure that if you can’t afford to go all out with a big bang, keep moving along steadily so you don’t lose any momentum with your audience!
Contact us if you any more advice on finding the right digital strategy for you.
