Introduction
The end of the year is a time for reflection on the events that transpired and resolutions to be made. It’s also the ideal time to reflect on your customer experience strategy, especially if you want to ensure growth continues in 2023. If you’re wondering how to improve your customer engagement for next year, consider these ideas:
Create Customized Gifts & Promotions
- Personalised gifts are a great way to add value and create lasting customer relationships.
- As you’re planning your year-end campaign, think about how you can give back to your customers in a meaningful way. This can be a physical gift or something as simple as including a handwritten note or personal video from the business owner wishing them well in their new year.
- If you need help figuring out where to start, consider what gifts your customers would most appreciate. Is there something they always ask for? Is there a hobby that they enjoy? A crucial upcoming milestone (like graduating college)? A cause that is close to their heart?
When you know what your customers want, finding an appropriate gift they’ll use and enjoy will be easier. You can also consider giving away a small token of appreciation, such as a branded t-shirt or stress ball, so everyone on staff feels included in the festivities.
Show Appreciation Through Social Media
- Use the customer’s name.
One of the best ways to show appreciation is through social media. The key is to use the customer’s name in your post, but not in a boring way that makes you sound like a robot reading from an old script. Be creative! Maybe use Emoji characters or gifs to make it more personal and fun.
- Include a personal message
After using their name, add something about yourself or your company that makes it clear that this was written for them specifically and not just another generic post about how great your company or products are. You can also tell them why they should follow you on social media (if they aren’t already) or offer them an incentive for doing so (like free shipping). Make sure to send along a picture, too—that’s another easy way to connect with customers who aren’t familiar with your business yet!
Be sure to include a personal message. It seems like a simple step, but many people forget about it. A personal statement will help your customer feel valued and appreciated—and that’s precisely what you want them to do after reading your thank-you note!
Organise A Digital Event Or Contest
- You can use a platform like Facebook or Twitter to host an event and make it easy for your customers to participate.
- Many tools make it easy if you need more resources to set up your event. For example, Canva makes it simple for anyone (even non-designers) to create customised images with just a few clicks. This is great if you want something quick and simple but still eye-catching.
- Hosting a giveaway is always a fun way of engaging your audience. You can get them involved by asking them questions in advance that they need to answer before entering the giveaway! The more personalised your prize is, the better chance of being well-received by everyone who enters – even if they don’t win!
- Hosting polls allows people to view them on their phones while waiting in line at the supermarket/ grocery store (or wherever else) because they’re actively looking at their phones instead of checking out other stuff nearby, so those moments when everything feels slow enough where people could spend time doing something useful without feeling rushed later downstream from when most companies would’ve given up on trying because ‘it’s too slow’ type reasons. So maybe my point isn’t apparent here, but I like that polls are part of this whole thing because of how much attention goes into ensuring every question feels relevant before asking anything else.
The more you know about your audience, the easier it will be for you to create a giveaway that people will love! If you want to learn more about better engaging with your audience online, check out our blog post on how to use polls and surveys in email marketing.
Make sure to send a thank you note to your clients in whatever way you choose.
You’ve spent the last year building your business and strengthening customer relationships. Now, it’s time to show them how much their business means to you by sending a thank you note.
Ideally, this shouldn’t be an email; it should be handwritten on good-quality paper and mailed in the mail—but if that’s not possible for you right now, get creative! Thanking customers via phone call or text message is also acceptable.
In addition to thanking your customer for their business, make sure they know they can reach out to you anytime with questions or concerns about their account or products. This will help ensure both sides of the relationship are satisfied moving forward.
Bottom-Line
So, what are you waiting for? It’s time to get creative with your end-of-the-year customer engagement strategies. So, get going, get out there and start brainstorming ways to make your customers feel special this holiday season! And if you need inspiration, don’t forget all the tools available online today.
If you have any questions or ideas for topics we should cover in future blog posts, please let me know in the comments below so I can consider them for future posts!
Who am I?
I am Dotun Adeoye, a Business Growth Strategist & Author of the 5 Pillars of Business Growth.
I’ve built up my experience via serial entrepreneurship, consulting leadership roles in business growth, business development and product innovation in large companies worldwide in the last 29 years.
Today, I consult with large businesses on how to sustainably grow their businesses, sustain infinite growth, ensure business continuity and achieve a legacy.
Hire Dotun Adeoye to Speak Virtually or In – Person at your company’s event to cover this or other topics. You can also get in touch via +44 203 097 1718