Tag: Customer

How to Use Customer Segmentation to Improve the Performance of Your Marketing Campaigns

Your audience wants personalized marketing from your business.

In fact, they expect it. According to research, 71 percent of customers expect businesses to send them personalized marketing messages, and 76 percent are disappointed when they receive generic communications instead.

The challenge? If you don’t know your audience, you can’t send them personalized content. You don’t know what matters to them, so you can’t reach them on the right level.

If this dilemma sounds familiar, don’t worry. I have a solution for you, and it’s called customer segmentation. Customer segmentation helps you understand your audience so you can target your marketing campaigns with greater precision. Let me show you how it works.

What Is Customer Segmentation?

Customer segmentation means dividing customers into groups, or “segments,” based on traits they have in common such as age, buying habits, gender, and needs.

Businesses use customer segmentation models to better understand their prospects so they can target them with relevant personalized marketing campaigns including ads, emails, and social media posts.

Customer segmentation isn’t just about reaching a new audience more effectively, though. It’s also a way to reconnect with lapsed customers and encourage new purchases by sending them carefully targeted messages.

Remember, every customer is unique. They each have own buying behaviors and reasons for choosing you over your competitors. While it’s impossible to personalize your marketing to every individual, a customer segmentation strategy is the next best thing.

Why Is Customer Segmentation Important?

For one thing, it helps you improve your customer service. By understanding your customers’ needs and wants, you’re better placed to help solve their problems.

Does customer service matter? Absolutely. Research says one in five customers will abandon a brand after just one poor customer experience, so the more effort you invest in great service, the better.

Similarly, segmenting your audience helps build customer loyalty. How? Because customers are typically more loyal to brands offering personalized messaging—for 79 percent of consumers, the more personalization a company uses, the more loyal they are.

What do loyal and happy customers have in common? They’re more likely to shop with you. By personalizing the shopping experience through segmentation, you create more dedicated customers, so you increase conversions over time.

Not convinced? Well, studies show that over 60 percent of customers are likely to be repeat buyers after a personalized shopping experience, so the stats speak for themselves.

Customer Segmentation Models

You can use various customer segmentation models, depending on your business needs and marketing goals. Here’s a look at seven of the most common models.

1. Demographic Segmentation Model

Demographic segmentation means dividing people into groups based on certain demographic factors, including age, income, marital status, and occupation.

Let’s say your audience is men and women aged between 30 and 65. You want to run a TikTok campaign to promote a new product.

  • 61 percent of TikTok users are women.
  • 11 percent of users are over 50.

If you only run a campaign on TikTok, you miss out on a huge chunk of your target audience. Perform some demographic segmentation, and you’ll know to target Facebook, too, since 73 percent of 50- to 64-year-olds use this platform.

Want to try it?

  1. Set your campaign goal.
  2. Choose your variables, whether it’s age, gender, and so on.
  3. Select your platforms to run personalized marketing campaigns, such as social media, email, etc.
  4. Measure success using tools like Google Analytics and revise your campaigns as needed.

Pros and Cons of Demographic Segmentation

On the plus side, it’s easy to use this model, and it helps you adjust your tone to target different genders and ages.

The main downsides? You risk making false assumptions about a particular segment. You could also lose your brand voice by targeting such varied demographics.

Always use this customer segmentation model alongside other techniques. For example, it might be helpful to know a customer’s buying habits and values, or where they live.

2. Geographic Segmentation Model

With geographic segmentation, you categorize your audience based on where they work, live, and shop.

This type of customer segmentation analysis is fairly straightforward. The main disadvantage? Ironically, it’s simplicity. On its own, geographic segmentation doesn’t reveal much about your audience, but you can use it alongside other models on this list to build the fullest possible picture of your audience.

How to Segment Customers Through Geographic Segmentation

Here’s how to get started with geographical segmentation:

  1. Determine your segments. You can divide people by, for example, climate, culture, language, or land area.
  2. Gather data, such as website location data and sales data, to identify the size of your community.
  3. Send targeted messages to customers based on these segments. As an example, you might run paid ad campaigns based on location, or if you’re launching an exclusive location-based product, email your target audience a promo code.

Case Study: McDonald’s

McDonald’s frequently uses geographic segmentation to target different audiences around the world. For example, here’s a burger found in McDonald’s India:

McDonald’s creates products to suit its diverse audience and tap into the flavors and products they may respond to based on geography.

This brings me to another advantage of geographic segmentation: exclusivity. Since the McDonald’s menu varies by location, each item feels exclusive, harder to acquire, and more valuable, which may increase conversions.

3. Psychographic Segmentation

We each have unique personalities, but we share traits or characteristics. Psychographic segmentation means forming groups based on common traits such as hobbies, lifestyle choices, personality traits, cultural beliefs, and values.

Psychographic segmentation helps you understand a customer’s psyche so you can devise highly focused, relevant campaigns. However, the main challenge is gathering (and organizing) the relevant data.

How to Use Psychographic Segmentation

Follow these steps to start using psychographic segmentation:

  1. Determine your ideal customer. Who are you selling to? What do they love about your products? This stage may involve some consumer research.
  2. Choose your segments, such as hobbies, values, or personality traits.
  3. Identify where your audience congregates. For example, over 1.5 billion people visit Reddit every month, and 38 percent of Americans listen to podcasts every month.
  4. Perform some (more) consumer research. Whether you run Instagram polls or send surveys, ask your audience what type of content they want from you.
  5. Evaluate the data to decide how to properly target your groups.

Case Study: Patagonia

Patagonia, an outdoor clothing brand, knows its customers care about sustainable living. They’ve made sustainability a core part of their brand messaging:

If you ran a store like Patagonia, you could segment customers based on whether they prefer hiking or cycling and then send targeted campaigns to meet their needs while retaining this core brand message.

4. Technographic Segmentation

Technographic segmentation means categorizing people depending on the devices, hardware, and software they use. Why does this data matter? Well, according to statistics:

  • 79 percent of U.S. smartphone users purchased something online through their mobile phone in the last six months.
  • 40 percent of consumers switch to a competitor after one (yes, one) bad mobile phone experience.
  • Purchases made on tablets are set to rise to over $64 billion in 2022.

As a marketer, you should care about how people are accessing your content so you can optimize their user experience (UX) and target them effectively. Technographic segmentation can help.

How to Perform Technographic Segmentation

There are a few ways to segment your audience using this method, but here’s how I suggest you start.

  1. Know your audience: Identify your customers, as they will determine which categories you choose.
  2. Pick your segments: For technographic segmentation, you might group people based on the devices they use, the software they’re working with, the apps they prefer, or how they use technology.
  3. Gather data: Collect the data you need to segment customers. You might do this by scraping websites, sending surveys, or even purchasing data from service providers.

Armed with this data, you can create your campaigns.

Example of a Technographic Segmentation Campaign

Let’s say you run a tech store. Some customers use Norton 360 for PCs. Others use Avast Security for Mac.

