In our latest State of Marketing report, CMOs cite customer preferences and expectations as the #1 factor influencing their digital strategy. Customers are constantly changing how they interact with businesses, and the things they care about are also evolving. According to the report, 71% of marketers say that meeting customer expectations is more difficult today than it was a year ago.
Keeping your customers engaged is an ongoing challenge for marketers, and we spend a lot of time and resources trying to keep our audiences loyal to our products. As shown in the State of the Connected Customer report, from here on out, customer engagement is digital-first. It’s estimated that more than 60% of customer interactions were online last year, up from 56% in 2020, and that trend is continuing.
Your customers’ preferred channels are likely to be a mix of the old and the new. Email is still the most popular method for getting your message across — the number of outbound emails increased by 15% last year, accounting for around 80% of all outbound messaging. However, It’s not the channel that saw the fastest growth. Adoption of TV and over-the-top streaming platforms has grown by 27% since 2021, likely due to people spending more time at home in recent years.
On average, consumers use nine different channels to interact with businesses. Delivering engaging and relevant messages across all these channels is a challenge many marketers are facing now. Here are some ways you can boost customer engagement in old and new channels: