Engaging Your Customers Can Help You Accelerate Your Business Growth

Do you feel like you’re putting the “pedal to the metal,” spending as much money as you possibly can on advertising, but yet aren’t able to accelerate the development of your company? The truth is that if your clients aren’t interested in what you’re offering, it may not matter how much money you spend on advertising. In the same way that a vehicle in neutral will not move (no matter how much gas you put in it) unless the transmission is engaged, your company will not move until your consumers interact.

What exactly does the term “engage” mean? In a dictionary, the following are three meanings that you could come across:

1. To draw someone’s attention to oneself

2. to form a meaningful relationship with someone

3. Putting oneself in a position where one can begin to operate

The following is a reasonable working definition for engaging your consumers if you combine the three of them together:

Engage the attention of your consumers in an effort to build an authentic connection with them that will ultimately lead to their participation in your company’s growth.

Let me offer various degrees of potential client interaction, illustrated by this pyramid model, so that you don’t have to spend too much time thinking about how to engage your consumers (we’ll get to it later).

The complete possible market is represented at the base of the pyramid. In other words, all of the prospective clients on the planet are They have promise, but at this stage, they have shown no degree of involvement with you or your organization.

We have all used the phrase “No, just looking” when asked by a salesman whether we needed assistance; the name of the next level comes from this phrase. The fact that we are searching indicates that we are more involved than the general public, but we have not made any significant commitments.

Just a little farther than that Simply looking is the same as purchasing. This is the pinnacle of corporate aspiration for the vast majority of organizations. Make a transaction, take a profit, and then move on to the next consumer in line.

Above and beyond just purchasing, is the act of purchasing again. Generally speaking, this is the level at which the consumer is satisfied enough with their initial purchase that they would be prepared to return and make another purchase. As a result, generalizations are used since it is probable that they do not have any other possibilities and, as a result, they have no other choice. In terms of your role as a company owner, this is an excellent level. In most circumstances, serving a repeat client is less costly than serving a new one since they are already acquainted with you and your business and therefore require less effort to service. The greater the number of clients who return to purchase from you, the more successful your business will be.

However, there are consumer involvement levels that are much greater than the Buy Again rate. The first step is to provide feedback. Customers that are prepared to invest more of themselves in your business than simply their money are said to be loyal customers. They accomplish this by taking the time to educate you on how to improve your products and services.In fact, they go beyond the traditional notion of consumers and take on the role of co-producers, assisting you in ensuring that your product is precisely what the market wants and requires. Two wonderful things occur as a result of the process: 1) As your product improves, so will your sales; and 2) As a client invests in your company, they will become even more loyal and will advance to the next level of your organization.

Telling Others is located at the very top of the pyramid. At this point, your clients are so satisfied with your products and services that they can’t keep their mouths shut about them. It turns out that they are co-promoters, a highly effective sales force who are eager to tell complete strangers and their closest friends about how fantastic your firm is. As consumers in general become more cynical and less trusting of conventional advertising, the success of your business will be heavily reliant on the number of customers who become advocates for your products or services.

After describing the model, allow me to emphasize that I am well aware that it is simplistic. The majority of clients will not go through each level of the program. Some will get to the position of promoter without ever giving feedback. Some people will post comments and then disappear, never to be seen again. However, despite its simplicity, I feel that the model may be useful in grasping the notion that consumers can become far more important to a company than they are simply worth the money they spend on products and services. Take into consideration the following:

The purpose of this graphic is to demonstrate in relative terms how much a firm gains financially from a client at each degree of interaction that is conceivable. Just Looking, on the far left, represents a situation in which expenditures connected to a client often outweigh profits from that customer. For example, if you spend money on advertising and are successful in attracting the attention of a consumer who is willing to look around, you have succeeded. If you get to that stage, you’ve spent more money (on advertising) than you’ve earned ($0 in sales from the consumer).

For those clients who take the initiative and purchase your item, the likelihood is that you will pass the threshold into positive returns. If a consumer purchases several items from you, your earnings from that customer will rise. It is important to note that the slope of the line gets steeper throughout the period of purchasing again. Due to the fact that selling to returning customers is less costly than acquiring new customers, this is true for most businesses. Most organizations spend between five and ten times more on new clients than they do on increasing the amount of money they make from existing customers. Obviously, the cost of acquiring new clients is far higher than the cost of maintaining existing ones. The less apparent explanation is that a frequent client is already familiar with how your product or service operates and hence does not need as much “hand holding” during the process as a first-time consumer.

Its slope grows progressively steeper as the curve progresses towards the higher degrees of involvement, such as giving feedback and telling others, suggesting that much bigger returns are available. There are two reasons for this: 1) The additional expenses required to move clients into these tiers are minimal, and 2) the potential returns include a built-in multiplier effect, which means that the actions of one customer may influence the actions of many other customers (see Figure 1).

A single consumer’s input into improving your product not only benefits that one customer and encourages him or her to come again, but it also benefits all of your customers and raises the possibility that they will return more often. Perhaps even more obviously, a client who starts to spread the word about your company brings not only her own purchases but also the purchases of numerous new consumers to your establishment.

Finally, engaged consumers will assist you in improving your offering. They will actively market your product. They will enhance your bottom line. They will also, to a significant degree, decide how quickly your firm will expand. Take into consideration not just how many “Just Looking” clients you can bring in and convert to “Just Buying,” but also how you can get your “Just Buying” customers completely involved in your business as you explore the expansion of your company.