Increasing CRO with Customer Communication

One undeniable aspect of being a part of a business is customer communication. At some point in every customer journey, you will need to define when, where & how your consumers will connect with your brand.

In B2C markets, the way your target audience reaches your inbox, comments, or DMs is different from that of a B2B organization, so think carefully about how you want to make yourself visible to the ever-curious buyer. Approaching customer relations and communication the right way can turn strangers into loyal, advocating customers.

Communicative Channels

Customer communication can take place over a variety of mediums, and it is important that you give your audience the chance to choose how they get in contact with you.

For example, millennials and Gen Z are notorious for avoiding phone calls, but Boomers and Gen X would rather speak to real-life, real-time individuals. It is important to access your demographics, then chose your communicative channels appropriately to maximize your chances of conversion. Demographics can be researched through analytical digital marketing tools such as Google Analytics.

Social Media

One of the more obvious choices of communication channel is through social media, this is usually done privately through direct messaging, however, the conversation can start via comments on social posts. So, how can you use social media to effectively increase your conversion rate?

Create A Persona

Many blue-chip brands have created successful personas via social media through clever messaging and consistent creativity, so the opportunities are huge. Aldi does this extremely well.

Curating a brand persona via social media gives your team the chance to handle messages in a slightly more laid-back manner, whilst still being professional and giving users valuable industry and purchasing information. Consumers may expect a happy middle ground of communication, somewhere between a friendly conversion and a professional email, but how you choose to handle your brand persona is completely unique to your business’ offering.

It is important to try to match the tone of your social media posts to how to communicate with your ideal audience’s TOV on comments or direct messages. Converting your target market may rest on your ability to meet them where they stand, use the phrases they use, the slang, their hobbies, values, interests, etc. Consistency across social media is where good, positive communication comes from.

Show Up Confident & Often

We have come to expect a certain level of regularity from our favorite brands on social media and updating your followers with company information once every few months just doesn’t cut the mustard. Social proof is real and should be considered by every organization, no matter the industry that you operate in.

Create a value-driven content calendar that enables you to think of and schedule social media posts in advance. Then, whether you conduct social media in-house, or outsource to an agency, your team has time to react to topical content that matters in your sector and manage your online communities.

Put simply, your followers want to know that you understand their blockers and go beyond their expectations. Analyzing your target demographic’s pain points and creating content around that will only help to improve your conversion rate. Alongside this, always post relevant testimonials, examples of work, and reviews.

Email

Despite a somewhat archaic reputation, email marketing still provides some of the best ROI in your digital arsenal. Communicating through email has always been a straightforward way of increasing conversion rates and handling customer enquiries. But, how do you improve CRO technique, here?

Mailing Lists & Lead Magnets

Capturing audience data is tricky enough in 2022, but there are still ways in which you can turn interested visitors into paying customers.

Website pop-ups, engaging CTAs offering freebies and exclusive discount codes, or premier content could all be great ways to increase conversions on your site. However, pop-ups that show up immediately are often discarded without even being read, so we suggest holding off on showing them the goods until your users have been active on your site for 60 seconds. Once they hit that mark, make sure to show them something original, no boring copy, no flashing lights. Get their attention and drive it towards that all-important click.

Offering something valuable to your website visitors will not only increase the chances of them converting on to your mailing list, but these lead magnets are the perfect starter for laying the foundations for remarketing.

Retargeting

Retaining customers is all about nurturing relationships and working with your audience to find out what they want from your organization post-purchase, they may even be content with a simple repost on Instagram, but this can be taken so much further. From that point on, you will always be the company that took an interest in them, as an individual and that can be invaluable.

ROI soars when companies utilize email remarketing effectively. If you’re an e-commerce business, make sure to always send basket reminder emails to your cart abandoners.

If you don’t have products that are directly available to purchase, customer funnels are still incredibly important. Working with a digital marketing agency can assist your workforce in narrowing down which subscribers should receive what emails and when helping to craft a seamless customer journey.