You split your marketing campaign by software. You send one email to Norton subscribers offering a discount on their annual subscription. You send another email to Avast customers offering the same discount for Avast.

The result? Emails that speak to your audience’s specific tech needs, which increase your chance of making conversions.

You could take it further, too. Say, through analytics, you notice your Norton PC customers are looking at mobile antivirus solutions. You could send them a discount code like this one from PCWorld:

Technographic Customer Segmentation PCWorld Norton Discount

By anticipating what matters to your audience based on their tech preferences, you’re meeting their needs…and hopefully nurturing them through to checkout.

Is this a perfect customer segmentation model? No. One significant drawback is its limitations: Knowing a customer’s tech preferences is only one part of what shapes their buyer’s journey. However, it’s a marketing technique worth adding to your toolbox.

5. Behavioral Segmentation

Want to know how your audience interacts with your business? Try behavioral segmentation.

Behavioral segmentation means grouping people together based on behavior patterns. These patterns reveal how consumers feel about your business so you can determine how to successfully reach them at every stage of the buyer’s journey.

As with other models, behavioral segmentation can be used at any point in your marketing strategy, whether it’s to revamp a landing page or send promotional emails.

How to Use Behavioral Segmentation

First, identify the behavior patterns to track. There are many ways to approach this, but you might segment customers based on their:

  • buying stage
  • engagement
  • historical purchase history
  • purchase frequency
  • response to previous marketing campaigns

For example, say you group customers based on engagement. What counts as an “active” and “lapsed” customer varies depending on your business, but here are three groups you might have:

  • Active customers shop with you every month.
  • Infrequent customers only buy products every few months.
  • Lapsed customers haven’t purchased from you in a year.

Next, you can devise three separate marketing campaigns. You might send active customers a loyalty discount, and infrequent customers a separate discount to tempt them back.

Once your campaigns are up and running, track your analytics. If you’re not getting the results you want, adjust your campaigns and try again.

Netflix and Behavioral Segmentation

With over 221 million subscribers, Netflix knows how to use behavioral segmentation to satisfy customer demand.

  • Netflix uses machine learning to track what customers watch.
  • The algorithms generated help Netflix customize everything for each customer, from the homepage to the show recommendations.
  • Netflix can use A/B testing to track the impact of different recommendations and personalization features.
Netflix Recommendations for Entertainment - Customer Segmentation

Behavioral segmentation has a significant downside, though: There’s always the chance you get the algorithms wrong. That said, if you track results diligently and respond to your findings, you can offset this drawback.

6. Needs-Based Segmentation

Successful marketing often comes down to showing prospects how your goods or services meet their needs. That’s where needs-based segmentation comes in.

With needs-based segmentation, you’re grouping people based on what they need from your product. The benefits they’re looking for when they buy something. What pain points they have, and the problems they need solving.

The biggest challenge? Identifying what these needs are.

For example, say you’re a food brand. Two prospects follow you on social media. One cares about fresh chicken, and the other wants vegan food. You might sell meat and non-meat products, but the same ad campaign won’t appeal to both.

Driving down into groups’ needs and motivations helps you maximize your campaigns.

Let’s do a simple comparison. Heck sells gluten-free vegan and non-vegan meat. They know some customers love the gym and care about high-protein snacks, so they launched a campaign to sell their meat at local gyms:

Example of Customer Segmentation Heck Sausages Gym Tour

They know other customers care less about fitness and more about a vegan lifestyle, so they frequently create social media posts around meat-free products:

Needs-Based Customer Segmentation Heck Vegan Meat Examples

Heck clearly spent time learning about its wider customer base and what drives them so it can effectively reach every segment while retaining a consistent brand voice.

Here’s another example. Beauty store Revolution lets customers shop by skin concern and by ingredient to directly target consumers’ needs:

Skincare by Revolution Example of Customer Segmentation by Concern

Needs-Based Segmentation Pros and Cons

Now that you understand how this customer segmentation model works, is it right for you?

Well, there are clear advantages. Needs-based segmentation helps you market with greater accuracy than, say, targeting groups by age or location. It’s comprehensive and effective, and it could help you build loyal customer relationships.

The main drawbacks? It’s challenging to identify the “right” needs to target, and if you don’t have accurate data, your campaigns may fail. What’s more, consumer needs evolve, so you’ll need to review your strategy regularly to maximize your campaign effectiveness.

How to Perform Needs-Based Segmentation

Here’s the simplest approach.

  1. Start with your products or services. Look at them from every angle and write down all their features and benefits.
  2. Build customer personas around these features. If you know how to segment customers based on behavior, age, location, etc., use the data you already have to help here.
  3. Finally, reach out to customers and learn what matters to them. You might, for example, look at product reviews, ask for customer testimonials, or send out questionnaires.

Once you have enough data, use your findings to create segmented marketing campaigns. Track your campaigns and tweak them as needed.

7. Value-Based Segmentation

The better you understand how much it costs to lose a certain client’s business, the better you can direct your marketing efforts. Value-based segmentation can help you by grouping customers together based on their value to your business.

Why group customers together this way? Well, there are two advantages.

Firstly, if you know which customers spend the most money on your products, then you know which customers you can’t afford to lose. You can direct resources into providing these customers with highly targeted campaigns and great customer service.

Secondly, you can identify your most loyal clients and how much it costs to retain their business. Once you know a customer’s relative value, you can decide if it’s worth retargeting these inactive customers with personalized messaging.

Is retention worth the effort, though? There’s evidence that it can be up to seven times more expensive to acquire rather than retain customers, so yes, retention matters.

Using Value-Based Segmentation

Here’s how to segment your customers on a value basis.

  • Decide on your campaign goals. Maybe you want to identify your most lucrative audience and launch an ad campaign for your high-end products, or you want to nurture lapsed customers back to your store with enticing loyalty discounts.
  • Identify your segmentation criteria. For value-based marketing, you might segment customers based on average spend or relationship duration as described above.
  • Determine how you’ll target customers based on your findings; for example, on social media, by email, or through paid ads.
  • Analyze your efforts such as by running regular A/B testing or asking customers for feedback.

On the plus side, value-based segmentation helps you quickly identify your most valuable customers in order to target them more effectively. However, if you’re a startup or young business, you may not have enough relevant data to use this customer model just yet.

Case Study: Global Cruise Company

Here’s an example of the basic value-based segmentation principles in action and how this method helps with retargeting and conversion.

Merkle, a marketing company, helped a global cruise company develop a value-based approach to their next marketing campaign.

The cruise company sent the same messages to every customer regardless of their lifetime value (LTV). To boost revenue, they wanted to segment customers based on their LTV to send tailored ads and emails.

The company broke down each customer’s total predicted economic value. Once they identified the highest-value and most loyal customers, they could better nurture them through the sales funnel with specific, smaller campaigns.

The results? Five percent of lapsed but loyal customers returned, and they shortened the purchase cycle by 24 percent. All it took was some focused, personalized messaging based on a customer’s relative value.

Customer Segmentation Frequently Asked Questions

What tools do I need to do customer segmentation?

