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How to Engage with Your Customers Online (so they don’t forget you!)

By Megan Jones Published June 8, 2020

If your business is still closed, or your physical premise remains temporarily shut, then you may be worried about the impact this will have on customer retention. To put it bluntly – will your customers remember you?

In this article, we discuss three actionable strategies to help you engage with your customers online, ensuring that your business stays at the forefront of their minds. Whatever the current state of your business (ie – temporarily closed, working at a reduced capacity, or only operating online) there is plenty you can do to ensure your customers don’t forget you.

Live Online Sessions

Live online web conference sessions are a great way to keep in contact with your customers and retain their loyalty to your business. Even if your business has reopened, many customers may still be staying away – running live online sessions will help you keep lines of communication with them open.

The type of live sessions you run will very much depend on your business, but the main emphasis should be on providing them with useful and relevant information or a valuable experience.

Ideas for online live sessions include:

• How to Tutorials – Providing step-by-step tutorials, which help your customers achieve something specific to your industry or product, will help you be seen as an expert in your field, as well as remind your customers how beneficial your services are.

• Meetups – Organizing online meetups, where your clients can converse and discuss issues related to your niche, will help build a community around your brand.

• Classes – A great option for any business that usually offers a face-to-face service. If you haven’t been running classes already, for example, fitness or yoga classes, it isn’t too late to get started.

• Live Q and A Sessions – Providing the chance for customers to ask specific questions about your products, services, or niche, is an effective way to build relationships with your customers. Check out Gravity Forms recent live Q and A session here, which received a great response.

Both Zoom and Google Meet are great tools for hosting online meet-ups, chats, classes, and more. Google Meet has recently made its services free for all, allowing users to run meetings for up to an hour for a maximum of 100 participants – any more and you’ll need to purchase G Suite. With Google Meet you can display your desktop to participants, as well as share links, files, and documents through the chat feature of your meeting room.

Zoom is also a free tool, allowing meetings of up to 40 minutes and 100 participants – again if you are looking for more time or people you will need to pay. However, even the premium version of Zoom is good for those on a budget, enabling you to run large scale meetups, webinars, integrate apps, and access fun low-level features like virtual backgrounds.

For more information on top tips for a successful online meeting, check out our article How to Set up an Online Meeting.

Giveaways

Running a giveaway can be a powerful strategy to engage with your community, as well as reach a new audience. Importantly, an exciting giveaway or competition can give your business the exposure you need to ensure you are remembered by your bread-and-butter clients.

When organizing a giveaway, choose a prize that will resonate with your target audience. A voucher for one of your services, or a popular product, will ensure that your giveaway appeals to your current customers, as well as attracts the ‘right’ kind of new followers.

Setting up a giveaway is a quick and easy process using Gravity Forms. Within your WordPress dashboard, select Forms > Add New and give the new form a name.

Then, build your form within the Form Editor. You can find key form fields including Name, Email, and Phone Number, under Advanced Fields. Ideally, you want to keep the number of form fields you use to a minimum, as the shorter the form the more likely people will complete a submission.

Integrating your form with your email marketing provider enables you to easily collect and manage leads. Gravity Forms integrates with numerous email marketing providers, including…

• MailChimp
• Aweber
• ActiveCampaign
• Campaign Monitor
• Constant Contact
• EmailOctopus
• Emma
• GetResponse

For advice on how to integrate an email marketing provider with Gravity Forms, as well as individual forms, check out our Documentation.

Once your form is finished, you next need to create a giveaway page that will explain to your audience about the competition, as well as host the form. Then embed your form into the page by selecting Embed > Gravity Forms within the Block Editor, and then choosing the form you just created.

A key factor in ensuring the giveaway is successful is promotion. Once you have set up the page and form, post about the giveaway on your social media channels, email your mailing list with the link to the page, and announce it on your blog.

For more information on giveaways, check out this article, Documentation.

Coupons

Gifting coupons to your customers can encourage people to come to your website and make a purchase of a product or a service. This can be particularly beneficial for those physical stores that have had to shut down, as a coupon can provide the nudge that a customer may need to begin shopping your store online.

To set up coupons on your WordPress website, you will need to install the Gravity Forms Coupon Add-On. To do so, open your WordPress dashboard and select Forms > Add-Ons > Coupons Add-On > Install.

You will now need to integrate the coupon website with your eCommerce payment form by creating a coupon feed. (If you are yet to start selling your products or services online, read this article to find out how to set up an eCommerce form with Gravity Forms – Documentation

To create a coupon feed, select Forms > Coupons from your WordPress dashboard menu, and then click on Add New.

You will now need to scroll down and fill out the information – select the form you want to integrate with, then give your coupon a name and code, as well as choosing the discount, which can be either a fixed amount or a percentage.

You can also choose a start and end date for your coupon, as well as selecting how many times the coupon can be used and if it can be used in conjunction with other offers.

Now click Update Settings and then navigate back to your payment form. Under Pricing Fields, select the Coupons field and add it to your form so your customers can input the coupon code.

Now Update and Preview your form to check that it works.

For more information on setting up coupons, have a read of our Documentation.

Once your payment form is up and running with a coupon field, you now need to promote your coupon. Add the coupon code to your website in a popup or notification bar on your homepage, share it on social media, and email your mailing list telling them about the offer.

Final Thoughts on How to Engage with your Customers Online

In essence, delighted customers are more inclined to engage with your brand repeatedly. By elevating the user experience and performance of your website through tools like NitroPack, you fortify your brand’s presence, increasing the likelihood that up to 54% of users will return to your website.

Creating excitement around your brand by implementing one of the above strategies will help bring your business to the forefront of your customers’ minds. Running a giveaway, offering a promotional coupon, or engaging directly with people via live online web sessions, are all effective ways to connect with your customers and ensure that they don’t forget you.

However, make sure you don’t go overboard. Your customers want to see promotions, as well as posts on your blog or social media channels, that are genuine and valuable to them. Pick just one or two strategies, make them relevant to your customers, and promote them tastefully – this will help ensure your following remains loyal.

Have you tried any different strategies to engage with your customer base online? Please share your successes in the comments below.