How do you attract and engage customers?

“We come together ‘cause opposites attract!”

While Paula might be right about lovers, she’s not right when it comes to marketing ideas to attract customers. I don’t recommend trying the ‘opposites attract’ approach. Many businesses have been burned by promoting marketing campaigns because they were opposite of what their customers wanted. 

Even so, Paula Abdul won a 1991 Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video for this gem,, “Opposites Attract,” AND was nominated for Breakthrough Video at the 1990 MTV Video Music Awards. She did a great job of attracting and engaging her customers with this video by creating something new and innovative for the time – plus it’s catchy! (Take a few minutes to watch the video – You’ll be singing it the rest of the day…you’re welcome!)

Developing marketing for business owners that attracts and engages customers can be tricky. What will they love? What will inspire them to take action after seeing or hearing your message? 

Learning how to engage with customers requires strategy and experimentation. Are you ready for the challenge?

How do you attract and engage customers?

The best methods of attracting customers are built around a solid communications strategy that uses customer personas as the foundation. Knowing who your customers are – inside and out – is the best first step towards getting their attention.

There are a few key elements every persona should include:

• Demographics, such as their professional background, age, occupation, geographic area, etc.
• Psychographics that identify their goals/challenges, motivations, identifiers, their values, or beliefs.
• Behavioral patterns, such as their interests/hobbies, technology use, social media use, buying habits, and communication preferences.
• Specific information about your target audience that makes sense for your business, such as personality type (Enneagram, DiSC, Gallup Strengths, etc.), communication style (formal, casual, slang, etc), type of pet (dog lover, cat lover, iguana lover?), or favorite stores.

The important thing to keep in mind is that a customer persona should be custom tailored to whatever makes sense for your business, and what’s important to your customer! Then, use this persona to determine what they will love and what will create an emotional response within them to take action.

How will you attract and keep your customer?

After you have your customers’ attention, you want to keep it, right? In order to grow your business, retention is just as important as the initial attraction to your brand. Popular customer engagement strategy examples include:

• Loyalty programs (all retailers have them)
• Personalized marketing (using their name in your emails is the simplest form of this)
• Apps with push notifications (most retailers have these too)
• VIP access to events, special resources, or offers

Determining the best way to attract and keep your customers will depend on who your customer is – so be sure to know them well before deciding.

How do you attract customers quickly?

Ads are a great way to get in front of your customer quickly, as there are many options to target specific audiences within a variety of platforms. Google and all social media platforms offer targeted ad options to consider.

Crafted Voice Tip: If you are in a time crunch and need to attract customers quickly, you still need to start with a customer persona. You don’t want to say the wrong thing or share your ad on a platform where your target customer doesn’t hang out. It’s a waste of time and money. Trust me on this: start with a customer persona!

How do you engage customers in digital marketing?

There are a ton of fun customer engagement ideas out there, from product giveaways to appreciation events. When putting together a plan for digital marketing, consult your customer persona. 

• Step 1 is to know where they hang out online. That platform is where you need to target your efforts. 
• Step 2 is to leverage their interests and motivations (as revealed in the persona) to create a digital marketing campaign that will resonate with them. 
• Step 3 is to craft a marketing message that is true to your brand and appeals to a problem they have. You, of course, offer the solution. Using Donald Miller’s Storybrand framework is a great way to tell a story through your messages that propels action. 

For Crafted Voice, we engage our potential customers (business owners) on LinkedIn. By writing content in the form of posts, articles, and contributing to collaborative articles, Crafted Voice directly addresses the problems businesses face and provides solutions. This also builds credibility and provides a way for our current clients to endorse and interact with our content.

Building Customer Personas

Learn more about the e-course.

Want a professional to develop your personas for you? We do that too. Schedule a free consultation to chat with our team about your needs.