You need data to segment customers effectively, so you’ll want analytics tools such as Google Analytics. You might also use dedicated customer segmentation software, depending on your budget and business goals.

Is customer segmentation worth it?

By segmenting your customers, you learn more about your target audience and what matters to them. The result is more effective marketing campaigns based on the unique needs of each segment within your broader audience base.

What type of campaigns does marketing segmentation work best with?

Segmentation works best on any channel when you’re using personalized ads aimed at certain people because you can run multiple smaller, highly targeted ad campaigns designed to deliver the right message to the right audiences.

How is customer segmentation used in customer retention?

Customer segmentation ensures your existing customers don’t feel overlooked. You can segment your loyal customers into smaller groups to deliver relevant, loyalty-based rewards that could help increase customer retention over time.

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Conclusion: Customer Segmentation

If you’re trying to upgrade your marketing, customer segmentation is your friend. By segmenting your audience, you can learn what matters to your customers, run targeted, more effective campaigns, and ultimately convert more leads into customers over time.

Start by evaluating the customer segmentation models I’ve described and consider which combination works best for your business goals. If you need any guidance for choosing between customer segmentation types, though, check out my consulting services to discover how my team can help.

Have you created your customer segmentation strategy yet? Which model do you find works best?

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Customer Experience Analytics: Measure What Works and Make Improvements That Last

Do you want a simple way to refine your customer experience? Then look at your CX analytics.

The data doesn’t lie. It tells you what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong. Once you’re armed with your customer experience analytics, you gain the necessary information to offer prospects and buyers the best possible care.

When you provide a stellar customer experience, you boost efficiency and humanize your service while enhancing loyalty and recommendations.

Yet, according to a report from PWC, 54 percent of consumers feel the customer experience at many businesses needs improvement.

However, there are more benefits to examining your CX analytics.

For example, 44.5 percent of global organizations feel that an amazing CX differentiates them from competitors, and who doesn’t want to stand out and get noticed?

Now you know the importance of customer experience analytics. In this article, I explain which ones you should measure and why they’re so crucial to your business.

What Is Customer Experience Analytics?

Customer experience (CX) analytics uses customer data to improve customer interactions.

You can use the data to track customer behavior and preferences to better understand how customers interact with your company and its products or services. You can then use this information to improve the CX by changing designs, the way you market to customers, or how you deliver your products or services.

There are many different ways to collect customer data. Analytics tools for customer experience often use various data sources. However, some of the most common sources include website visits, purchase histories, contact centers, and social media data.

Benefits of Tracking Customer Experience Analytics

By understanding customer behavior and preferences, analytics for customer experience can help businesses deliver a better CX faster and more consistently. Additionally, CX analytics can contribute to a positive customer experience by identifying and resolving issues early.

Below are just some of the benefits of tracking your analytics.

Customer satisfaction tracking: Perhaps the most crucial benefit is that customer experience analytics can track customer satisfaction over time. This information enables companies to identify areas where they need to make changes to keep their customers happy.

Understanding customer interactions: By analyzing your data, customer experience analytics lets you understand how customers interact with your products/services. You can then use this information to enhance the customer experience and increase sales.

Lower customer churn: When you use them correctly, customer experience analytics improve the CX and lower churn rates by increasing retention. For example, if many customers are contacting customer service about a particular issue, you can address it. This aspect is vital because consumer demand for a positive CX is increasing. However, Zendesk says 54 percent of shoppers feel businesses see it as an afterthought.

Enhanced loyalty through targeting: Understanding customer behavior lets you create targeted marketing campaigns that are more likely to convert leads into customers and encourage loyalty.

Increased value and lower spending: Predictive customer experience analytics can identify high-value customers in terms of lifetime value and customer satisfaction. However, it also finds high value, dissatisfied customers. When this information is clear, it allows you to spend money strategically and save money. McKinsey cites one example of a company that shaved over 25 percent off its planned budget using this technique.

Metrics to Consider for Customer Experience Analytics

Customer experience analytics (CEA) is a growing field. With that in mind, it’s important to choose the right metrics and analytics tools for customer experience to measure customer CX to get the most accurate results.

While there are multiple metrics you could focus on, to keep it simple, we’re going to focus on six of the most valuable.

Let’s begin with the promoter score.

1. Promoter Score (NPS)

To arrive at your promoter score (NPS), you look at your customer feedback and customer loyalty.

While there are many ways to calculate NPS, the most common is to use a 1-10 scale, where 1 is very dissatisfied, and 10 is very satisfied. To get an accurate reading, it’s important to ask customers how likely they are to recommend your company on this scale.

You could also use a free calculator or a tool from this list.

The higher your NPS score is, the better your customer retention, brand awareness, and customer acquisition.

An excellent example is the jewelry company, Taylor and Hart.

They consider NPS as their most important metric. By focusing on it, breaking it down, and applying the data, the company experienced a 70 percent increase in revenue.

Although you can’t guarantee the same results, you can take the same approach as Taylor and Hart by:

  • identifying your most crucial metrics and compiling the data
  • organizing the data, and rating your NPS
  • keep tracking your NPS and making changes

By tracking the NPS, the company:

  • spotted patterns for its most popular designs
  • found its top customer types, and average revenues
  • identified geographical campaigns and how customers found them
  • optimized their advertising

2. Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

CSAT is a numeric representation of satisfied customers with a given product or service.

Many companies use customer satisfaction scores (CSAT) to track their customers’ overall happiness and identify areas where they need to make improvements.

When you track your CSAT customer experience analytics, you:

  • discover unsatisfied vs. satisfied customers
  • prioritize areas of your business that need improvement
  • enhance your internal processes.
  • guide future product development

However, despite CSAT being one of the most essential customer experience analytics, Gartner found that more than 70 percent of “CX leaders struggle to design projects that increase customer loyalty and achieve results.”

There are several different ways to collect CSAT data, but the most common way is to ask customers to rate their satisfaction on a scale from 1 to 10. You can do this through surveys, feedback forms, or chatbots. Alternatively, you can use a free calculator.

You should be aiming for a CSAT score of 75-85 percent. However, there are some variations between categories.

3. Customer Effort Score (CES)

The customer effort score (CES) metric measures how much effort a customer perceives they expend when interacting with a company.

You calculate CES by averaging the responses to questions about how much effort the customer felt they exerted during their most recent interaction with your company.

By identifying areas where customers are experiencing high levels of effort, businesses can focus on making changes to reduce the amount of work customers have to do to get what they want.

But there’s more to it.

When you get your CES right, it improves customer satisfaction, and loyalty, and lowers costs associated with handling customer complaints or support requests.

In addition, according to Gartner, when CES is high:

  • NPS improves
  • repurchase rates increase by up to 94 percent
  • employee retention improves

Your CES score is also more accurate than understanding customer satisfaction rates.

Andrew Schumacher, Senior Principal, Advisory, Gartner, says:

“Customer effort is 40 percent more accurate at predicting customer loyalty as opposed to customer satisfaction,

Calculate your CES with this free calculator. There is no standardized CES score, but the higher the better.

