Just like a road trip, what matters most are the stops and experiences along the way. If you only focus on the final destination, your customers will never get there. They need to interact, get to know your brand, love it, and want to come back!
This is why building a business messaging strategy that facilitates the transition through each consumer stage and encourages the final purchase is essential. Once you understand how customers engage with your brand, you can tailor your communications to achieve even better results.
In this article, we will explore how targeted business messaging, based on an "engage–convert–retarget" strategy, can guide your audience along the right path.
Engage-Convert-Retarget
Communication at every stage of the customer journey, through the engage-convert-retarget approach, focuses on ongoing interaction between a business and its audience, ensuring that every message is meaningful and leads to specific goals.
Initially, by seeking interaction, the business attracts the audience’s attention. Then, it aims to convert this interest into action, and finally, reactivates those who didn’t complete the desired actions or encourages repeat purchases, strengthening customer loyalty.
Engage: Connect with Your Audience
Engagement is the foundation of any successful marketing campaign. Through consistent communication, businesses can better understand their customers' needs and preferences, adapting their campaigns more effectively.
Best practices:
- Know your audience: Analyze data from previous business messaging campaigns, such as purchase history and engagement rates, to tailor your messages. The more personalized your content, the more likely it is to resonate.
- Timing is key: Send messages when your audience is most likely to respond. Find out the best days and times to send your campaigns.
- Consistency: Maintain a consistent tone and visual style in your messages to reinforce your brand identity. Whether using Viber or SMS for your business messaging, consistency builds trust and brand awareness.
Tips for enhanced engagement:
- Personalize your messages: Use customer data you’ve collected, such as name, location, birthday, etc., to customize your messages. Start with a personalized greeting and include elements like tailored offers or purchase incentives.
- Use rich content: Incorporate images, videos, or even polls to make your messages more engaging.
Example: A travel agency could send a Viber message with a short video of a popular destination, accompanied by a booking link. - Encourage interaction: Ask questions, include polls, or provide short surveys in your messages to encourage users to engage.
Convert: Turn Interest into Action
Engagement is just the beginning. The ultimate goal is to turn your audience’s interest into specific actions, such as a purchase, event participation, or newsletter signup.
Best practices:
- Clear and compelling CTAs: Call-to-actions (CTAs) are the “bridge” between engagement and conversions, so it’s crucial to emphasize their design and placement. Ensure your CTAs are clear, concise, and direct. For example, CTAs like “Buy now” or “Book a free consultation” are short yet effectively describe the desired action.
- Offer incentives: People are more likely to act if they have something to gain. Offering discounts, free product trials, or exclusive content can increase conversions.
- Keep it simple: Make the process as easy as possible for users. For example, add buttons or links that lead directly to landing pages or shopping carts.
Tips for increased conversions:
- Highlight the benefits: When designing your business messaging campaigns, focus on the value you provide to the consumer. Whether promoting a product, service, or event, emphasize the benefits they’ll gain from interacting with your business.
Example: A skincare brand could promote healthy skin, e.g., “Get glowing skin with our Vitamin C serum. Only today, shop with a 15% discount!” - Create urgency: Limited-time offers and scarcity tactics can boost conversions. Phrases like “Low availability!” or “Offer ends tonight!” can encourage users to act quickly.
- Evaluate and improve: Test the performance of different messages, CTAs, and visuals to see what resonates most with your audience. Adjust your campaigns according to audience preferences to multiply conversions.
Retarget: Reaching Out and Building Strong Relationships
Not all users will proceed to the conversion stage, which is why retargeting is essential. By re-engaging users who showed interest but didn’t complete an action, as well as existing customers to encourage repeat purchases, you increase the chances of recording more conversions and fostering a strong relationship with your customer base.
Best practices:
- Audience segmentation: Retargeting is more effective when based on personalized preferences and audience behavior. For instance, segment your audience into groups based on their actions and send them messages that match their needs.
- Mind the frequency: When re-engaging your audience, pay attention to the timing of your campaign. The best tactic is to reach out a few days after the initial interaction to remind users of your offers. However, don’t overdo it—too many messages can cause annoyance instead of a positive response.
Tips for effective retargeting:
- Personalize your offers: Tailor retargeting messages based on user behavior. For example, if someone viewed a particular product multiple times, send them a special offer for that product.
- Use multiple touchpoints: Combine various business messaging channels for optimal audience response. For instance, try sending a Viber message along with a reminder SMS to keep your offer top of mind.
- Monitor performance: Analyze metrics such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversions to understand what works and where there’s room for improvement.
Start now with Apifon and upgrade your business messaging, leading to higher engagement rates, more conversions, and stronger customer loyalty to your brand.
