Every company starts with a dream, and every dream becomes a reality with a start-up. Most of the start-ups are huge on the idea and short on cash to make their presence felt in the market.
Unfortunately, nine out of ten start-ups fail, and that’s the fact that many entrepreneurs refuse to believe. Why?
There are several reasons, such as:
- poor products
- insufficient funds
- lack of proper planning
- poor customer interaction
- improper allocation of funds
- meager marketing
How can a start-up ensure its survival then? ‘Customers!’ Everything has got to do with customers and customer engagement. The best way to reach out to customers is your company’s presence on the internet.
In the present market, having a presence on the internet is vital to turn a start-up into a profitable venture. There are several ways in which you can make your presence felt online. But most of the techniques give amazing results to established companies. How can you improve the online engagement of your start-up?
There are three unique ways in which you can ensure that you can keep your customers engaged online.
#1: Attractive & Informational Website
Every new start-up needs an attractive website that provides all the information that you want to impart. A website is a cost-effective and convenient way to lay out the road map, explain your ideas, keep the stakeholders informed, and keep the customers engaged. But online visibility isn’t enough to improve online engagement of your start-up. Your website needs to be informational and attractive, as well.
How can you make your website reliable and attractive? With the help of WordPress, you as a start-up can improve your website with its content management system. As WordPress is a free platform that is supported by a community of thousands of professionals, it is the best choice for start-ups with limited funds and in dire need to improve online engagement.
There are several benefits in opting for WordPress, such as:
- You can choose to migrate from WordPress to any other platform.
- It can handle websites for any business.
- It is a pro at any e-commerce venture and offers hundreds of free and premium extensions for an online store.
- It is also mobile-friendly and SEO ready.
- It provides a basic platform and allows you to add the functions you need as you go along.
- WordPress allows you to start small and scale up as you grow, which is ideal for a start-up.
- It offers customization options to align the webpages with your brand.
As a start-up, you have a lot of information to provide to your customers, unlike an established company. With the help of WordPress, you can make it possible. Add live chat to WordPress and keep your customers engaged. Customers are aware of companies that have already made a mark in the market, and all they need is chat support such as live chat for WordPress to support customer interactions.
WordPress live chat plugin adds a widget at the bottom of your website and allows real-time conversation with your customers. You can improve your online customer engagement by offering this in your start-up website.
To improve your online customer engagement, you need customers to seek you. This is made possible by experiential marketing or engagement marketing which is aimed at increasing online engagement. Engagement marketing uses real-world events to encourage customers to participate and actively engage them. Red Bull’s Stratos mission is a great example of engagement marketing. Red Bull’s Stratos mission encouraged 8 million people all over the globe to participate in a live YouTube stream with Felix Baumgartner.
#2: Innovative Social Media Engagement
Social media presence plays a vital role in improving the online engagement of your start-up. But just a presence in social media is not enough. To engage customers online via social media, you need to have a proper strategy that enables you to interact with your customers. How can you ensure that your social media customer engagement is successful?
✔️ Before you set up a social media profile for your start-up company, establish a social media strategy.
You can start by analyzing which social media platforms can help you establish better. This is possible by keeping your target audience in mind. A social media platform that has the largest number of users may not have the target audience you that your business is aiming at.
✔️ After you analyze all social media platforms, pick the one that is optimal for your business.
Make sure that your target audience has a large presence in the social media platform you choose. For example, if your start-up is a local restaurant, your presence in yelp or google will help with your business.
✔️ Expand online customer engagement by using social media as a customer service platform.
You may already have a website with a WordPress live chat plugin that caters to customer queries and customer services. But without the proper inflow of customers into your website, you cannot improve the online engagement of customers. It is always a good option to use every possible platform to engage customers that can result in customer satisfaction.
✔️ Look for possible recruits on social media.
Social media platform offers more than customer engagement. You will also find people who are interested in offering their talent and helping you grow from start-up to an established company. Your customers may be the talent that can help you grow in the market.
✔️ Let your social media be your brand ambassador.
One of the best marketing strategies one can adopt is brand ambassadors and influencers who can promote your business. As a start-up, it might be next to impossible to invest in popular influencers and brand ambassadors. Take advantage of your social media platform by making it your brand ambassador. Inspire your customers with your start-up stories, your inspirations, and the struggle you had to endure to start from scratch and reach where you are now. These act as influencers that help you promote your brand.
✔️ Let your customers talk for you.
Engaging your customers in expressing themselves is another way to make your presence felt in the market. Consider the example of March of Dimes that that included an app called “39 Weeks,” where fans can share their stories about pregnancy and unexpected complications and also read about developments occurring during each week of pregnancy. With this strategy, the number of registered walkers for the March of Dimes increased by 75%, and revenue by 100%.
✔️ Engage customers on social media by introducing offers and competitions.
Several brands offer exciting prices and discounts to their customers by engaging them in online events and competitions. The best example is the contest held by Qwertee, where entrants had to like their page and submit their email for a chance to win. Qwertee managed to get 100,000 Facebook likes.
The social media platform is a great way to establish yourself as a brand. You just have to ensure that you plan ahead before you take a step forward.
#3: Encourage Customer Feedback
Encouraging feedback from customers may not seem to hold great value to a common man. But for a start-up, it teaches you how not to proceed with your business. A happy customer will help you increase your customer base through positive reviews. But an unhappy customer enables you to understand your mistakes and improve yourself.
As a start-up, it is vital to encourage customer honest feedback. With the help of ProProfs live chat WordPress plugin, you can engage your customers in understanding their queries and analyzing where you have gone wrong. Improve online engagement with your customers, via your website and social media platform and open opportunities to improve your business.
Apple is the best example of a company that used customer feedback to generate revenue. Apple uses the NPS survey to improve its retail store experience. The survey is analyzed carefully to find where there is room for improvement.
Improve Online Engagement for a Successful Startup
In a time when you see so many people entering your niche, it becomes all the more essential for you to step up your game. That’s because no one would like to see themselves losing the bigger battle of the game. While you may think that it is more relevant for a business that has made a mark in a competitive market, a startup needs to get as proactive as an established name.
Like you, many businesses enter the market. But what sets each of you apart are the strategies that make you successful. And, one of the successful strategies that will help you stay connected with your target audience and boost your business is constant engagement. This article allows you to understand the core strategies that big names in the industry have taken into account when trying to improve online engagement with their customers.
Author Bio: David is a technical writer, his works are regularly published in various papers and top-notch portals. His rich experience in Project management domain helps him offer insightful and fresh perspectives on improved efficiency in workflows across organizations. His informative works on similar lines can be viewed on ProProfs.