4. Churn Rate

Churn rate is an essential metric for companies to track because it provides insights into why customers leave and what you can do to retain them. Most businesses focus on this metric because a high customer churn is costly and leads to lost revenue.

There are several ways to calculate customer churn rate, but the most common is to divide the number of customers who have discontinued their relationship with you by the total number of customers at the beginning of the period. This gives you a percentage of how many customers have leftover a given period.

The average churn rate is 5-7 percent, while ten is high. However, it does depend on the industry. For instance, the average churn rate for online retail is 22 percent, while it’s 11 percent for big-box electronics.

customer service analytics on churn rate from Statista

You can calculate your churn rate online. If it’s high, delve into your CX analytics and look for patterns.

Remember, several factors contribute to churn rate, and businesses can take steps to reduce it by improving customer experience by tracking their CX analytics. Another way to improve customer experience is by providing an excellent support system and giving them what they want.

5. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

From Costco to American Express to Verizon and AT&T, they’re also using customer lifetime value as a critical metric with good reason.

CLV is a CX metric that helps business owners and CX professionals understand the value of a customer over the entire span of their relationship with their company.

It considers not just the monetary value of a customer but also how long they are likely to continue doing business with them, how much business they are likely to do moving forward, and how profitable each interaction is.

This information allows you to make strategic decisions about what types of customers to invest in acquiring and retaining, what kinds of experiences to offer them, and when it might make sense to let them go.

There is an easy-to-use online CLV calculator. For guidance, with your CLV, you are looking to make three to five times your acquisition cost.

Once you have your number, you can apply it. As a Bain & Co explain, you can use CLV to:

  • segment your existing customers
  • enhance conversions and ROI through better customer understanding
  • create data-focused hypotheses regarding the tools needed for customer acquisition and retention
  • segment new customers to target them according to limit low-value leads
  • make data-focused decisions on customer prioritization, acquisition, onboarding, and retention.

However, with your tracking, you might want to use a range of CX analytics tools, rather than focusing on one or two; research from Bain and Co shows that companies are most satisfied with results when they use a combination of tools. Further, by 2023, 92 percent expect to be using CX experience analytics tools for customer relationship management.

Percentage of respondents who will use customer analytics tools

6. Social Media Engagement

Engagement metrics track how people interact with your brand on social media. There are many different types of engagement metrics, but some of the most common ones include clicks, likes, shares, and comments.

I can’t overemphasize the importance of tracking social media analytics. If you post something and no one clicks on it, shares it, or comments on it, you know that you need to rethink your content strategy.

The potential of social media is best explained by looking at the runaway success of TikTok. According to its stats, 44 percent of visitors visit the site every month to find something new.

TikTok also impacts every stage of the customer journey, including:

  • discovery
  • consideration
  • purchase

Then, post-purchase, buyers head back to the site to create reviews, unboxing, tutorials, and how-tos.

The above should be enough to persuade you of the power of social media. If you’re already on sites like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook, make sure you’re paying attention to your tracking with tools like Google Analytics, SproutSocial. and HootSuite.

Customer Experience Analytics Frequently Asked Questions

What are the types of customer experience analytics?

CX analytics come in various forms, including CES, CLV, and social media engagement. They come in a mix of categories, including marketing analytics software, and customer service analytics software, which measures the effectiveness and quality of customer service interactions. Then there are social media and web and behavioral analytics.

Can I track my customer experience metrics with free tools?

There are several free tools businesses can use to track their cx analytics. One such tool is Google Analytics. Google Analytics allows companies to track website visits, engagement, conversions, and goal completions. Another free tool is Survey Monkey. Survey Monkey allows businesses to create surveys and collect customer feedback to measure customer satisfaction and loyalty. Finally, another free tool you can use for CX analytics is Simply Measured, for social listening and analytics.

How does data analytics improve customer experience?

Data analytics can improve customer experience by helping businesses better understand their customers’ needs and preferences. Data analytics can also help companies to identify and respond to problems quickly. For example, if lots of people are complaining about a particular issue, data analytics can help businesses identify the cause of the problem and take corrective action.

Why should marketers care about customer experience analytics?

Customer experience is one of the most critical factors for businesses today. In a world where consumers have endless choices, it’s essential to provide an exceptional customer experience to stand out from the competition. Finally, studies show that improving customer experience can increase sales and revenue.

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Customer Experience Analytics Conclusion

Customer experience analytics is a valuable tool for businesses. Businesses can improve customer service and make strategic decisions about their products and services by tracking customer interactions and analyzing the data.

With the right tools and data, businesses can improve their customer service and boost their bottom line.

However, you need to be measuring the correct data. Although there are several metrics you could focus on, don’t get overwhelmed.

The six metrics featured in the post are enough to get you started and give you a clearer picture of what’s going on in your business.

To further optimize your results, you can adopt a range of automation tools to enhance the overall CX experience.

Do you use customer experience analytics in your business? Which ones work best for you?

The Ultimate Guide to Customer Acquisition: Examples, Tips, and Resources

Customer acquisition is a huge pain point for many business owners. Even more difficult is developing a consistent way of bringing in new business.

Your goal should be to put together a system that acquires customers almost on autopilot. That’s easier said than done, though.

This guide should help get you started.

What Is Customer Acquisition?

Customer acquisition is your business’s process of bringing in new customers. The goal of every business is to create procedures that make acquiring new customers simple and systematized. Unfortunately, many small businesses and freelancers have a hard time developing a process for bringing in new clients.

An important piece of the puzzle is a business’s ability to measure its customer acquisition cost. In the digital marketing realm, this is often referred to as “CPA” or “cost-per-acquisition.”

It applies across the board, whether you’re using paid advertising, organic reach, print, radio, TV, or anything else. You should know how much you need to spend to acquire a customer. Once you determine that, it becomes much easier to scale up your marketing because you know you can pump more dollars into your campaigns and get XYZ in terms of customers out the other end.

What Is the Purpose of Customer Acquisition?

The purpose of customer acquisition is self-explanatory. Without a customer, you don’t have a business. Without consistent customers, you don’t have a stable business.

A little caveat here is businesses should also focus on customer retention, which is different from an acquisition. Retention is your effort to keep the customers you already have rather than going through the vicious cycle of constantly needing to acquire new ones. Increasing your retention by only five percent can increase your profits by as much as 95 percent.

When you combine customer acquisition and retention, you have a sure-fire recipe for success. Here’s why:

  1. It helps you make the money you need to cover costs and pay employees, allowing you to reinvest in the business and drive better results for your clients.
  2. It shows steady growth and success to partners, investors, and outside influencers.

Being able to continually drive new business towards your company keeps everyone happy, but it’s not the end goal. The goal is to retain the customers you have as long as you can. Although it costs money to acquire new ones, it doesn’t cost anything to keep them.

Customer Acquisition Versus Lead Generation

There may be some confusion about the difference between the two, but it’s actually simple: Lead generation is one step of the customer acquisition funnel. A person or entity must first become aware of your business before they can buy anything from you. This generally happens as a result of lead generation.