Formatting

A well-set-out email has an eye-catching subject line, captivating preview text, addresses the recipient by name, and provides many opportunities to click through to the website/app, etc.

Have you ever opened an email and there is so much information that you just don’t know where to look and end up discarding it? You won’t be the first and certainly not the last. We get that, as a business, there may be so much that you want to show and tell in your email marketing campaigns but don’t overdo it.

Make sure that each email has a purpose and topic, only try to include necessary information in it that will be a hit with readers. You should try to stick with a similar template when it comes to laying out your emails that keep firmly on brand. Use short-form text blocks and separate these out with imagery, videos, and CTAs.

Conversational Emails

Sometimes, customers will email your organization directly and the way in which your team responds will set the standard for their perception of your business and its capabilities.

Always with a warm and friendly tone, thanking them for any business that they have already done with your company. Be clear, concise, and offer multiple solutions, if possible.

Top Tip: Here is a great place to offer alternative communication methods, like a link to a Calendly, where users can opt to book a meeting with your team in just a few clicks.

Suggest to your email recipient that if they need further help, they should not hesitate to contact you. This is a great way to win customers over and make them feel welcomed into your business.

No robotic responses, just kindness and helpful staff sending a digital smile their way! Don’t forget to include necessary linking within an email and if possible, use a signature. Email signatures are a great trust signal for customers and help establish your business.

Often, what we find, is that not many people will respond to emails as fast as a social media message as businesses usually follow up with messages noting that an enquiry can take 24-72 hours or X number of working days for a response. This could be where it is useful to link in other channels of messaging such as a customer service social media page or a phone number for more urgent discussions.

Pay Per Click Advertising

PPC isn’t just about brand awareness and generating new leads, it can be a valuable tool in communicating with existing customers and upping CRO.

Retargeting Ads

It’s not all about what’s in their inbox. And remarketing doesn’t have to be all about targeting those abandoned checkout users. We believe that remarketing doesn’t get nearly enough credit because, when used correctly, it can spark interest in the minds of previous consumers, increase brand awareness of any new products/services to an already motivated audience, help to increase trust levels, and get your conversion rates to look even better.

Communication Automation in 2022

In 2022, more and more businesses are adapting to not having an employee sitting behind their desks all day waiting for inquiries to come in to respond as fast as possible. Social media platforms have introduced messaging automation, websites are using automated chatbots and even emails are firing back with automated messages!

A benefit of enabling your enquiries to be automatically responded to is that the person who submitted the question isn’t sitting waiting for a response they don’t know will ever come back.

Sending out an automatic message back to these users gives them the nudge that you are an active and legitimate organization and adding a timeframe to these communications can be even better!

A good thing about social media marketing on most platforms is that simple enquiries that are asked frequently can be chosen by the user and answered instantly without having to wait for individuals to respond, meaning that your team can work more efficiently.

Although automatic messaging and responses are great and help customers get where they want to be faster, there are still a large number of people who prefer actual conversation.

These people need to be taken into consideration when you automatically reply to tell them a time frame in which they should expect a response or that their question is being picked up by a team member. Getting back to a potential customer with a rapid response eliminates any thoughts for them to look elsewhere for what you offer.

Manual responses go a long way to building that C2B relationship too so don’t forget that, although depending on the size of your business and its reach we understand this can be difficult. Hiring an agency partner to help you manage these leads could be the way forward if your team is short on time and resources.

Summary

So, what have we learned? If you want to improve your conversion rate and help turn existing and new customers into loyal advocates, you need to cater to every one of your ideal audience’s communication preferences.

Whether that means going the extra mile in a social media DM or ensuring you check emails every so often throughout the day and set aside response time, it all improves the chances of converting individuals.

Creating detailed customer journey maps, buyer personas and pinpointing those all-important communication points will get you one step closer to that dream ROI.