Engaging customers in the right moment
- 10 June, 2015 10:00
Fostering communities and dialogue via social, identifying key touchpoints across an end-to-end customer lifecycle, and upping the ante on value-based content and tools, are just some of the ways marketers are striving to better engage with customers in the right moment.
These activities, as well as the role data, context and operational agility play in meeting modern consumer expectations, were discussed at a recent roundtable held by CMO and sponsored by Twitter, entitled ‘Finding the right customer moments’.
Marketers attending were united in their belief that successful customer engagement requires targeted, personalised programs based on behavioural and contextual insights. Thanks to digital and social channels, the data and mechanisms are available to do this, and many marketers are investing in and experimenting with new forms of customer interaction as a result.
Yet legacy technologies, siloed operational structures, risk aversion and data analytics immaturity must be overcome if an organisation is to achieve the real-time responsiveness customers are demanding. Many marketing functions are also still coming to terms with what customer engagement across the lifecycle means, and how to best utilise content and social channels to make that happen.
Following the roundtable conversation, Twitter’s head of online sales, Suzy Nicoletti, talks about how social can play a role not only in acquiring customers at the right moment, but also make customer engagement across the lifecycle possible.
How do you define social’s role in the customer engagement lifecycle – is social a marketing, engagement or customer service channel, or all three?
As with any brand activity, it depends on what objectives you are trying to achieve, but many brands are using social for all three. Twitter is perhaps the purest engagement platform out there to have meaningful one-to-one conversations with both existing and potential customers. And in Australia we are seeing more brands adopt Twitter as a primary customer service channel due to its speed and transparency.
This is very much in line with how we have been seeing brands derive success from our platform in other markets.
At which stage of the customer journey is Twitter having the most impact?
We have multiple Australian case studies that show brands finding success with Twitter all along the customer journey, along with international brand examples.
During the research phase, they share content that educates and builds awareness. During the consideration phase, it’s all about differentiating the product and sharing promotional deals. And post-purchase, we see brands sharing positive reviews and Tweets, providing crucial third-party recommendations to other potential customers.
How have brands tapped into Twitter to optimise a marketing activity, or drive customer engagement to new heights?
Australian employment site, Seek.com, asked job seekers to submit 140-character CVs via Twitter. Each submission was matched directly to an open, relevant job listed on Seek.com. The campaign resulted in 64 million impressions, 12,600 engagements on Twitter, and a very high engagement rate.
Bookworld wanted to remind Australians about the benefits of buying books from local retailers. It wanted to promote its Book Stop and Pop Up campaigns via promoted trends, tweets, and accounts. The result was 33,000 engagements, 145,000 video views, and a massive 59 per cent increase in sales, year-on-year.