For example, let’s say your business is running a Facebook ad. This usually happens to cold traffic (people who have never heard of you). They see your ad and pause to look for a second. They’ve now become a lead and are no longer cold traffic because they are aware of you.

Maybe they click the ad, fill out a form, and end up having a conversation with you. All of these are steps in the overall customer acquisition funnel. Lead generation is simply one step.

How to Create a Customer Acquisition Plan

Now let’s talk about some of the actionable steps you can take to develop the best customer acquisition strategies.

1. Identify Your Customer Avatar

The first step for every business (before they’re even a business!) should be to create a customer avatar or buyer persona. This is your ideal customer: who they are, what they like, their problems, and their demographic information.

It’s a great strategy for a business to know who their customer is as early as possible. For example, if you sell anti-aging cream, you have a very clear audience who would be interested in that product. Your audience might be women ages 40+ who have a developed skincare routine but are looking for a little extra help. They might be middle to upper-middle class and can’t afford surgery or cosmetic procedures, but they can afford your cream.

If you know exactly who your target is, you’ll have a much easier time acquiring them because your ad copy, text, images, and products will speak their language.

2. Determine Goals

Once you have your customer avatar, jot down some goals and objectives. What are you trying to achieve with your marketing efforts? Here are some examples:

  • Awareness: Are you trying to spread awareness of a cause, shed light on something, or make yourself known to a specific audience?
  • In-person: Does your business require people to physically come into a brick-and-mortar location?
  • Phone call: You might need to convert the online traffic into a phone inquiry.
  • Form: Is your traffic still in the early stages of learning about you? If so, you might just want them to complete a form.
  • Conversion: If the traffic you’re targeting already knows who you are, you might simply be trying to get them to convert into a sale.

Regardless of what your goal is, you need to have one. The clearer the direction you take, the easier it will be to convey the proper message and get your audience to do what you want them to.

3. Choose a Platform or Avenue

Once you’ve figured out who your audience is and what you want them to do, you need to determine what method to use to reach them. There are many different customer acquisition channels, both online and offline. Here are some of the most popular:

Content Marketing

Content marketing is a great long-term way to develop customer relationships and drive traffic to whatever it is you’re looking to accomplish. Best of all, there’s no right or wrong way to do it because you can put together content based on your niche.

Just keep in mind that content marketing isn’t as simple as blogging on your website and expecting people to find it. You need to understand basic SEO and realize that this is a long-term strategy and can take months before you see results.

Social Media

Acquiring customers on social media offers a few different avenues. You can use paid ads, which I’ll discuss shortly, or you can do it the slow way by building up an organic following, posting regularly, and reaching out to people to start conversations.

I like using social media in the most natural way possible, and that’s by “being social.” Start conversations, send messages, and provide value to people. They will respond. Seventy-three percent of marketers find social media “somewhat effective” or “very effective” in their business. It all starts with a conversation.

Paid Advertising

Whether you choose PPC on Google or social media ads like Facebook, paid advertising is a great way to get your business in front of the right audience right away. Keep in mind that Google Ads have a 100 percent ROI, but that does require you to understand how to do it right.

4. Set a Budget

You need to have a budget and customer acquisition cost formula if you plan to have success. Marketing can quickly run more expensive than you expected if you don’t have a set budget in place ahead of time.

Start with a small budget and work your way up as you start to experience success.

5. Optimize and Tweak

Once you’ve had a chance to compile data on how people are receiving your ads, pieces of content, etc., you can optimize and tweak as necessary. For example, if you find that a specific demographic is converting the best on a social media ad, you might want to allot more ad spend to those people and take some away from the people who aren’t converting.

3 Examples of Successful Customer Acquisition

One of the best ways to understand how to implement and measure customer acquisition is to see other companies do it successfully. Here are some examples you can piggyback off of:

Shopify: Interactive Content

Examples of Successful Customer Acquisition - Shopify

Shopify is the e-commerce giant responsible for thousands of successful e-commerce stores. One great way that they drive customers towards the site is with interactive content such as business name generators, quizzes, and even product choice suggestions. This is not only fun, but it keeps you on the site longer, which looks good to Google.

The content you create needs to be interesting and unique. The internet is a highly competitive environment, and you can’t just post anything and expect people to read it and react.

Turbotax: Free, Free, Free

Examples of Successful Customer Acquisition - Turbotax

Turbotax is a great example of using multiple platforms to convey your message. We’ve likely all seen their ads somewhere when they talk about how their service is free for individuals and always will be. If you understand neuro-linguistic programming, you know that “free” is a big buzzword.

Make sure you’re offering enough value to your customers in exchange for what you’re asking. Advertising has changed, and it’s no longer as simple as telling people what you do. You need to provide value.

Swagbucks: Referral Marketing

Examples of Successful Customer Acquisition - Swagbucks

One of the best ways to get more customers is to have your customers get them for you. Referral marketing is a powerful method because it doesn’t cost much, and you’re rewarding the customers you already have, which can help increase customer retention.

This method is especially useful at the beginning of a business’s life when you’re trying to grow your network and establish credibility. Offer something to your customers for every lead they bring your way.

5 Tips to Improve Your Customer Acquisition Strategy

Here are some bonus tips to help you nail down your customer acquisition:

1. Master the CTA

Your call-to-action (CTA) needs to be perfect once you know your audience and have traffic. At this point, it becomes all about what you’re doing to convert the traffic you have. Conversion rate optimization becomes the key, and it usually starts with having a crystal clear and persuasive CTA.

2. Track Everything

You should be tracking every little detail about your prospective customers. Most importantly, focusing on the right metrics will take things to the next level. Demographic information, heat maps, abandoned carts, retargeting—all of these are important. This data can help you understand more about your audience so you can further optimize the ads for future success.

3. Make Sure the UX Is Perfect

If you’re getting traffic, the ads are working, and everything seems to be going well, but you still don’t have customers, there could be another reason. Make sure your site is fully functional, mobile-optimized, fast-loading, and easy to use.

4. Be Patient

It can take as long as a week to build up enough data on Google ads. If you change or cancel an ad before that time, you might be shooting yourself in the foot. The same applies to content marketing. It takes a long time for Google to recognize your content and index it properly.

5. Diversify

I believe in spreading yourself around and making sure you’re reaching as many people as you can. If you think some of your audience would respond to a different method of customer acquisition, set a budget for it, and give it a go.

Customer Acquisition FAQs

Below, see some of the most frequently asked questions about customer acquisition.

What is a good customer acquisition cost?

A good customer acquisition cost is whatever you need to be profitable. It will vary from business to business. All that matters is that you’re not spending more to acquire a customer than they will pay you. Keep in mind operating costs as well.

How do you manage customer acquisition?

Many businesses have people in charge of this or an entire department. Of course, it can be difficult for small businesses, so it might make more sense to outsource it.

Is it more cost-effective to keep a customer than to acquire a new one?

