6 Jan 2014 From Social Media to Email: A Look at 3 of the Best Ways to Stay Connected to Your Customers Online Businesses Online
Thanks to the Internet, there are many ways that businesses today can connect with potential customers and also stay connected with those individuals who’ve already purchased their products and services. Marketing your business online is one of the most effective ways to reach a larger audience, increase sales, and keep customers coming back for more. Continue reading to learn about three of the best ways to use the Internet to stay connected to your customers and continue to encourage them to continue shopping from you.
Send Email Blasts on a Regular Basis
Email blasts have been around for many years, but today’s email marketing programs make it easy to create interactive, colourful, and engaging emails that your customers will actually want to open rather than mark as spam or delete before even opening them to see what is inside.
If you are on a budget, there are plenty of free services out there that allow you to create HTML-based emails that give you the opportunity to use high quality images of your products and services. You can even incorporate animated GIFs into your emails if you wish. And all of these images can link back to your official website or even to your social media websites where customers can connect with you directly, as well as connect with one another.
Post Social Media Updates and Interact with Followers
Speaking of social media, you need to be sure that your business is available for customers to find on the myriad social networking pages available, from Facebook and Twitter to LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram, and Pinterest. If you are not on these sites, people will not be able to find you if they search for you on them.
However, if you really feel that certain social media sites, such as Instagram, for example, are not appropriate for your business’s goals, then you certainly do not need to feel obligated to use them. Instead, utilise the pages that you can take advantage of fully and make sure that you are there every day to interact with your customers by answering questions and concerns and posting interesting content on a regular basis to keep people coming back.
Encourage People to Participate in Opinion Surveys and Polls
Another great way to connect with your customers is by sending out emails with links to opinion surveys that you are using in order to learn more about what your customers expect from you and what you can do to improve your business model. You can also use social media pages, such as Facebook, to post quick and easy polls that people can take at their leisure to let you know everything from their opinion on an upcoming product to how they felt while shopping in your store.
The Internet allows businesses of all kinds to stay connected to their customers. Knowing how to integrate the best ways to stay connected will ensure that you are always available to answer their questions and you can change the way that you do things to cater to their needs.
Nancy Baker is a freelance blogger and an ace creative write with many years of experience writing for top blogs. Nancy has written on a myriad of topics and has written several posts for us.