Ways to boost your customer engagement.

Learn how to build customer relationships, grow customer loyalty, and give your business a big presence.

Artwork by Asavari Kumar.

What is customer engagement?

Consumers want to know and connect with the companies and brands they buy from and support. Customer engagement is the conversation your customers are having with your brand and with each other about your brand. You can measure their level of engagement through customer interactions like clicks, email open rates, conversion rates, and other metrics. That invaluable data can help you predict customers’ future actions, as well as discover which customers are disengaged or undecided about your brand, and then develop strategies to win them over.

It’s easier to keep existing customers than to win new ones, and good customer engagement can also play a role in avoiding churn (losing customers). Your best tool in the struggle for customer retention is to communicate thoughtfully at every stage of the customer journey. Share your company’s values on social media. Bring your CEO or other executives in on the conversation. By showing who you are, you’ll help your customers get to know you and your brand better. They’ll trust you and be more willing to tell you about themselves in return.

How your marketing strategy can increase customer loyalty.

A great marketing strategy doubles as a customer engagement strategy. It extends beyond building brand awareness and selling products to optimizing every customer’s experience. Begin by accounting for all the touchpoints, or ways customers interact with your brand.

You can’t track word of mouth, but you can get data on visits to your website, sign-ups to receive emails, and contacts with customer support teams. You might measure your brand’s social media mentions over time and the numbers of active community members engaging with your website. Following your customers along their entire journey with your brand can teach you a lot about the level of customer satisfaction you’re generating, and it can tell you where and how you might improve.

Targeting the ideal customer lifecycle.

No matter your business model, the keys to engaging and retaining customers — and turning as many as you can into brand advocates — are universal:

Generate awareness.

First, create a beautiful and unique logo and other assets you can use for all of your marketing needs. Then spread the word about your brand. Establish a presence on social media with your well-branded content, so your logo and brand become familiar sights. Write SEO-optimized blog posts, so when customers Google the problem your product solves, your website appears high in the search results.

Nurture leads.

Potential customers might know about you but not whether they want to make a purchase. You can give them a gentle nudge in the right direction with an email or SMS message. Send email newsletters informing your customer base about new offers and products. This is an opportunity to educate them about your products or offer something special by way of introduction, so devote time and energy to creating great content. If you encounter leads out in the real world, you might design and print brochures for distribution in strategic locations. These early interactions are where your brand voice can shine and where personalization can work in your favor.

Follow up on purchases.

When your leads become new customers, they’re giving you a chance to demonstrate excellent customer service. Do everything you can to provide a positive onboarding experience, using email or app-based tools to teach them how to maximize the value of their purchase. Poll customers on their level of satisfaction and keep them up to date on improvements and new offers.

Use your increased knowledge of the customer to further personalize and segment your communications to them, ensuring that whatever they receive from you is relevant. Work to build the emotional connection that leads to loyal customers by rewarding them for choosing your brand.

Turn frowns upside down.

A frustrated customer presents a great opportunity to demonstrate superior customer service. Even critical customer feedback can be positive if the customer feels like they’re being heard and their concerns are being addressed. It doesn’t hurt to surprise them with something nice, like a small gift or just a thank-you. Sometimes a problem solved is even more effective at turning a customer into a brand advocate than no problem at all.

Woman sitting on floor with a laptop in front of a wall with printed papers taped to it

Man wearing sunglasses and suit in front of a pink background

Make every interaction a positive one.

Design every customer communication — newsletters, emails, and social media posts — to surprise and delight. Adobe Creative Cloud for teams can help. It gives you more than 20 apps for creating standout marketing materials. Your team can collaborate seamlessly in the cloud, sharing assets as they work to ensure brand consistency. Make a versatile brand logo in Adobe Illustrator. Create eye-catching brochures, brand kits, web banners, social media posts, and emails with Adobe Photoshop and InDesign — and take advantage of Adobe Stock and Adobe Fonts to find just the right templates and type.

If you communicate with your customers thoughtfully, honestly, and compassionately, and with appealing creative content, you’ll be well on your way to developing a successful brand they want to engage with.