Acquiring new customers has been deemed the “startup killer” for a reason. It’s much cheaper to retain than acquire, but you can’t have one without the other. Make sure you’re focusing on both.

What is acquisition rate?

Find this number by dividing the total number of people who opted into your campaign by the total number of people who saw it.

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Summary of The Customer Acquisition Guide

There are many ways to approach customer acquisition, and while most of the methods lead to the same place, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. You need to figure out what marketing method works best for your business and how you can implement it consistently.

Most importantly, understanding your customer and their objective is crucial. Once you’ve done that, the rest falls into place.

What customer acquisition methods do you use in your business?

Customer Satisfaction: Benefits, Examples & Importance

Customer satisfaction is crucial to the success of your business. No matter how innovative your product or competitive your pricing, if your customers are ultimately unhappy, they’re not going to stick around.

As such, it’s no surprise 45.9 percent of businesses surveyed in 2020 named customer experience as their number one priority over the next five years:

Customer satisfaction is a major priority for businesses

What exactly do we mean by “customer satisfaction?” Why is it so important, and what can you do to improve it? Read on to find out.

What Is Customer Satisfaction?

Customer satisfaction is a measure of how people feel when interacting with your brand. It can be influenced by any number of factors, such as:

  • perceived product quality
  • perceived product value
  • convenience
  • customer expectations
  • communication
  • complaint handling

Every brand, no matter how successful, wants to improve customer satisfaction. To do that, they need to define two things:

  1. who their customers are
  2. what it takes to satisfy them

Part one isn’t as simple as it sounds. Let’s take the example of a hospital. It might have two distinct customer bases: 

  1. the patients it treats
  2. the insurance companies it sells patient data to

Clearly, those two audiences have very different goals, and keeping them happy requires two vastly different approaches. To make matters even more complicated, satisfying one audience may sometimes be detrimental to the other’s happiness.

4 Benefits of Customer Satisfaction 

Customer satisfaction is more than just a “nice to have.” Getting it right has specific, tangible benefits, including: 

1. Increase Brand Loyalty

Never take your customers for granted. 

According to PwC, 59 percent of U.S. consumers who love a product or brand would ditch it after several poor experiences. More concerningly, almost one in five would do so after a single bad experience.

How does customer satisfaction affect brand loyalty

On the flip side, if you do everything in your power to keep customers happy, it stands to reason they’ll be more likely to stick around for the long term.

2. Boost Trust

According to Edelman, 81 percent of consumers say brand trust is a deal-breaker or a deciding factor in their purchase decisions.

Yet trust is pretty thin on the ground, with just 34 percent of consumers saying they trust most of the brands they use or buy from.

How do you make your brand more trustworthy? One way is to improve satisfaction. According to a study from Eastern University Sri Lanka, customer satisfaction logically precedes customer trust; those two things rarely exist in isolation.

3. Attract Positive Word of Mouth

Word-of-mouth marketing is extremely valuable.

To give just one example, 87 percent of consumers read online reviews for local businesses in 2020, up from 81 percent in 2019.

Unfortunately, consumers are significantly more likely to share negative reviews than they are positive ones. According to American Express, U.S. consumers tell an average of 15 people about bad experiences, whereas they only share good experiences with 11 people.

In other words, it’s a numbers game. You know consumers are naturally less inclined to shout about the good stuff you do, but if your customer satisfaction is high, you’re well placed to reap the benefits of word-of-mouth marketing.

4. Grow Your Audience and Sales

We already know satisfied customers are more likely to tell their friends and family about your brand, which in turn gets you in front of a wider audience.

However, did you know those satisfied customers will also spend more?

According to the same American Express survey referenced above, U.S. consumers are prepared to spend 17 percent more if a brand delivers excellent service.

What’s more, 84 percent of companies that improve customer experience report an upturn in revenue.

How to Measure Customer Satisfaction

It’s not enough to simply hope your customer satisfaction will improve. You need concrete plans to drive it forward, backed by robust data. To do this, you need to gather customer feedback through polls, surveys, and feedback sessions. Here are three types of feedback to collect to help you measure customer satisfaction and examples of questions to ask. 

1. Overall Satisfaction

It can be helpful to gauge a customer’s general opinion of your product or service before drilling down into the specifics. Positive answers indicate they are happy with their purchase decision, while negative ones suggest they have some degree of buyer remorse.

Example question: Overall, how satisfied are you with [Product X]?

2. Repurchase Intent

Given the close ties between customer satisfaction and loyalty, it makes sense to use a customer’s repeat purchasing plans to measure their general happiness. Consumers who say they are likely to buy again may also be more likely to leave positive reviews or share their experience with friends and family.

Example question: Will you shop at [Company X] again in the next month?

3. Word of Mouth

NPS customer satisfaction surveys are centered on a single question about whether or not the customer would recommend a given brand or product. This sort of feedback allows companies to understand whether the user’s experience aligns with their expectations.

Example question: Would you recommend [Company X] to your family and friends?

3 Steps to Improve Customer Satisfaction

Data is the key to improving customer satisfaction. 

However, data alone can’t transform your customers from unhappy to loyal. You have to focus on gathering data effectively, then use those insights to take action. Follow these three steps to make it happen:

1. Conduct Customer Surveys

Surveys play a key part in your quest to improve customer satisfaction, so the feedback you generate must be useful.

Unfortunately, there are no guarantees. Even if your survey is perfect, customers don’t always tell the truth about how they feel. What’s more, they might make mistakes when completing your survey. In either case, you’re not getting a true picture of customer satisfaction.

However, there are some proactive steps you can take to generate more impactful feedback.

Concentrate on keeping your survey as short as possible to capture more responses. Research from SurveyMonkey shows completion rates drop off when surveys contain more questions:

How many questions should be in a customer satisfaction survey

Surveys containing ten questions have an average completion rate of 89 percent, dropping to 79 percent for 40-question surveys. It may not sound like much, but it means if you’re surveying 1,000 customers, you’ll get 100 more responses from the 10-question version.

In other words, if a question doesn’t have the potential to yield unique insights, it shouldn’t be in your survey.

Also, it pays to remember the purpose of polls and surveys isn’t to “cook the books.” You’re not trying to earn artificially high scores by confusing or manipulating respondents. 

Instead, you’re trying to get an accurate picture of what customers actually think about your brand. Avoid leading or loaded questions, which attempt to steer people toward a certain answer. For instance:

  • Bad question: Thousands of customers have left five-star reviews for [Product X]. Would you do the same?
  • Good question: How likely are you to recommend [Product X] to a friend?

2. Monitor Social Media Mentions

Customer surveys will only get you so far, because they only gather opinions from the types of people who are happy to fill in surveys—which might exclude a huge chunk of your audience.

For a more accurate view of customer satisfaction, keep a close eye on social media, too. Tools like Linkfluence and Mention help monitor brand mentions and conversations relevant to your company and product. They even use machine learning to assess the sentiment of those mentions.

Customer satisfaction - How to monitor social media mentions

This gives you access to a broader customer pool than potential survey respondents and ensures you’re on hand to help customers when they need it. 

3. Implement Constructive Feedback

Once you’ve gathered a bunch of feedback, it’s time to take action.

One of the biggest challenges is to identify an effective, repeatable way to prioritize those actions. After all, it’s unlikely every customer wants the same thing. Some might be asking for faster shipping; others might want a slicker checkout experience.  

Transparency is key. Most consumers are pretty reasonable, and they understand you have finite resources. Make it clear you’ve heard their feedback and, if the demand exists, you’ll work on a fix.

LEGO has come up with an ingenious way to do this. It created a dedicated site, LEGO Ideas, where brick-building fans can submit product ideas. If an idea gathers 10,000 votes from the community, it’ll be considered for production.

How LEGO implements customer satisfaction feedback

3 Customer Satisfaction Examples 

Looking for inspiration to level up your customer satisfaction? Check out these three examples of brands that are rocking it: 

1. IBM

Tech giant IBM was named the number one company for customer satisfaction in the latest Drucker Institute Company Ranking. Its success stems from its customer-centric approach to software development, which involves making decisions based on the goals and ambitions of end-users, not just how they use a specific tool. 

Speaking to Harvard Business Review, IBM’s VP of Platform Experience Charlie Hill explained: “We want to bring our design thinking muscles to explore and play with how the user’s experience could be better in the future.”

Key Takeaway

Put your customer first. Whether you’re selling a piece of software or a pair of shoes, think about what problems brought them to you in the first place, and what success looks like to them. 

2. Chick-fil-A

Ranked top of the American Customer Satisfaction Index across all industries, Chick-fil-A stands out thanks to its superb in-restaurant customer service. Its staff is regularly named the friendliest of drive-through brands, and they also outshine the competition on order accuracy. 

This is no easy feat when it’s up against huge global names like KFC, McDonald’s, and Starbucks.

Key Takeaway

Invest in your people. Whether they’re dealing with shoppers in-store or helping them online, their professionalism and courtesy have a huge impact on your customer satisfaction rating.

3. Trader Joe’s

Grocery chain Trader Joe’s has an NPS score of 62. For context, the average score in the grocery niche is 24. The brand stands out by truly going the extra mile for its customers. In one famous example, a Reddit user told how the chain broke its “no deliveries” policy to help out an 89-year-old who was snowed in during the holidays. The comments on that viral post are littered with other Redditors recounting their own experiences of receiving superb service from Trader Joe’s.

Key Takeaway

Give your team members a degree of autonomy to delight customers. It should be quick and easy for them to get signoff on the sorts of small, spontaneous acts of kindness that can make the biggest difference to consumers.

Customer Satisfaction FAQs

What does customer satisfaction mean?

This is how you measure your customers’ experience to see if it meets or falls short of their expectations.

Why is customer satisfaction important?

Growing companies are more likely to prioritize customer success than companies that don’t have a growth mindset.

What are the benefits of high customer satisfaction?

Customers trust recommendations from others and look at reviews before deciding to convert with a business. High satisfaction means a customers is more likely to recommend your business and leave a positive review.

How does customer satisfaction help branding?

High customer satisfaction can increase brand loyalty and trust.

How do you improve customer satisfaction?

To satisfy your customers, you need to understand what they want. Collect data through surveys, polls, and feedback sessions, and monitor brand mentions through social media.

What happens if customers are not satisfied?

Unhappy customers are unlikely to keep buying from your brand. What’s more, they’re highly likely to tell people about negative customer experiences through reviews, social posts, and word of mouth, which can damage your reputation.

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Conclusion of Customer Satisfaction Guide

Customer satisfaction is crucial to your business, regardless of your product, industry, or niche. You must make it a priority. That’s true today, and will only increase in importance in the years to come.

Collect, analyze, and use data on customer satisfaction for every stage of your sales funnel, every interaction, and every product launch. Pick and choose your moment, of course, as no one wants to be inundated with surveys all the time, but no area is off-limits for selectively surveying and asking for feedback.

That’s how you improve, grow, and turn your customers into your biggest marketing asset.

What factors do you think are most important to improving customer satisfaction? Let me know in the comments below:

How to Use Customer Reviews in Images and Video Ads

Choosing the right content for your image and video ads can be challenging.

What message will actually get consumers to take the plunge and buy your product?

Regardless of how thorough your digital marketing plan is, there’s no one simple solution for ad success that applies to every campaign.

Or is there?

Instead of looking inside of your organization for inspiration, look to past and current consumers to help you share the greatness of your product.

How can you do this? By harnessing the power of reviews your satisfied customers have already given. 93 percent of consumers read online reviews before they make a purchasing decision. If you can incorporate authentic, positive reviews into your ads, you can set yourself apart from your competition and show your audience your worth.

In this blog post, we’ll break down six strategies for successfully using customer reviews to craft effective video and visual ads.

Why Should You Use Customer Reviews in Your Advertising Images and Videos

When a potential customer hears about your business or product, they’re going to go straight to the internet to find out more about it.

They’re not just looking for slick visuals: They’re looking for reviews from other consumers.

Also, 85 percent of consumers trust online reviews from strangers more than those from their friends and family.

When customer reviews are used in advertising material, you eliminate the middle step of consumers combing the internet for information.

Instead, you build immediate consumer trust with these user-generated descriptors of your service or product.

How to Use Customer Reviews in Your Advertising Images and Videos

There are countless ways to incorporate customer reviews into your marketing strategy. Below, we break down six strategies to let customer reviews do your marketing for you.

  1. Pick an Ad Theme and Find Customer Reviews on That Theme

    Ads can be powerful and evoke complex emotions.

    As you craft your testimonial campaign, decide which emotion you want your ad to embody. These include:
    -comfort
    -beauty
    -family
    -self-confidence
    -patriotism
    -courage

    Coca-Cola, for example, routinely adheres to the theme of friends and family. Invariably, when you see a Coke ad, you see this theme manifested either through imagery of copy.

    Think about the values associated with your brand and your mission.
    Dedicated to innovation? Select that theme and then source your existing quotes that highlight your cutting-edge tools.

    Regardless of which ad theme you choose, by pairing a sentiment with corresponding copy, you’ll inevitably craft an arresting, powerful testimonial that will make your product stand out to potential consumers.
    customer reviews - coke ad

  2. Pick a Great Customer Review and Create an Image or Video Around the Review

    While great reviews are worth their weight in gold, not displaying these testimonials properly can make them essentially valueless.

    To make sure your reviews get the attention they deserve, build an image (or a video if that’s more your brand’s speed) that is eye-catching and engaging.

    Easier said than done?

    Below we included five must-know design tips.

    Layout
    Organize your testimonial by keeping user experience (UX) at the forefront of your design. This includes strategic use of white space and placement of text and visual content. This will allow you to create an organized, consumable image that is easy to deduce meaning from.

    Unique Visuals
    The internet is flooded with so-so quality, cookie-cutter images. To make your customer review stand out, incorporate brand-appropriate images and colors, breaking up the monotony of visuals.

    Color
    Color can be used to stop a viewer in their tracks and evoke emotion. As you craft your testimonial images, decide what message the colors in your graphic should be sending.

    Typography
    Outside of the overall appearance of your testimonial graphic or video, typography can play a massive role in emphasizing the most important elements of your customers’ quotes. Consider bolding and bright colors to highlight pain points so the viewer immediately knows this quote is relevant to them.

    Simple
    While you want your testimonial to stand out, you don’t want visuals to overshadow the message. When it comes to designing these images, adhere to the three Cs of Google Marketing: clear, concise, and compelling.

  3. Pick a Customer Review and Use It to Amplify Your Social Shares

    An undecided shopper can morph into a dedicated buyer by engaging with other members of your audience.

    In fact, one out of every four individuals follow brands whose products they are interested in on social media. By monitoring your social channels and responses from customers, these shoppers can make a more informed decision about the strength and utility of your product.

    To show off your customer’s feedback, use client testimonials and reviews in your social strategy to further highlight just how wonderful your product is.

    When you share customer feedback on social media, you boost brand credibility, increase engagement, and ideally, grow your bottom line.

    Want some inspiration for getting reviews onto your social channels?

    Check out this testimonial from a Maybelline user:

    customer review - instagram ad
    By sharing the tweet, the makeup company underlines the efficacy of its product and fosters trust and community as well.

  4. Pick a Customer Review and Use It in Your Search Strategy

    Search engines aren’t solely interested in how well you optimize your listing; they are also a source of constant monitoring, which includes what consumers are saying about your brand or your product.

    By using reviews in your Google and Microsoft listings, you can prominently display how consumers feel about your offering. What’s more, collecting new content regularly can earn you featured snippets and Google Seller Ratings, boosting your overall search visibility.

    Check out this ad from Lego for The Simpsons™ House:

    lego uses extensions to include customer reviews in google listing

    The stars, rating, and number of reviews alert interested viewers that the product is well-liked among buyers and that a significant number of people have purchased it. These extensions on a classic search engine listing help foster trust before potential consumers visit your site.

  5. Pick a Great Customer Review and Use It in Your Email Marketing Strategy

    Regardless of what your email marketing strategy is, it can benefit from including customer reviews. Given the medium’s historically high return on investment (ROI), this channel is the perfect place to include images or videos spotlighting customer reviews.

    When you share these testimonials in emails, you not only build credibility, but you are also more likely to increase your click-through rate (CTR).

    Through using customer-created narratives, you can both share experiences of your consumer base, while simultaneously demonstrating what readers can anticipate when they become customers.

    Check out this example from natural skincare company Naturopathica:

    natural skincare company customer reviews
    While this content isn’t built into their email template, sharing a visual that includes reviews and customers’ first names and last initials humanizes the review, making it more believable and relatable.

    Here, the quotes selected by the company speak to a pain point that is likely shared among many buyers looking for facial serum: decreased fine lines and wrinkles. By choosing quotes that address your product’s strengths and consumer pain points, you prove further value.

  6. Pick a Great Customer Review and Use It in Your Email Marketing Strategy

    OK, homepage was a bit of an understatement.

    While you should without a doubt have a dedicated page of your site for testimonials, you should also ensure your strongest customer reviews appear on every page of your website.

    These don’t have to be in your face. Instead, they should serve as a subtle reminder about the strength of your product and the amount of earnest goodwill behind it.
    Fabletics does an excellent job placing customer reviews across its website.

    By sharing these highly-starred reviews along with images of real consumers, Fabletics resoundingly makes the point that their product is, well, fabulous.

    Regardless of which route you choose to incorporate reviews into your digital marketing strategy, and all is a great option, too, there are three best practices you should adhere to when crafting your testimonial content.

    Short and Sweet
    Avoid quoting the entirety of a customer review. Instead, cherry-pick the best part and craft a relevant, bold headline. If you’re sharing on social, you can link to the complete review in the body of the post.

    Give Thanks
    Want more customer reviews? Of course you do, they’re invaluable marketing tools. Encourage consumers to leave future reviews by thanking them for taking the time to share their experience with your organization.

    Re-Tweet and Reshare
    This one applies specifically to your social media efforts, but be sure to continuously monitor your social platforms to see if there are any positive comments posted. If you find these hidden gems, you want to be sure to share them across your platform.

Conclusion to Using Customer Reviews in Visual Ad Campaigns

Regardless of industry or product, you should be taking advantage of customer reviews to enhance your digital marketing strategy.

As more and more searchers look online to determine if a product fits their need, you would be doing your business a disservice by not having an aesthetically engaging video or image ready to greet them.

By implementing a multichannel customer review campaign, you can demonstrate to potential customers not only your product is loved by owners, but that you have a true understanding of your audience’s pain, too.

Highlighting this central pain point through the language and context used by your current customers assures would-be customers that you both understand and solve their needs.

While the six strategies for customer reviews we discussed above will allow you to begin providing potential customers with proof points, also consider launching an entirely review-based campaign. With a handful of effective reviews, you can craft a narrative that tells your entire brand story, all while increasing visibility and awareness.

Where will you start incorporating customer reviews?

Etleap (YC W13) Is Hiring a Customer Success Manager

We are looking for a dynamic, experienced customer success professional to ensure we are building strong and enduring relationships with our customers, and that they are receiving the attention and support needed to achieve their goals.

About Us

Etleap’s mission is to transform the way businesses drive analytics projects.

We started Etleap out of frustration with the exorbitant amounts of engineering work required to set up, maintain, and scale data pipelines for analytics. Our vision is to make it simple for analytics teams to quickly and securely connect the data sources that power their businesses. We’re doing this by removing all of the traditional complexities of data integration and creating a new kind of ETL that enables the end user of data to integrate and transform data from any source.

Our team is customer-obsessed and values openness and being experimental. We’re growing fast, and we’re backed by First Round Capital, SV Angel, YCombinator, and a number of other top-tier investors.

About You

– 5+ years of customer success/account management experience
– Have led onboarding and customer education for a technical enterprise software product
– Experience building relationships with technically sophisticated customers
– Exceptional verbal, written, and interpersonal communication skills
– Self-starter: Able to propose solutions and accomplish tasks with limited direction and a figure-it-out attitude
– Startup experience is a big plus

About the Role

– Build relationships and drive engagement with Etleap’s customers via onboarding, periodic business reviews, and other check-ins
– Champion customers’ growth goals in order to maximize product value and identify upsell opportunities
– Manage a customer health dashboard to be shared with the executive team
– Plan and optimize strategy for managing retention and flagging risks regarding renewals
– Own communication with customers for marketing initiatives, including trade shows, webinars, and case studies

You will be working as part of a dynamic team in a fast-paced startup office environment. Our office is near AT&T Park at 2nd & Townsend in San Francisco. We offer catered lunch, a kitchen stocked with great snacks, as well as unlimited PTO, health care, and commuter benefits.

How to Apply

To apply, send your resume to jobs@etleap.com.

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